WorldTrip

Fri Sept 15 - Finally after 803 days, I am off overseas again. I figured the last couple of trips that I made were too short, so this time I elected for a 10 week holiday. To save up so much leave, I´d been planning for 14 months, to ensure I didn´t fritter away my annual four weeks of leave on trifles.This meant saying no to my tennis coach friend Steve to such tempting offers as taking a day off to go to the cricket accompanied by a few beers, taking a day off to watch the US Open tennis final on TV whilst having a few beers, taking a day off to drink beer at the pub all day while waiting to watch a 3 minute horse race or taking a day off to have a few practice beers before going to a car show followed by a few beers for the road. I sacrificed all these offers for more noble pursuits such as drinking beer with the six million other tourists that cram into Munich in late September/early October.
Talking about Steve, a few of my friends were talking about the effects of jetlag and Steve said he didn´t get jetlag. His solution was to have a siesta as part of your everyday routine so that when you travel, your siesta gets a bit longer to form the overnight sleep and your overnight sleep gets a bit shorter to become a siesta. A few beers will also help the process. Getting time for the siesta bit maybe a bit of a problem though, unless you are a tennis coach.
Anyway, after 14 months of planning I was exhausted and just wanted to get started. I had a moneybelt and wore it under a pair of trousers that were too tight (I bought them because they didn´t have the next size up and I was hoping to lose weight). This was quite uncomfortable, especially since I had the only pimple ever in my life on my belt line. I also found that the money belt made my plane ticket soggy and thought that at this rate my ticket would be lucky to last 72 minutes, let alone 72 days. The money belt was thus stowed away for the time being.
I went to work for 4 1/2 hours and then caught the train to Wolli Creek, rather than to the International Airport station. This was to save $9.80 with the downside being an extra 20 minute walk. It seemed I was one of the very few prepared to do the walk out of the thousands that go to the airport, as the only other people I saw along the route were a couple of airport workers and several security guards.
I checked in my bag and the lady checked it right through to Munich,which meant that I didn't have to worry about lugging it around Bangkok. I had spent about fifteen minutes setting the combination and testing my new bright yellow lock, which I put on the bag and was never to be seen again. I felt a little left out when I went through the Passengers Only gate, as there were a couple of tearful farewells going on with other passengers and I walked past the line of no return as if I did it everyday. Perhaps they should play Albinoni's Adagio for Strings as one goes through or even have a coin-operated juke box where one can choose a suitably sad piece of music to accompany such an occasion.
This took me to the serious side of the proceedings where everyone gets to be a treated as a potential terrorist by the stern-faced passport people, who look suspiciously at you then at your photo,then back to you, then the photo, then back to you and hand back the passport before yelling out "Next". When they recruit for the airport, they must have smiling competitions and the ones who can hold out from smiling for the longest get the job.
After passport control, similar to when a child endures going to a doctor and gets rewarded with a lollypop, one gets to shop. I succumbed to a bottle of Riesling to take to Germany (like taking ice to eskimos). Another shop asked me to show my boarding pass fora $3 packet of Twisties (very important I didn’t rip them off 30 cents in tax). I resolved after that I would forever after bend my boarding pass in half, to ensure that it wouldn't accidentally fall out after putting it in and out of my pocket so many times.
I boarded the Thai airways plane and the Thai lady I was sitting next to got a bit worried that she was sitting between two men. I told her that she was very lucky. She then started negotiating for a better seat with all her friends and the stewardesses so I said that she was very popular. It didn’t stop her quest though and she was able to get another seat down the back but not before telling us that she worked in an insurance company and when I asked her if her bag was full of insurance policies she smiled. So that left me and a German man named Helmut to share three seats between two. Helmut had a daughter in Sydney and he hoped that her boyfriend would soon become his son-in-law. It was his first time in Australia and he spent the first three hours of the trip trying in vain to see Ayers Rock out the window (or at least that's what he claimed he was doing). I had 18 hours worth of music on my ipod and I played him lots of excerpts of Germanic classical music and he really liked it although he didn't recognise any of it.
Meanwhile the inflight movies were doing strange things. They would show several movies/TV shows for ten minutes or so and then start a different one. They all seemed to start with the discovery of a dead body. They finally settled on The Da Vinci Code (maybe because it had the most impressive dead body). They served French wine with the meal, the red tasted like cheap Aussie wine but the white was quite impressive.
We were a little ahead of schedule but had to circle for half an hour before landing in Bangkok because of a storm delay. Passport control in Bangkok again took ages as did the taxi queue.The taxi queue was strange because a lot of empty taxis seemed to slowly drive right past the queue without stopping. There was an official using his whistle a lot but noone seemed to be taking any notice. The taxidriver I got said that he was a good man. He didn't like to commit to one lane though so I assumed that the lane markings were only there for show.I finally got to my 4 star hotel (only $60 on the internet) and got a non-smoking room. There were only 4 floors of non-smoking rooms out of 30 so I was very much in the minority. By 1am Bangkok time I was asleep.

Sat Sept 16 - I woke after six hours sleep and felt good, without any apparent effects of jetlag. I wear a mask when flying to keep my throat from drying out (can't sing when my throat's too dry) which is supposed to be good for jetlag as well. Everyone looks at me strangely on the plane though but I'm used to being looked at strangely when I do my singing practice in the park.
I was very impressed with the room, especially the curtains which were heavy and cut out any light. Best of all was the set of scales that said I hadn't gained any weight after eating two meals on the plane the night before. The view was far-reaching as to be expected from the 25th floor but there wasn't a whole lot to see in the area of Bangkok that I was in. It was a quick taxi ride to the airport though and as my main aim of having a night's sleep before carrying onto Europe was accomplished, anything else was a bonus.
So with my little bonus, I passed on the hotel all-you-can-eat gourmet buffet for $9 and went for the roadside all-you-can-eat gourmet buffet for $5 and have a look around the area at the same time.A man running a shoe repair shop in the middle of nowhere with three other people said he was very happy to meet me, so I shook his hand. I then bought a packet of Mentos for only 40 cents and thought of one of my sisters who always seemed to have a packet of Mentos in her hand when she was a teenager. No wonder she likes going to Thailand so much.
I marvelled at the lane marking on a footbridge (keep to the right on footbridges, keep to the left when driving) and nearly had a collision with somebody who wasn't keeping to the correct side (in the same tradition as the taxi driver from the night before), even though we were the only two on the footbridge.
On my return to the hotel the humidity must have been 99% because my shirt was drenched even though I had been walking slowly. I admired the grand staircase that had justifiably been given rave reviews. Noone seemed to be walking up it and it seemed that it was reserved for dignitaries. I thought that maybe I should ask permission but then applied the maxim that it is better to do something dodgy first and then apologise later rather than ask for permission to do it and get rejected. I enjoyed the walk and while I was at it I took a few photos of some paintings that I liked. There was one painting that I particularly liked and I was very sad to say goodbye to it.
I got a taxi back to the airport after rejecting the offer of a limousine. My taxi driver was very professional and even had a book to say which terminal my flight would be leaving from. Unfortunately the book was wrong and he dropped me off at the wrong terminal. I guess the limousine drivers have better books.
I was very pleased with myself in passport control as I changed queues after a couple of minutes and beat the other queue by six people! Best of all though, I was able to get out of Thailand without somebody planting some drugs in my bag. I could now content myself with the fact that the jails would be much nicer in the countries remaining for my trip (although I'm not sure about jails in Poland)
When in the airport terminal, I changed my money for Euros and spent the leftover Thai currency on dried papaya which had lovely colours and another packet of Mentos. The Mentos was 3 times the price ofoutside and it was lucky I spotted that shop because another shop was charging 7 times the price.
One shop had a bottle of Penfolds Grange which they were selling for $AUD1200. I had some draught Singha beer instead but it wasn't as nice as I had remembered. The bar had a beer garden out the back but it was enveloped in smoke because that was only place that people could smoke.I still had some leftover food from the street stalls so had to quickly scoff a whole pile of strange looking fruit before getting on my flight.
The plane was nearly an hour late in leaving and we assembled at one end of the international section only to have to get on a bus to drive us all the way to the other end - a ten minute trip. I got a good view of the airport though and probably won't see it again as the new Bangkok airport is due to open in a few weeks.
I sat next to a Belgian couple on the plane who had just been to Thailand for their honeymoon. They were dull and didn't seem to havea sense of humour which was great, because they suited each other. I got a bit stir crazy with the 11 hour flight and could relate to one guy in his fifties that kept pacing up and down as if he was in an insane asylum.
There were 4 movies, 2 of which I wanted to see and I managed to do some German practice and sleep a bit. We flew over Afghanistan and a German guy and I kept an eye out for Osama-bin Laden but there was no sign.We also flew over the Caspian Sea which had plenty of prime water frontage but no takers. I sampled a bit more wine and even accepted an after dinner serving of VSOP Cognac which went down nicely.
Our late arrival meant that I missed my connection but the next plane was only two hours later so it wasn't a big deal. It took quite a while to get to the other terminal and I was so impressed by the changing-colour light display in the connecting tunnel of Frankfurt airport that I spent 15 minutes taking photos. I also couldn't resist my first Becks on tap although it didn't go so well with the Ritter peppermint chocolate (mmmm). I practised some German on fellow passengers on the way to Munich and was very surprised to find my luggage had made it all the way to Munich with all the changes in planes. Someone must have been very bored and picked out the combination on my now-missing lock but there didn't seem to be anything missing from my luggage. My Munchkin friend Hans picked me up with his latest girlfriend Wiebke and we drank beer and ate pumpkin soup before retiring around 1am.

Sun Sept 17 - I didn't seem to suffer from the effects of jetlag apart from sleeping for only six hours for the first few nights. Today was Oktoberfest parade day, in which 7000 people from all over Germany and surrounding countries paraded with dress from several different centuries accompanied by their pets. Most of them had horses but there were some oxen, dogs, sheep and a dead chicken. Some of them brought their fruit and vegetables, their hops collection and most importantly their beer keg displays. Also on display were flags, carriages, rifles, cannons, whipcracking, musical instruments and gardening implements. There was even a deathrow inmate being paraded (I overhead someone in the crowd say that she was a witch) and a marionette theatre. We clapped the nicest costumes and the most colourful fruit and vegetable display. It took two hours but I'm sure that some people on reaching the end, got changed into a different costume and rushed back to the beginning to march again. I was impressed by how many people seem to play marching band instruments and with the high musical standard.
After that it was off to the football stadium where a semifinal of the world cup had been held (if only I'd been there three months before to see Australia v Brazil). It looks like a giant silver Michelin tyre on its side but I guess Michelin didn't see it that way and it was sponsored by an insurance company instead. Inside the tyre was a magnificent arena and some of the guys from the parade had brought their gardening implements to give the ground one last spruce up before the match started. I had the nicest football stadium hot dog ever although it was tricky work squirting the mustard and tomato sauce on while trying to hold my treasured Bavarian beer (the same price as soft drink) at the same time. It wasn't a total success with about 40% hitting the the target.
Hans had brought with us some Japanese and Chinese guys he was entertaining for work (on a Sunday!). We were there to watch a second division match between 1860 Munich and Freiburg. 1860 must have been a good year because not only is there a football team named after it but an Australian wine (Tahbilk 1860 Vines Shiraz). There were 42500 people there and I was surprised to find that a lot of them were wearing Agostino shirts. The popular Australian player Paul Agostino plays for 1860 Munich but was on the reserve bench for the game.That wasn't the only Australian connection. They showed the Coke zero ad with German dubbing that had been made in Sydney and banned for encouraging bus surfing. They also played an INXS song during halftime and we were sitting in blazing sun for the first half - I almost felt like I was at the SCG.
The game was of a high standard - a cut above Australian A league. There were a few comedies of errors though and the lady next to me agreed that it was like a circus act. She also gave the referee heaps. Freiburg had 6 African players and I asked Hans why there were so many in the one team. I thought he said that it's because they cheat but on repeating he said it was because they are cheap.
Crowd support in football is very atmospheric although at one stage I thought I was at a 1930’s Nuremburg rally instead of a football match.There were two groups of hardcore fans behind each goalsquare and they would sometimes simulate an echo by calling out a word and waiting for the other end to say the same word three seconds later. It was all fun but after going back and forth eleven times with the one word I was hoping they could come up with a new word.
The game ended in a draw but that didn’t stop a little boy singing two lines from the song “We are the champions” over and over again for fifteen minutes on the train on the way from the stadium to Oktoberfest. I think he must be related to the cheerleaders.
Oktoberfest had a lot of amusement park rides. With one ride, one had to ride up a conveyor belt to get to the top of the ride. Unfortunately a man in his fifties wearing a business suit slipped on the conveyor belt so rode to the top of the ride feet first which was quite amusing for the 200 people watching.
I was surrounded by grown men in the lederhosen which seemed completely natural and I don’t know what possessed me to wear jeans. Lederhosen are very expensive though and have to be able handle having copious amounts of beer spilt on them.
Hans directed us through a couple of beer halls (each one containing 10000 people) until we found a spot on the edge of the Hofbrauhaus which is where a lot of the tourists end up. Of course being at Oktoberfest, one size glass fits all, so we started with a litre of beer each. We each clinked our glasses together with the word that our country says when clinking and I couldn’t think of a word that we use in Australia apart from the English “cheers”. A South Australian once told me to say “Getadogupya” so I taught everyone that. There was a table full of Australians behind us and I asked them what they thought of “Getadogupya” and they said it sounded authentic so they started saying it to each other. I told them to go forth and spread the word throughout Germany.
It was funny watching the drunken band members from the tent on their way out as they tried to play each others instruments while staggering down the steps. Hans said it is very important to go to Oktoberfest with a friend to have somebody to lean on. Hans pointed out a small rise of about 10 metres on the perimeter of the grounds and he said that it was the biggest hill in Munich. It wasn’t physically the biggest, but it was the one you noticed the most because whenever you went to climb it you tended to have had too much to drink. I pointed out to Hans that off to the side there was a guy who hadn’t quite made it and had fallen asleep about one metre from the top of the slope as we spoke. Hans was chuffed to have some proof for his claim.
I had some schweinshaxen to eat – mainly because I love pronouncing it – but when Hans asked if we wanted another beer, there was a resounding “No” after such a long day. We would return however.We went to do some shooting and Hans asked me if I had been in the army. I said no but had lots of experience getting a good aim with my camera.
We saw everyone off except for one of the Japanese guys who had a problem with his eye. We went to a chemist, then to a doctor, then back to the chemist, all of which took a while. Meanwhile the schweinshaxen had been reacting with all the Thai food and when we accompanied the Japanese guy back to his hotel room to make sure that he had no adverse reaction to the eye cream, I asked if I could use the loo. I felt really bad because there was a severe clash of cultures going on in my stomach. After we had left, Hans said I shouldn’t have left the bathroom door open and that it smelt like I had laid of couple of kangaroos. I felt a bit sorry for the Japanese guy with the sore eye and smelly hotel room but he didn't mention it the next time we met.

Mon Sept 18 - As Hans and Wiebke went to work I had the day to myself. I elected to go for a run along the river Isar, along which I had ridden a bicycle the last time I came to Munich. Initially I planned a 50 minute run but since the weather was good for running (a bit overcast, not too hot), I thought I might go a bit longer. The river sometimes broke into two or even three streams, so a couple of times I came to a dead end and had to backtrack or carefully cross the slippery top of a mini-dam.
In my memory, the beer garden that we had been to on the bike ride the last time I went to Munich didn't seem that far away, so I kept running in the hope of reaching it. My memory was a little faulty and in the end, the round trip turned out to be a 26 kilometre run. The beer garden, as one would expect on a Monday morning was closed, so it was a little depressing compared to the last time I had been there.
Parts of the river has fairly dense forest on the side that numerous dirt tracks cut through. One also runs past a zoo. It was a great run except for the last hour or so when my pace dropped through lack of conditioning and I took off my shirt to stop chafing thus startling a few passersby.
After resting for a bit I walked into the city (slowly) with my Ipod. I checked out a big electrical store to get an idea of prices, finding out that ipods are slightly cheaper in Australia. I saw the Paulaner horse and cart go down the street and got a few good photos because Paulaner is my favourite beer.
I found that Lindt chocolate is the same price so bought up on Ritter chocolate instead. I am also a big fan of Riesen, which is the same as Fantales except that is uses dark chocolate (hmmm - dark chocolate Fantales - maybe I'll write to the Fantale people). I bought up on other novelty items like jaffa cakes and Mezzo mix (mix of Coke and Fanta). I did buy some healthy food also - Ecuadoran bananas were a lot cheaper than Australian (for the time being) at $3 a kilo and the best looking apples had come even further than me - from New Zealand. I ogled the 5 litre minikeg of Paulaner but settled for a 1/2 litre for $1.25 (some of the world's greatest beer at such a low price - makes me want to give up drinking beer in Australia) and a 1996 bottle of Spanish wine. I also finally bought a pair of jeans after putting up with the size-too-small trousers for a couple of days.

Tue Sept 19 - I had planned to fly to the UK today but Hans said that this is not possible as he had friends that were coming down to meet me later in the week. I thus forfeited a whole $85 that I had spent on the return ticket. It had a been a little ambitious on my part, as the airport was in the middle of nowhere and it was going to be tough to get there on time.
Hans also asked me to sit on the table for his group (a work colleague plus the Japanese and Chinese clients from the other day) at the Spaten beer tent at Oktoberfest. He said that they had booked it at 11am and asked if I could get to the table by then just in case they were running late as the tent organisers were liable to give the table to someone else if one didn't turn up on time.
I got to Oktoberfest a little early so took a few photos of beer trucks as well as the ten-metre high 1850s statue of a woman and her pet lion. I didn't know which table was ours and the people at information gave me the wrong number so I went looking for the table by myself. Strangely, the organisers had put the menus on top of the names of companies booking the tables so I went around tossing the menu to the other side of the table for about 20 tables or so in frustration. I think a lady told me off but I didn't understand her.
I finally went back to get the correct number, found the table and sat there catching up on diary stuff and learning German. A few of the waiters found it odd that I didn't want to have any beer at such a late hour as 11am but I held out until midday before ordering one. Lucky I did because I had nearly finished my first litre when Hans and colleagues arrived at 1pm.
We ordered some food and I had some lovely liver soup (a big ball of liver in some broth), some weisswurst (white sausage), pretzels and veal something. I went exploring and had a look at some of the other tents. Each one had a different colour scheme and the band in a slightly different spot. Some were already heaving with people. Ours was still only half full and wouldn't fill up until 5pm. Apparently on weekends, you have to get to the table by 9am and they close the doors to the tent not long after that to prevent anyone else coming in.
I'd befriended a table of fiftysomethings next to us and one lady kept wanting to dance with me after I danced with her for 10 minutes or so. I didn't feel like dancing any more so sang her a song instead. I found out later that she was pestering me so much because Hans had told her I was a professional singer from the Sydney Opera house.
Towards the end of the afternoon when everyone was suitably imbibed, the t-shirt saleslady came by our table and Hans asked his clients if they were interested. They were and Hans started gaining confidence in his sales technique and took the t-shirts off the lady and successfully sold a t-shirt to an American on another table. One Japanese guy wanted to buy a t-shirt for his wife and couldn't work out what size to get. Hans asked if she had a big bust and the Japanese guy said no "small, like you" and pointed to the saleslady.
I only had two litres of beer because I wasn't a big fan of Spaten. We left the tent and went on a few rides. We had a race down the slippery slide (I was leading for a short while but Hans came through with a late spurt), did the hammer ringing the bell thing and some more shooting. There was even a merry-go-round where one could sit on and drink some beer.
After saying goodbye to the clients we went home and I showed some Kath and Kim to Hans which I had brought as a present (the first 24 episodes) but we decided that Hans would like the bottle of St Henri 1984 that I also brought as a present instead.

Wed Sept 20 - I haven't had a mobile phone while travelling so every now and again I would imagine a vibration in my pocket and realise it was no longer there. It's like a feel good gadget with which one would feel loved everytime it rang. I didn't seem to need such a gadget for the first 35 years of my life though.
I started the day with a run but a more sensible length of only one hour. I ran along the river in a different direction towards the city. I watched a bit of TV and later went for a walk into the city. I found a specialist wine shop which had some tastings and I ended up buying some German riesling (grown in volcanic soil) and a Portuguese red. There was an American lady in there buying as well but she snobbed me off when I asked here what country's wine she had chosen. The wine shop had some Sally's Paddock 1999 which would have been nice but was too expensive.
It was raining most of the day so I went to another shop to have a look at sheet music. There was a book of arias which I was tempted to buy but it was expensive and I would probably better off buying through the internet when I get back to Australia. It didn't stop me softly humming them in the store and imagining myself performing them though.
I had spoken to my English contacts and decided to go to London instead of Krakow in early October as I was really keen to get to London and the airfares were still cheap. I went to the easyEverything internet store which I remember from six years before. Back then it had seemed really modern and cheap but now the monitors were dodgy and it was more expensive than other places. I didn't risk buying the plane tickets in the internet cafe as Hans said I could use his laptop at home.
Travelling around with a camera entitles one to enter properties one would normally be too shy to as one can claim it was in order to get a better shot. As I write this I fear my three-year old camera may have given up the ghost. I may have to splash out and spend half the money I did last time to get a camera with more megapixels, a bigger display and weighs less - amazing the evolution in a mere three years. It's a shame it didn't happen while I was still in Australia.

Thur Sept 21 - I watched some TV and saw my favourite symphony - Bruckner's 8th - in a video from the 1970's with Herbert von Karajan conducting. It was perfomed in a church and at the end strangely there was no applause (except for one rebel who forgot to read the script) and von Karajan calmly went and sat with the audience and it just ended. It all seemed a bit wanky to me but his recordings are great.
After staying in for lunch with some left over riesling, I found another wine shop but it wasn't to open for another couple of hours so I found an internet cafe nearby to catch up on stuff. It was run by an Iraqi guy who spoke Arabic, German, Italian as well as English while I was there. I said I was from Sydney and he proudly pointed to a clock showing Sydney time, making me a feel a little sleepy.
The wine shop mainly contained wines between $5 and $12 and there were about 25 for tasting. I tasted quite a few and let time get away a bit. I had said I would be home at 5. I ran back and got there at one minute past five and Hans had already composed a 200 word Sorry I Missed You letter to me. I never did get to read it and I quickly got changed, putting on a typical Bavarian shirt that Hans had lent me, and we went back in to Oktoberfest - this time to the Hacken Pschorr tent.
We had a little bit to eat as Hans said it was hard to get food in the beerhall in the evenings. I had a prawn/shrimp roll, with prawns that were only one centimetre long. I don't know how they peeled them. The beerhall was already closed to newcomers but Hans was able to talk us in there somehow.
We went to the group of tables where Hans' colleagues were. This time it was his entire company in the tent (800 employees). There were no spaces left at the tables so we stood in the aisles. Security would keep pushing us out of the aisles every 15 minutes and we would pretend to go back to the tables until they were out of sight then go back to our place in the aisles.
After 90 minutes or so, Hans found us a place to stand (noone sat, everyone stood on their seats and danced). The band was really good and they even played a couple of ACDC numbers (TNT, Highway to Hell) which down well. My favourite was the theme song from the Moscow Olympics which I found out was written by a German (one of the only two German hits in the last 35 years, the other being 99 Luftballoons). The big stein glasses are excellent for such occasions as one can clink glasses with others as hard as possible and they still won't break, so there was lots of clinking going on. The glasses are also heavy so I was taught a few techniques on how to hold it without tiring too much. There wasn't any food in our section apart from an old pretzel which I helped myself to, as it was too busy. Some of the boxes at the back of the tent were still getting food but the waiter had to be preceded by a security guard to keep off the hungry hordes.
There was a little lady on the table behind me that kept almost knocking me to the ground. I was impressed with her strength. I took lots of videos with my camera but found out the next day that most of them were unusable because I had been shaking around (a bit tipsy) so much while filming.
After three litres (I like Hacken beer better at Spaten)Hans and I went to catch up with Wiebke in her tent. As they were drinking Spaten in her tent I declined any further beer - not that I was up to having any more anyway. I vaguely remember saying I'm going to walk home now with the idea of walking up the famous hill that Hans had told me about. Luckily they decided to accompany me, because the hill was in the wrong direction.

Fri Sept 22 - I woke up with an impressive hangover. Hans explained to me that we had had very little food, didn't have enough water and drank too much beer - a few basics that we had overlooked and explained my current condition. He said he also normally drank a litre of water when he got home (everything is in litres in Munich) - I wish he'd reminded me to do the same.
The morning was pretty much a write off. I was hoping to see the AFL Preliminary final between Sydney and Fremantle that was due to start at midday Munich time but wasn't quite up to it. By about 2pm I made a big effort and went to the Ned Kelly bar which seemed closed. I went searching for another pub because Hans had said there were a few Australian bars in the city. One pub was showing an obscure woman's tennis match. I saw some guys wearing green and gold hats and one of them wore a tshirt saying 'Dockers' so I said "Where are they showing the game?" but they didn't understand and said that they were French.
I finally found the Wombat's Backpacking Hostel and the man at the front desk directed me back to Ned Kelly's, assuring me that they were showing the game. I returned to the still-closed two-kilometres-distant Ned Kelly's and an Irish guy told me that Channel 10 in Australia (I was impressed that he knew Channel 10 and what a moronic channel it is) hadn't given out the rights to anyone else for the game so they weren't showing it. He said that I would be able to see the Grand Final live though but unfortunately I would be in the Polish countryside by then. I consoled myself with an icecream.
That night, Hans friends finally came down to Munich. I had met Reinhard, Rocky and Martin in Sydney. They also brought Karin, Reinhard's cousin who was planning to stay at my place in Sydney in late November. She was fine but it was funny because she was too scared to try any English. Reinhard insisted I speak English but I was just enjoying the sensation of meeting a young German whose English was worse than my German.
I had intended to stay alcohol-free but it was impossible and Hans opened up some nice beer and wine. I only had a little bit though and Reinhard was very disappointed when I wanted to go to bed at 1am.

Sat Sept 23 - I started with a 1 hour run along the river and then had the customary Saturday morning wheat beer with white sausages, sweet mustard and pretzels. Sadly, I think I may have gone off pretzels (too salty) but the white sausages with mustard (and beer) were heavenly. I said goodbye to everyone and Hans drove me to where I would meet my lift to Heidelberg that I had organised over the internet. In Germany they have a system where one can advertise where one is driving and pick up a few paying passengers. It costs about one-third of what the train costs. My driver said that normally he had more than one passenger so there are savings to be made.
My driver's name was Gebhard and he was in his mid-twenties. There wasn't much interesting conversation to be had and about the most interesting thing he did was to have a pee amongst the garbage bins when he found the service station was charging for toilet use. I stuck with the Australian tradition of peeing behind a tree. We got stuck in a couple of half-hour traffic jams which is apparently quite normal for Germany.
I got to Heidelberg and found some chocolate Mozart balls on special (music to the mouth). I met up with my friend Hinnerk who I have known for the last 6 years. We went to a couple of wineries which were near his place and I liked the whites but the reds were anaemic. I don't know why they bothered. Hinnerk said they also produce a low-alcohol new wine which is a specialty of the region but we were two weeks too early.
Hinnerk introduced me to a lovely Mexican takeaway and after a brief meeting with his frisbee-throwing mates we went to a concert. At least, that was the plan. There are many churches in Heidelberg and we went to about five or six of them before finding the right one. We passed by many expensive houses and Hinnerk was grateful for the experience because he had never seen that side of town before. When we entered the correct church and saw that there was nothing much happening and not a choir in sight, Hinnerk got scared that he would have to pretend to be religious because he thought it was a church service. There was even a person there giving us dirty looks when we made noises on the wooden pews.
Finally, after five minutes the choir appeared from nowhere and sang for another half-hour before finishing. The choir was nice but the soloists made me long for my earplugs. My friend Dorothee who I knew from Adelaide was in the choir and I met up with her and her parents (who I stayed with in 2000) after the concert. Dorothee's mother was so excited when she found out I could speak German because her English wasn't so good last time we met. I sang for them which was a bit strange because some of the choir was there and in my experience choir singers hate opera singing (maybe jealousy).

Sun Sept 24 - Heidelberg is one of the most beautiful parts of Germany and at Hinnerk's place it reminded me of a greener version of the Adelaide hills with the wineries and orchards. I spoke to Hinnerk's landlord for 3 or 4 minutes before I ran out of German words and I told him I'd been to Oktoberfest. He told me that they had a wine fest were they had 500 ml glasses of wine (obviously high-quality stuff). I wasn't so sorry I missed it.
We caught the train to Berlin (Hinnerk was going for a conference) and were a bit worried at first because we couldn't book seats together. As it turned out, we saved the booking fee because there weren't that many people on the train. There were lots of tunnels for the first couple of hours and pretty little villages in valleys - each one with a story to tell that I would never know. Some of the leaves were changing colour to yellows and browns. We went past one meadow where there was a couple sitting on a park bench (a park bench in a paddock, must be a German thing) doing some trainspotting.
A girl got on and I admired her Ipod which had 40 Gb. I kept interrupting her as she attempted to put the earphones on and after a couple of goes she gave up and said she should practise her English anyway. Soon we had the whole compartment of six people talking, which included a Berlin couple (one originally from Portugal) and a guy from Munich who was going to Berlin for a holiday in the middle of Oktoberfest. We thought that it was a bit strange to leave then but he assured us that he would be back for a few days at Oktoberfest. Most of the Germans I met outside Munich were impressed that I'd been because they'd never actually been to Oktoberfest.
The Ipod girl had gone for a train ride to pick up some organic groceries for her mother's shop and somehow we got around to talking about kangaroos and I recommended she get some organic kangaroo for her shop. I told her that kangaroo vindaloo is a popular dish in Australia.
We arrived in Berlin and I said goodbye to Hinnerk. I went to the house of Nicole, Rolf and their son Kjell. Kjell presented me with a German children's book. It was a book that I had left three years before and had forgotten all about. Kjell was now seven years old and could understand a couple of English words.
I was offered some wine from Aldi and was quick to pull out and open some wine that I had brought. Strangely Rolf's English was now worse than Nicole's even though Rolf had spent a year in Australia.

Mon Sept 25 - Kjell came to visit as soon as I turned my light and asked "Are you hungry". Apparently he had practised saying "Would you like some breakfast?" several times with his mother but had given up and asked for something easier to say. I had some muesli and some herringsalad (a tasty mixture of herring, beetroot, onions and mayonnaise) on bread.
I got a lift to Alexanderplatz where the tower is and had a look at a little area which was 300 years old. There was a teddy bear shop with some small teddys costing more than 100 euros. Even a squirrel cost 47 euros. I took a few photos of a official-looking building nearby with a cyclist riding by and later Rolf said that he knew the cyclist. We both agreed that the building was ugly and I said I liked it.
I went up the tower after a ten minute wait, but my timing was good as the queue was five times as long when I went past it on the way down. In the tower display at the ticket desk, they had a picture of Sydney's Centrepoint and Melbourne's Rialto Towers which made me a little Oz-proud.
There weren't that many landmarks to see and Berlin is quite flat so it didn't take long to do a lap at the top of the tower. I caught a train to the Turkish quarter to get a cheap takeaway lunch (only three dollars) and also bought a chocolate milk. It was a little embarrassing as I couldn't get it open and swapped it for another one. The guy asked me if I wanted to eat in and I said no and finally after about five minutes I got it open. I must say I prefer Australian chocolate milk to European.
I had an interesting experience on the train when it didn't go where the map said it was supposed to go but it turned out it was only a ten minute walk between stations. I liked how Berlin had maps of the entire city at all the bus stops and train stations. It was very hard to get lost. I went to a shop to look at sheet music. They had a sign that said no self-help and after I had asked for help a number of times the guy gave up and said help yourself. I found a cheap copy of Rigoletto but unfortunately the Italian libretto (the original language) was too small to read because it was a German edition.
I found a fashion shop that also sold wine and pornographic videos downstairs. I couldn't find any wine or videos that I liked but did note that they had a good assortment of d'Arenberg wines (Mclaren Vale, South Australian winery). I then walked past the Erotic Shopping Centre and was very impressed with the Bad Taste Bears - a collection of teddy bears in various unusual positions such as in a nun's uniform with lace stockings, applying a milking machine to the chest or wearing a long raincoat and revealing all.
I soon arrived at a 5 storey CD shop and spent quite a while in the classical music section. They had around 20 different recordings of each Bruckner (my favourite composer) symphony which is quite a contrast to Australia where hardly anybody has heard of him. They also had a good collection of opera aria books but everything was expensive so I am better off to wait until I got back to Australia and order it over the internet instead.
I then went to Museum Insel (Museum Island) with its lovely buildings and a train running between them (which actually looked pretty cool). I went in the German History Museum which had just recently been renovated by I.M.Pei, he of the glass pyramid at the Louvre fame. It wasn't quite as spectacular as the pyramid but I liked very much an old courtyard which was covered over with glass and had an eerie feeling of being both inside (very quiet) and outside (in the courtyard with the sun shining through). It was only 4 euros to enter and had free internet, which noone other than me had seemed to discover.
The museum started with Celtic times, then Roman times and Frankish times. They had trinkets from different eras as well as roadsigns, weapons, gardening implements and armour. They also had models of old towns and early clocks. I saved the last 300 years for another time which included lots of 20th century video footage, Nazi uniforms, architectural plans and paraphenalia. I was also captivated by a relief map of Europe on the ground which had a different still picture projected onto it every five seconds showing the borders at particular times in history, starting from Roman times. Many of the European countries had big empires at some stage in the history which they all think back to.
I picked up some 11 year old Rioja wine from the department store and had dinner at home that Rolf had prepared. Rolf videoed me and Kjell doing a couple of solos before dinner and Rolf said that my voice had become very voluminous. They then invited their friend Andrea over who was a bit down because her husband had accepted a job in New York for two years. She gave me her email so that I could contact him.
We talked a bit about World War II and Andrea said that her father was surprised that his father had legs when he finally returned from the war after ten years in a Russian prison because he'd only known his father from a photo that went down to the waist. I said that her father didn't have much imagination and Rolf said that my comment was very Australian.

Tue Sept 26 - I shouldn't have had the ouzo the night before. I was all dressed and stretched to go for a run but as I went to open the door felt a little too queasy. In the afternoon I walked for three hours around Berlin and walked through Kreuzberg, which is predominately Turkish and I marvelled at the 8 storeys of satellite dishes, which all pointed to Istanbul. I walked by the river Spree, past the people getting ready for their evening cruise. That night Nicole showed me a DVD of her when she did some work with HIV orphans in Thailand. She uses dance as therapy for children and it was interesting to see how they responded.

Wed Sept 27 - I said goodbye and caught the train to Poland. The train was one hour late (I'm not sure if that was a German thing or a Polish thing). They kindly offered me a voucher to use a train again in Germany as a sort of refund. Sadly, it was my last day in Germany and I have 12 months to get back there otherwise the voucher expires. While I was waiting I used up the rest of my eurochange buying Riesen.
I must also say that Germany has great toilet paper - it's a masterpiece in engineering. One can use one sheet at a time without worrying that it will break and it's the right length to guarantee full protection - one sheet per wipe. It's so good I'm tempted to move to Germany for the toilet paper alone.
So off to Poland - the land of Copernicus, Chopin, Marie Curie, Joseph Conrad, Jean de Reske, Gorecki and pole dancing. I had a non-smoking seat in a carriage that was half smoking and half nonsmoking. There were even some smokers who sat in the nonsmoking section so they wouldn't have to put up with the smell they were creating every time they went to the smoking section to smoke. Unfortunately, the airconditioning was turned off at each stop and as each stop took ages the smoke would gradually fill up the carriage and just as people were starting to panic and clamouring at the windows from suffocation, the train would start again and the airconditioning would start.
We stopped at Legnica on the way, which had been a German city when my great-great-great-grandfather was born there but looked distinctly unGerman now. It looked like a station that had been abandoned for thirty years (even though it gets used several times a day) and the biggest sign at the station was some graffiti reading "Legnica hooligans".
Looking out at the countryside, I thought back to Germany where all the cars were so new and had wondered where all the older cars went. I now know that they went to the Polish countryside. The train travelled past a potato field where there were 20 bicycles at one corner of the paddock and 20 potato diggers at the opposite corner.
The sign in the toilet said don't stuff your newspaper or beer bottle down the toilet so I respectfully placed them in the bin. After the train I had to catch a bus and noticed that 90 percent of the cars were hatchbacks. Having subsequently rented and driven a European hatchback, I've come to respect them a lot more and note that they have just as much acceleration as most Australian 6 cylinder cars.
I arrived at Zabkowice to stay with my exhousemate's mother, Krystyna. She knew several hundred English words but unfortunately they all seemed to belong in different sentences. I learnt a grand total of 12 words during my Polish stay (including the important words for beer and wine) so my exhousemate, Kasia came to the rescue by ringing every day from Melbourne. In between the phone calls, Krystyna and I would have races to find the right word in our respective dictionaries.
Krystyna showed me some photos and had a lovely way of referring to her late husband's mother - "mother-in-love". I tried to show Krystyna some photos of Australia by putting my photo CD in her computer. There was lots of impressive whirring as the computer processed the data and after two minutes the first photo came up. The second photo took just as long, so I figured a slide wasn't going to feature in the night's proceedings. There was a bit of silence as we both wondered what we should do next and Krystyna must have sounded a sigh of relief when she found an important soccer match on TV for me to watch.

Thur Sept 28 - We walked through the town and a Polish bikie rode past. He was big, fat, had a bushy beard and leather jacket and rode a small scooter. A few things about the town. Zabkowice has the only leaning tower in Poland. The town used to be called Frankenstein before changing to a Polish name.
I noticed a few work men using scythes to cut grass where a whippersnipper would have come in handy. I later found out that the Polish pay rate was about one seventh of Englands so there were a lot of things they had to go without.
The walk/don't walk sign sounded like it had crickets in it which were jolted into activity every time it went green. I bought a bottle of wine at the supermarket. Krystyna tried to steer me towards the $5 wines but I splashed out and bought a $7.50 wine. Krystyna introduced me to her housemate - Kasia's cat Cuba. Krystyna said that she was allergic to cats and I said wasn't Kasia also allergic to cats. Krystyna said no but that Kasia was allergic to food, which when I think back to Kasia's eating habits when I lived with her, makes sense.

Fri Sept 29 - We were off in a bouncy bus to visit the town of Klodzko, which has the nickname "little Prague". Despite being invaded back and forth (involving some guy called Boleslaw, who nearly had a salad named after him) and constantly changing nationalities from Czech to Polish, it was beautiful. The english language guide said that the town had good spies.
We went to the museum, which had lots of clocks and had four employees to attend to the two of us. There was a wonderful music box there, which had insects headbutting bells and drums.
We went from there to lunch and I selected a beetroot soup because it was a Polish specialty. I'd always wondered what happened to all the juice in the beetroot tin once one has finished the beetroot. It was delicious though.
I was given a pamphlet on the street by people trying to sell me a computer, even after I told them I didn't speak Polish.
That night Krystyna said she was cooking Italian and we had this lovely pasta bake dish. Of course, being in Poland there was a side dish of gherkins.

Sat Sept 30 - Krystyna likes to start her day with soupbowl full of coffee. I started the day listening to the AFL grand final on the internet. It was a gripping match and it felt strange to just be starting the day after sitting through the drama of the last few minutes. Kasia's timing was immaculate when she rang from Melbourne (the only person in Melbourne not watching the game) for a chat.
I had a shower and Krystyna offered me the use of her hairdryer. I replied that there was no need as I'm an Aussie bloke. I'm pretty sure she didn't understand my English but I could have sworn that she gave me a look that said "Yeah, right".
Krystyna took me to Wroclaw to show me around and offload me at her cousin's (Lucina's) place because there were no Sunday afternoon buses and my plane was leaving from there. The highlight of the bus trip was the traffic banking up on a major road to wait for a lady to push her wooden cart up to the next village. I also came to the rescue of several elderly people in the bus who kept looked nervously at the shelf above our seats where a bottle had been rolling around threateningly with each corner, by removing the bottle and putting it in the bin. They gave me a dirty look when I returned to my seat though as if I had taken away some of the excitement from the trip.
We walked around Wroclaw with Lucina and a friend. Sadly, my camera didn't work for the whole day and apart from getting to know every camera shop in Wroclaw in a vain attempt to buy a replacement, there were some excellent buildings. My camera's been working fine ever since (I fixed it by pressing the on-off button about thirty times quickly) so I'm hoping it can hold out for just a few more weeks.
We stopped for lunch at an Egyptian steakhouse. Egyptian steakhouse??... - I looked around at the three middle aged women I was with to see if they thought this was as strange as I did but they looked as if they visited such a place all the time. I didn't see any crocodile steak on the menu and didn't see any Egyptian line dancing but there were some peanut shells strewn over the floor. Krystyna ordered some Egyptian food which was typical Middle Eastern fair and as is the case with Polish Egytian steakhouses there is always a Mexican option which I went with.
Krystyna said goodbye and the rest of us went to the Panorama which was a diorama featuring a famous battle in Polish history. It also had an Australian connection, as the victorious general had a mountain named after him in Australia. So after spending a couple of minutes trying to perfect the original and very different pronunciation of Kosciuszko, we were led into a circular building the inside of which contained a 114 metre by 15 metre 110 year old circular painting . The special lighting, props and realistic landscape painting gave me the impression that I was really there and had been transported back in a time machine to the battle ground in 1794.
We went to the cathedral which was just about to have a wedding. The wedding party was waiting outside for a tour group of about 50 people to finish so that they could start their wedding. I went to the top of the cathedral to look out on the city. There were some very nice buildings but Lucina said I should come back in three years time when they had finished the rebuilding with all the money from the European Union that Poland had recently been given.
I was trying to get my head around the city of Wroclaw, formerly Breslau where just about all the major buildings were done when the city was German. The Germans had all been kicked out after World War II by displaced Poles from what is now Western Russia, who were now maintaining the buildings and describing them to tourists.
The city square was really large and a joy to sit down and have a few Okocim Dark beers, especially given the price. There was even a seven-piece gypsy band working the different outdoor restaurants.
Lucina took me to her apartment which was in a Polish housing estate about 25 minutes from town. She introduced me to her brother and wife and they said I might not be used to such a small apartment (they hadn't seen some of the small worker's cottages I'd lived in). I said I really liked their toilet. We went for a beer and the brother said that in Iron Curtain times one person could only have 2.5 kilograms of meat per month. He was fascinated that Australians mainly lived on the coast and that the middle was empty.
I watched some television and found it interesting that all the dubbing was done by the same bloke. I watched a thriller where a ten year old girl was trying to escape from the bad guy and her voice was dubbed over by a middle-aged male dubber saying "Help, help" in a deadpan voice.

Sun Oct 1 - I tried to help Lucina improve her English as she was hoping to change jobs. She had an English learning cassette which had some people speaking in really posh voices offering each other toast and marmalade. It was hilarious. She also liked CNN because they spoke slowly.
I said goodbye and caught the bus into Wroclaw main train station to spend a couple of hours before going to the airport. I searched for an internet cafe and the only one I could find had some guy using it to play chess. Chess! All those backpackers desperately unable to look up their email (well, maybe I was the only one) because one guy with no mates was using it play chess.
Meanwhile I was trying to find which bus to catch to the airport and went to the information desk at the main train station. The information lady only spoke Polish and when I flapped my wings to indicate airport she gave me a number but when I went to where she pointed there was no sign of a bus stop. I then went to the information desk at the main bus station and the lady there also gave me a number but didn't even bother pointing which way to go. A man waiting in line had overhead the conversation and offered to help because he spoke English. Unfortunately he turned out to be a total moron and said there were no buses to the airport (even though the lady had just told me there was in front of him) and I should take a taxi. I ended up taking the taxi which I later found out cost around 50 times more than the bus.
I got to the airport about four hours early and couldn't check in for another couple of hours. Apart from telling off a Polish man in his fifties who spoke no English for pushing ahead of me in the queue to get a drink there wasn't much to do, so I wandered off to a nearby park to do some singing practice with the ducks. It was a beautiful park and one passerby listened to me sing, spoke to me in Polish for a while and then shook my hand.
I checked in and spent the last of my Polish coins on a couple of dark beers (Poland makes very good dark beer). One guy I talked to said that he worked in England and earned 7 times as much as he would doing the same job in Poland.
A few minutes before the plane was due to take off, the board said that it was running 110 minutes late. I thought my eyesight was doubling the one digit after the beers but unfortunately I had read it correctly. There was no food in the terminal, which was 40 metres by about 25 metres, apart from chocolate bars and chips. I asked if I could go out and eat at the restaurant but once one had gone through the metal detectors one couldn't go back.
Finally the plane arrived and I sat next to a Polish lady who lived in England but didn't like English food. I was a bit mystified when she also said that she couldn't cook but she said she normally just ate spaghetti with sauce. We arrived at Stansted and I browsed through a store and my path was blocked by a girl who had left her bag there. She apologised in a really dopey voice. I then asked her if it was safe to drink the water out of the tap and she continued in her dopey voice that she did it all the time and that it hadn't affected her.
I caught the bus to London and sat next to a Swedish fashion student who talked non-stop to me for 90 minutes. We got along well but sadly didn't exchange contact details because in mid-sentence she said "I think this is your stop" and I had to rush off. I finally made it to my Sydney friends Adrian's place at Kensington, London at 11pm (about three hours late) and his sister Maree briefly got out of bed to say hello.

Mon Oct 2 - I started the day at an internet cafe and by chance ran into Wayne who I knew from my Adelaide days. We hung out for a few hours and walked along a few main streets. I saw the gherkin in the distance which is a building I really like. I then checked out a few luxurious department stores. One of them had an excellent range of Australian wine that wasn't overpriced, if you like to buy wine in the $80-100 range. There was also a store which sold all sorts of electrical, computer and camera stuff and had about 100 customers crammed into a little shopfront. The customer would point to something in the catalogue and the shop assistant would go out back to fetch it.
I was impressed by how snugly the tube trains fit into the tunnel, they look like toothpaste coming out of the tube when they arrive at the station. If you've ever caught a train in Sydney and listened to the driver or platform announcers with all their different hard-to-understand accents, you probably always wondered what happened to the announcers with Australian accents. The answer is, they're all in London.
I found a place selling Schneider Weisse on tap and tried to have a conversation with a West Indian but his mind wasn't in it. I then caught up with my cousin Sonia who I hadn't met in 20 years. She turned out to be a big beer lover so we got through four pints of family gossip.

Tue Oct 3 - I changed accommodation to the southern part of London. My friend Aussie Pete was staying in the family manor at Bromley. It was a large place with several houses and enough lawn to fit four tennis courts. We walked to the pub and I saw a fox running from one house to another. I asked Pete if it was someone's pet which he found funny.
Pete's brother Julian had just been retrenched that day after 32 years working at a bank and had recently been divorced so we had a few beers with him. I said that he could be coming up to the best time of his life. Julian was a fast drinker with several gulps per sip so we didn't stay out too long.

Wed Oct 4 - I sang for Pete's mother and at the end he said "You made my mum cry". Pete then dropped me off at the train station and I was told by the station attendant that it was illegal to take photos at the train station so sadly some of the nice buildings there will remain unphotographed. One of the stations even reminded me of Lakemba station in Sydney.
I visited my ex-housemate Lucy in southwest London, where she is married with a baby. Lucy took me for a walk around the nearby commons and had to shield me from the two big hazards of the English bush - dogpoo and stinging nettles.
Lucy dropped me off at Kingston and I caught a double-decker bus to Putney. Sadly, the old buses with the open rear-exit are no longer in service but it was still nice to sit at the very front and look at parts of London in the sunshine. Last time I had been to London it had been overcast for 11 straight days so to have sun was very special. London is beautiful when it's sunny and I became a bit teary because it brought me back to when I was a five and six year old and had lived in England.
I caught up with my Canadian friend, Steph, who was also recently married with a baby. She had a couple of Canadians and an Aussie over for dinner. I felt the Aussie ignored me a bit, maybe because my presence had ruined her status as the exotic Australian amongst a group of Canadians.

Thur Oct 5 - Pete, Julian and I were all up at 5 as we all had planes to catch. They were going to the US to play golf and I was off to France. We had to go to different airports however, so I caught the train north to Luton.
My plane touched down at Charles de Gaulle airport for my very first French visit and we were bundled into a shuttle bus. After five minutes we drove off for five minutes in a big circle and then it took another few minutes for everyone to get off the bus. As the crow flies we had travelled fifty metres. I fetched my luggage and boarded another shuttle bus to the main terminal and on alighting was immediately hit with the smell of urine.
I then tried to find an internet kiosk. The first one swallowed my money and didn't work. I then waited for some other people to finish on their kiosk for ten minutes and then that one refused to work. Meanwhile I was getting more confused by the circular terminal.
I needed to get to the internet to book some accomodation as my friend Richard from Canberra had got the dates mixed up and wasn't arriving until the next day. Imagine my surprise when I bumped into Richard in the airport. He had managed to get an earlier flight but had been unable to email me to let me know. With his ten days unshaven face and obvious frustration about finding his way around the airport or on how to contact me, he looked as if he had been wandering around the airport for the last ten days.
We stopped for a coffee at the airport and talked to a South African guy who had just been to Chamonix (where we intended to go) for a month and said the weather was really nice and that there were still quite a few attractions open. This was good news as I had been unable to find out about the weather there for this time of year. Richard also said that he had met a lady in Spain who had said that she ran a chalet in Chamonix and that we could come and stay.
The next challenge was to drive the car on the right-hand side for the first time. Our rental car wasn't parked in the right spot, so the attendant pointed and clicked with the key in various directions until he found it. Richard drove first and nearly ran into a pole on the very first corner. I was cringing through every corner at first because we had trouble judging the distance between the passenger side and the kerb. We would have to rely on our copilot for a clearance check of the kerb. Whenever we wanted to change lanes we would turn on the windscreen wiper.
Soon we had enough confidence to drive in the fast lane although I nearly had a prang in a roundabout (France has a roundabout every four hundred metres, it seems) that mysteriously changed from one lane to two lanes. We drove away from Paris towards the Champagne region. It was surreal to be in the French countryside after watching the Tour de France on television for so many years. It looked just like what it had on TV although it felt a bit empty without the cyclists.
We stopped in a small town for a Belgian beer and found the mens toilet interesting - it consisted of a urinal in the hallway on the way to the ladies toilet. We tried talking to a local but my three months of French study had temporarily deserted me and Richard kept trying to speak Spanish (he kept saying "Si" instead of "Oui" so much that soon even I was starting to say "Si"). The local was unperturbed and talked for about ten minutes in French pointing to various things so we nodded and smiled.
We found a cheap hotel right next to the cathedral in Epernay, Champagne and had a French meal, which included a rabbit entree and a bottle of '98 Bordeaux.

Fri Oct 6 - The next day we had a look at the pockmarks in the cathedral from the 25 battles it had been involved in. We crossed a road and a car kindly stopped for us. Being Australians we looked at the person sitting in the car on the lefthand side (when looking from the front of the car) and thanked the passenger.
We got our bearings around town, had breakfast, did some grocery shopping (I asked a fellow shopper to recommend some cheese), found some internet and just when we were ready to start doing some tours of the big Champagne houses, they had closed for lunch (from 1130 to 2pm).
We decided to go for a drive around the vineyards anyway and went to a small village nearby. One place said that it was open even though it was midday. I was too scared to knock on the door because everything was so quiet and I didn't want to wake anybody. Richard knocked anyway and after a couple of minutes a lady came down and let us into her back shed where the champagne bottles and dogfood were kept. Her husband pulled out a table and we sat down and tried some champagne. It all tasted excellent (I've never had a bad bottle of Champagne from the Champagne region) and at only $AUD18 a bottle we bought two.
We left and used the top of our car as a picnic table to have some pate, cheese and bread while we waited for a nearby place to open. This place was all done up and on entering a lady said that she would be with us in a minute. After ten minutes I asked for a price list which seemed to indicate that the minimum purchase was six bottles. After another five minutes of no service we decided that we'd better off trying one of the other 19000 champagne houses where someone was happy to serve us.
The next place didn't have an Open sign but we tried anyway. The lady there asked if we had an appointment and we said no. She thought for a few seconds but her thoughts were interrupted by another person who entered after us. The lady and the new person conversed in French for thirty seconds and did four kisses on the cheek before the lady turned to us and indicated for us to piss off.
We finally found a place open and I explained in broken French that we were tourists. I think the man misunderstood us as wanting a tour, so we got a French-speaking tour of the winery. He told me to have a smell in a fermenting tank but I took in too big a smell which burnt my lungs and he and Richard laughed. He then opened up a fresh bottle for us to try which we liked and felt that since he'd been so kind we would buy two bottles.
We drove to another village and saw that some of the streets were blocked off by roadworks so I reasoned that the houses on those streets would be more welcoming as they would have less through traffic. We found a house open and without asking, the son took us on a tour of the underground storage tunnels, which were 300 years old and 150 metres long. We both thought the tunnel was really cool (although after negotiating the Paris metro for the last few days, I think I've had enough tunnels for now) so we bought another couple of bottles. They also opened a fresh bottle for us to try and we drank about a third of it.
We now had six bottles and hoped to get a couple more. I said that we should just rush in and out of two more places to buy a bottle each without trying their champagne as it was all good.
We left that village and found a country property selling champagne. We said we just wanted to buy one bottle but she still sat us down with two other couples - one from Belgium and the other from Switzerland. The couple from Belgium were buying 5 dozen bottles, so she had got out a bit of food for them. We got talking and I mentioned that I was studying opera and the Belgian guy spent about 20 minutes in vain trying to think of a certain famous opera singer to recommend me. They said they had driven down for the day, five hours each way, just to pick up champagne. He looked a little drunk and we looked a little concerned when they said they were driving back. When they left I waved goodbye because I might not see them again.
We talked to the Swiss couple who had just got married after going out for 20 years. The man looked at Richard and me sitting next to each other and asked if it was legal for us to get married in Australia. I quickly replied that I was single. Finally after an hour we got a bottle of champagne but didn't pass another champagne place so we had to settle for 7 bottles between us.
We drove south for an hour and then started to look for somewhere to stay. After a few wrong turns down country roads we went to a town which had a nice name. The town was rundown and nondescript and there had been a sign indicating to turn left for a hotel but we couldn't find it. We went into a pharmacy (the pharmacy signs really stood out in the French towns we went to) to ask where it was and the guy said next door. We went next door to the fishing tackle store which also had some accommodation. The man in there looked surprised as if they hadn't had someone stay in their hotel for years. Richard pointed out a fish tank there which had several dead fish floating on the surface as a sign that we should go elsewhere. I didn't cotton on soon enough and the man's wife showed us the room. When I heard how high the room price was I asked if there was anywhere to get dinner. Luckily she said there wasn't, so we were able to use this as an out clause. In my hurry to get out, I hit my head on the 200 year old low door frame.
We tried a couple more towns without much luck, including one hotel when the owner got pissed off when I put my hand on the bed to test out how springy it was. We were both starving so stopped to get something to eat and had the backup plan to drive another hour to the city of Troyes if our quest to stay in a quaint country town didn't pan out. The only place to eat we could find was a pizza place.
On the way there we passed a bar and the people in there beckoned us inside. We talked to them briefly and promised to come back when we had eaten. That was the plan, but when we got to the pizza place it turned out to be a full blown restaurant with about four waiters. They only had ten customers in there but it still took them about twenty minutes before even taking our order.
After another half an hour, we had finished our glasses of wine and I noticed that someone else was getting takeaway, so we asked if we could also get takeaway. This hurried them up a bit and we took our pizza and ate it in the aforementioned bar. There were two men (including the barman) and two women in the bar and one lady was happy to practise her English with us. I sang a song and we got an extra round of drinks on the house. The barman rang up a hotel about ten minutes drive away and managed to get us a room. Richard was worried that the two men were gay and were interested in us so we didn't stay too long. One guy asked us what was a pickup line he could use in English. Richard said he could say "Your smile warms my heart". The guy said it was too flowery, so I said he could say "Would you like some French sausage?" which he seemed to like.
We left and drove to the recommended hotel. The lady on the desk said "so you'll just be wanting one bed?" (what had the guy from the bar told the hotel?) but I quickly said "two beds, please".

Sat Oct 7 - We were up at 5 because we had quite a way to drive and judging by our progress so far, it could take a long time. It took us quite a while to get out of the hotel though, because it was locked and we couldn't find a way out. Someone else finally got up and we followed them out. There was no one to give the money to, so we left some money with the key.
We went to a bakery and I tried to get in but the door wouldn't open. The lady inside was frantically saying something to me. She indicated that I was trying to enter in through the exit door. We found the correct door and bought some food and then Richard tried unsuccessfully to exit through the entry door.
We bit the bullet and elected to go on the tollway, reasoning that the toll we paid a couple of days before wasn't too expensive. We were lulled into a false sense of security and after about three hours, 35 euros worth of tolls, passing the smelliest factories ever and some magnificent scenery we arrived in Chamonix. Richard's friend Borrie was there to meet us. She was a Bulgarian ski instructor and ran the chalet which was closed because it was low season. The weather was excellent and we were surrounded by mountains, including the biggie, Mont Blanc (4870 metres tall).
That night we went out with a group of Bulgarians to the pub which brewed it's own beer and where one could by beer in 2.5 litre jugs.

Sun Oct 8 - We each had our own room at the chalet and could look out at the mountains. We went up a mountain by cable car which we were told was the highest gondola in the world - 3842 metres. It was expensive at 36 euros but worth it because the views were sensational. We were right up near the limit for the cable car of 72 people. They were able to squeeze us all in when the attendant backed into the car to force us all in one direction (like in a mosh pit) away from the door then closed the door before we had a chance to right ourself in the other direction.
The ascent was steep and there were quite a few gasps as the car swayed every time we went past a pylon. We brought some champagne up and I thought I might need to put it in some snow to cool it down but just leaving it in the shade was cool enough. We were joined by a French radiologist and a lawyer in their late fifties/early sixties (one of them was wearing shorts!) and after I tried out a few high notes for echos (I did my best high C ever, so will have to do some performances up there) we had a singalong on top of the mountain.
After we finished the champagne, they bought some beer. A Dutch girl with a moustache, the prettiest moustached girl I've ever met, asked if she could film us so we sang again. Richard asked her to stay but she had to go. We then got involved in a snowball fight with some Texan kids. The lawyer then slid down the handrails with his legs sticking out and got Richard to film him. After four hours we went back down.
That night we took Borrie out to dinner which started with the obligatory snails followed by some deer. We asked Borrie if there were many deer about because we had seen lots of deer signs on the road and she said that the sign was just symbolic as there were no deer and meant that you had to look out for cats and cows. For dessert I went to order the citrus fruit soup with olive oil icecream as I figured it sounded so bizarre that I might never get to taste it again. It didn't sound too appealing so I was relieved when they ran out and had to order sorbet with blueberry sauce instead.

Mon Oct 9 - After nearly driving to Italy by mistake a couple of days before, this time we did it for real. Borrie had a pass which meant we could pay the return trip toll through the Mont Blanc tunnel for 20 euros rather than the normal 60 euros. It was a fifteen kilometres long tunnel and as there had been a major accident there a few years before they were very strict on the 70 kilometre speed limit. Borrie said that she knew someone who exceeded it and had been given a 600 euro fine.
We went to a bar in the first skiing tourist town, which was much more deserted than its French counterpart. I had my first Italian draught beer which was OK. All the signs were still in French. We drove another 20 minutes down the valley towards Turin and went to another village which was less for tourists. I felt like I was on the set of a sitcom because while we were there for half an hour the entire clientele changed every ten minutes. We even got a new bartender half way through. I reasoned that maybe the wives were waiting at home with their watches and ten minutes was all that the husbands could get away with.
While we were driving we stopped at a train crossing when the boom gates went down to wait for a train. After waiting for ten minutes and watching a guy from a restaurant on the other side of the line duck under the boom gates and cross the line back and forth to empty out the garbage, we went down a detour road and never got to see the train.
That night Borrie cooked for us, her mother and son, Boris. We had a dish similar to fondue and I learnt six words in Bulgarian. We finished the night with a game of fussball. I slept diagonally on the bed because the big square European pillows left not enough room on the rest of the bed to sleep lengthwise.

Tue Oct 10 - We drove out of Chamonix and took a wrong turn which turned out to be a lovely scenic ride through autumn leaves and mountain views. We drove two hours to Lyon to return the car. Along the way we got confused at an overpass and did a four leaf clover with the car - we took four exits one after the other in a big circle so that we ended going on the same 8-lane highway we were originally on. We were worried that we would have trouble finding the train station in such a big city as Lyon but the signs led us right to it and the traffic was light.
I had arranged to get train tickets sent to a friend but they didn't turn up because I didn't put his name on the address. I showed the receipt to the ticket office and they reissued me with new tickets, charged me again and said that there would be a refund for the initial purchase in the next few weeks - ticketless travel hadn't hit TGV yet.
We caught the 300km/hr TGV and within 2 hours were in Paris. I bought a weekly train ticket but had to get a photo to attach to it. I only needed one photo so selected the option for one phote and was quite amused when out popped a photo 20 times too big for the space on the weekly ticket. I had to go with the 16 photo option and now have 15 photos left for the next 15 times I go to Paris.
Richard and I caught the train and headed for Montmartre. I was met with the familiar whiff of urine in the train station and was wondering where I had last smelt it ... aha, I was back in Paris. Montmatre is a hill overlooking Paris where many of the famous artists resided. We went to my hostel to leave the bags and but they wouldn't let me put Richard's bag in my room, instead charging him 5 euros to leave it in the basement for a couple of hours. We both patted the cat which was a permanent fixture on the checkout desk.
We found a bar and had a couple of Belgian beers outside, enjoying the passing promenade of pedestrians, bicycles and the rare car. We realised our bar was a popular with the transvestites and the waiter/waitress offered to have his/her gay friend show me around all the nightclubs later that night and I said I would try to return but was too tired in the end.
We went up to the Sacre Coeur, listened to some nuns singing, looked out at Paris and successfully negotiated the black weavers (they try to get money out of you by tying some wool around your finger) on the way down. We had some dinner and talked to a couple of French women and one of them said I had a good face for opera.
I accompanied Richard to the station to catch the airport train as he was leaving to go back to Australia. I went out of the station to get some money from the ATM to give him some money that I owed but my ticket wouldn't let me back in the station (there may be a ten minute delay on reuse as they had in London). I tried a few different gates and then tried one for baby strollers which let me in one side but wouldn't let me out the other side. I tried to backtrack but it wouldn't let me out and I was now stuck in a perspex-walled booth which Richard found funny. Fortunately an attendant let me out.
I returned to the hostel and slept for a couple of hours until midnight when my Japanese and English roommates came in. The fire alarm then went off waking up the entire hostel but it turned out to be a false alarm. I found out that there were a lot of Aussies in the hostel because it was part of backpacker route called Busabout. The English guy and I talked for a while and had to wake the Japanese guy back up because he had gone to sleep with his light on.

Wed Oct 11 - I started by going to the supermarket which allowed one to self-scan and pay for the items. Unfortunately my bananas wouldn't scan and instead set off an alarm to bring someone out to assist me. I bought some half-bottles of wine in preparation for lunch over the next few days.
I had trouble negotiating the RER trains (the faster trains that didn't stop at every stop) as they kept saying they were going to a four-letter destination and I couldn't find them on the map, amongst the hundreds of station names. I looked at another poster and realised that the four letters stood for different routes. Murphy's Law dictated that there were frequent trains passing as I tried to work it out and once I had worked it out the next train took ages.
I then attempted to get a Museum and Monument pass from the train station and after queuing up in three different spots and stuffing around for more than an hour, I bought one at the Musee d'Orsay, which entitled me to free access to 70 different attractions over the next four days. I loved Musee d'Orsay and there were at least 40 famous paintings there that I had already seen in books.
I befriended a Japanese girl, Emiko and asked her out to lunch which we had on a quiet pedestrian bridge over the Seine. We then went on a cruise up and down the Seine, which had a loudspeaker describing each attraction in six different languages (although not in Japanese) and then walked down to the Louvre where I got to marvel at the glass pyramid. I didn't get a chance to go to the Louvre this time but hope to return. Emiko showed me some of her photos. Many of them were taken diagonally and she showed me a photo of the place where Napoleon was "sleeping".

Thur Oct 12 - I started with Notre Dame and loved all the gargoyles which made for great photos. I then made my way to the Pantheon but not before stopping off at a pub that offered Beamish Red on tap. I'd only had once before in my life in Adelaide about six years before and had been looking for it ever since. I also stopped in St Etienne, a church with amazing staircases. The Pantheon had the burial chambers of some famous French people. Marie and Pierre Curie were buried alongside each other which I found touching. On the way out I bought a copy of "The Little Prince" in French which I intend to read to improve my French.
I sat out the front of the Pantheon and had lunch but spilt quite a bit of wine as my plastic cup had a hole in it. A passerby wished me "Bon appetit" as I enjoyed blood sausage, camembert and baguette.
I made my way to Champs Elysee to see up close what the Tour de France cyclists had to cope with. On the way, I stopped at the Thai Airways building to ensure that my round-world trip was still valid since I had missed the flight from Krakow to Paris.
I then went to Les Invalides where the Army Museum was. There were many police there and there was a big show going on in the parade ground. I stopped to watch for a while but after they played La Marseillaise for the fourth time I went to the model town display instead. I was the only one in the whole museum. The models seemed realistic enough (over 150 years old) but as they were of towns I had never been to, didn't hold a lot of interest. They had an impressive statue of Napoleon though.
A funny habit I found in Paris was that during peak hour some people get on the train and stand in their preferred spot right in the doorway, even though there are more people to come on. I caught the train to Bastille to go to the opera because there was a famous coloratura soprano, Nathalie Dessay, performing in Lucia di Lamermoor. Unfortunately, many people had the same idea so after queuing for an hour and talking to a Chinese tenor who knew all the arias that I did, there were no tickets left. This didn't deter me so I waited with about twenty other people at the door to see if anybody wanted to resell their ticket. We were like a bunch of seagulls and when one person did have a ticket to sell we all rushed over and crowded until one lucky person got a ticket.
The starting time passed and gradually the crowd reduced until there were just six of us hoping to get in at the break. I told the others that we were "Les Six", after a famous group of French composers in the late nineteenth century. Les Six soon became Les Cinq. There were two French people, a greek guy and greek girl and me. The greeks didn't know that each other were greek until I introduced them which turned out to be not a great move as they didn't speak much English and were happier talking in Greek. When I found out they were Greek, I pointed to a nearby poster and said "just like her" - Maria Callas being the one who possibly gave the most famous opera performance of the twentieth century in Paris in the 1960s.
The security guards let us come inside and watch the opera on a monitor while we waited and they laughed every time I tried to speak to them in French. We had to wait for 90 minutes as there was only a break before the last act. I cursed my luck when I found out that people had to get a red passout card to go out for the interval and reasoned that those who were leaving wouldn't bother to get a red card.
After ten minutes of the interval the greek guy managed to score two tickets from early leavers, so I accepted one of the tickets, feeling a bit guilty that the others hadn't got tickets. We went up to the ticket-checker and I tried to distract him by asking him at the same time where I could put my bag but it didn't work. He said that these tickets weren't valid and we should have a red ticket. We then came up with a sob-story of waiting for three hours because we wanted to see it so badly. I said that we were both going to become famous opera singers one day and that we needed to see what the opera was like in Paris so that we could become famous in Paris, otherwise we would become famous in Italy instead. He relented and let us in finishing with the words "but just remember that this is the wrong ticket" and we nodded sagely and walked in beaming, clutching our tickets for 110 Euro seats.
The last act of the opera was fantastic. They had to stop the opera for a full two minutes because the audience loved Dessay's mad scene so much. It was the best opera experience I've ever had, especially the bit where she did a downward slide with her voice and slid down the handrail of the steps on stage at the same time. The tenor was also very good except when he sang the "oo" vowel and sounded like an owl. It finished with a standing ovation and roars from the crowd - this was the Paris that I'd hoped for!
Four of us met up at the entrance (all five of us managed to get a ticket but we didn't see the other lady after) and after the greek guy had done a few coloratura impressions for passersby while sliding down the banister we went to a Cuban restaurant for drinks and a bite to eat.

Fri Oct 13 - I changed hotels to a hotel near La Defense, the business district. It was a much nicer hotel and was normally used by business people from Monday to Thursday. On weekends it went down to one third of the normal price. The suburb was called Rueil Malmaison but was 25 minutes walk from the nearest train station which I had neglected to find out. It was pretty and originally a village with it's own church, fountain and town centre.
I dropped off my bags and after looking at the locals felt a bit naked without a baguette, so I fetched one from the bakery. I caught the train to the Archaeological Museum, which was housed in an impressive moat-surrounded former royal residence. There were skulls and tools from Homo Erectus and early Homo Sapien times and artefacts from the Stone age, Bronze age and Celtic and Roman times. In the Roman section they had a glass cabinet for each of the Roman gods filled with little statues. Mercury was pretty popular.
The bus to Versailles was easy to remember as it was bus number 1. The trip took half an hour and as I got closer I became more and more anxious to see the palace in the flesh as I had seen the pictures so many times. When I got there I kept staring in disbelief at how big it all was. Even the cobblestones were huge on the walkway up to the ticket office and next time I'll remember to bring my hiking boots. I loved the hallway with all the statues and particularly admired the boots on one statue with a group of fellow Australians, one of whom said that they reminded her of Puss In Boots. The statues were so lifelike and detailed (especially the woollen scarf on one statue) that they looked like a group of real people on pedestals who had been painted grey. I also spent some time looking at the huge famous David painting of the coronation of Napoleon.
I found out that it had once housed 3500 people who lived in absolute squalor. A bit like a share house really, except that the ad in the Saturday paper to find a new housemate would have been in the paper permanently and you would have dreaded when it was your turn to buy the toilet paper. It also had a big backyard with three kilometres of lawn, a lake, a few thousand pot plants and statues and instead of a back shed had a whole village for the queen to potter around in.
I sat by the lake and had some excellent Bordeaux, rocquefort cheese, pate, baguette and pistachio-flavoured yoghurt while listening to Bruckner on the ipod. It doesn't get much better and probably won't again when I read later that picnics were strictly forbidden at the palace. I passed a few young couples on the way back and as I was no hurry took a few pictures for them.
I luckily found a bus back straight away although halfway through the trip the driver decided to take an extra twenty minutes to drive in a circle to show a new driver where to go but the other two passengers didn't seem to mind.

Sat Oct 14 - On the way to the station I stopped in the village centre at the Saturday markets. I bought some seafood and ogled all the different types of meats, cheeses and mushrooms. They had different types of poultry with heads still attached.
I caught the train to the Rodin museum and on the train a big black curtain was hung between two poles with two hand puppets dancing along to some music in front of it. As the train approached the next station, the curtain was taken down to reveal a puppeteer for the train for the passengers to give money to.
The Rodin museum featured lots of statues in pornographic positions with the naughty bits curiously unfinished. There were quite a few thinkers there. I sat in front of the lovely pond and gardens at the Rodin chateau trying to eat the seafood that I bought but after a few pieces I realised it was uncooked. I was torn between not wasting the good money I had paid or risking some sort of seafood poisoning. My decision was made easy after I reasoned it didn't taste very nice anyway. After that I was on lookout for any sudden stomach pains and didn't eat any takeaway for a few hours just to make sure the effect wasn't compounded. All was well however as my boarding school food training served me well.
I went to Napoleon's tomb nearby, which reminded me a bit of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra with its cold marble grandeur. The tomb was oversized for one man and was big enough for Napoleon, his wife, eight kids and family pet.
I then lined up for half an hour so that I could spend five minutes looking at the fantastic tall and skinny 13th century stained glass windows of Saint Chapelle. From there I went to the Medieval museum and really enjoyed the Lady and the Unicorn, a medieval wall tapestry. They had Jesus on the cross there except Jesus had a barrel-chest. There was also a free hour-long medieval concert with medieval instruments through most of which I slept.
Sadly, the Pompidou was closed due to strike action so I was unable to see the 20th century artwork. I went to the Salle Pleyel to try to get into a concert of Baroque music but there were only expensive seats left. By chance I found out that the Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel was performing the next night so I managed to score a ticket for 44 Euros. My last attraction on my museum pass was a trip up Arc de Triomphe. I admired the three or four lanes of cars coming from several different roads trying to negotiate a roundabout with no lanes marked.

Sun Oct 15 - After having a sneak preview the night before I stopped on the way to the city at La Defense, which is the CBD of Paris. Unlike Sydney, the CBD is about 15 kilometres from the historical centre of Paris. There is some daring architecture there and is a good place for modern-day architects to strut their stuff.
My train ticket didn't work to get out so I did what I noticed a lot of Parisians do - I jumped the barrier (which are much higher than the Sydney ones and gives one the sense of achievement when they are successfully negotiated). I was busting to go to the loo and after following several different Toilet signs to deadends I did the Parisian thing of finding some bushes. After emerging from the bushes I realised I was standing in the front gardens of the Hilton hotel.
I bought some spaghetti bolognese which they served in those chinese takeaway containers you see on Seinfeld. I took the opportunity to finish the last of my half-bottles of French wine while sitting on the steps and looking at the Grand Arche.
It was my last full day in Paris and what better way to finish it but to go up the Eiffel Tower. I approached it from the Trocadero, a hill overlooking the road that passes under the tower, which my Kensington-friend Adrian had recommended. There was some African drumming there with some giant puppets dancing to it. I walked past some rollerskaters who were doing their tricks around several differently-coloured plastic cups and I succumbed to some fairy floss, which I hadn't bought in years.
I spent three hours up and around the tower but only went up to the second level because the day was too hazy to justify paying for the lift to the very top. It was good to have visited some of the sites and have a good idea of what I was looking at. Near the tower were some little kids on gocarts doing their version of a grand prix.
Bryn Terfel was magnificent and received a standing ovation at the end. Halfway through I changed seats to the more expensive section (that is, not behind the singer) and the lady I sat near thought that I had a Scottish accent - they musn't get too many Australians going to classical music concerts in Paris. Terfel has a really big head, literally, and it was at least a third bigger in each direction than any other male in the orchestra which would give him a volume of about twice the normal bloke. He looked like a Welsh rugby player. I don't know if it's anything to skite about but when I was younger someone said that my head was too big for my body so I'm hoping it will help my singing. Terfel looked especially funny next to the conductor who must have been struggling to exceed five foot and was reluctant to step off his podium. There were a couple of encores and I was nearly in tears when the mandolin came out for the famous Don Giovanni serenade.
On the train home I spoke to one of the cello players from the accompanying orchestra. He said he had never heard of Terfel (one of the most famous opera singers on the planet) and was really surprised how good he was - "he was great". I was so lucky to see two all-time great opera singers within a few days.

Mon Oct 16 - I caught the train to the airport and sat next to a Afro-Bulgarian originally from Cuba who had a Salsa dance school and had been the choreographer for the Bulgarian version of Dancing with Stars. He said he had a friend in Australia who had been in the Australian version.
At Charles de Gaulle I followed the signs and ended up waiting for ages for a bus (instead of taking what I later found out was a seven-minute walk) with some geriatric pilgrims. I waited in line for internet and by the time I found my gate they were paging me to board (a whole 25 minutes before departure!), which was a useless exercise as the French pronunciation of my name was impossible for me to make sense of. I was the last one by far on the plane and didn't get to use the rest of my 1 cent per minute overseas telephone card.
I watched two of the four movies on the plane which were both excellent. One was a classic from the 1950's ("mendacity") and I hope to see "The Devil Wears Prada" again at the cinema (I sit in New York as I write this).
I flew to Toronto and met up with Bob and Bev at the airport. They had kindly booked a hotel in town for three nights so that they could show me around. I tried a few Canadian beers (which I like very much) and noted that Yellowtail and Wolf Blass wines seem to be everywhere. There were also lots of squirrels which I love to watch. I love the way they hop around and how they can do a 180 on a tree while clinging to the side of it. The locals think of it as a pest (when it gets into your attic).
It was cold (and still autumn!) and Bob said that despite the cold, there were quite a few homeless people in Toronto through the winter. He said they kept warm by sleeping on the vents that linked to the underground. They had to turn over every now and again to warm the other side of their body.
The beds in Canada are really high, coming up to my waist. That night I tried to stay up to around ten o'clock, which was a struggle as the time difference was six hours. I did some channel surfing and when one of the headlines said that "Dog saves owner from burning house. Fire started by cat", I knew it was time for bed.

Tue Oct 17 - I woke up very early but found that the 40 channels on the hotel TV consisted of nothing other than shopping, religion, tabloid news and cartoons (no CSI or House marathons like they have in the evening). I went down for breakfast and waited behind one lady and the serving lady said "what would you ladies like?". I said in a deep voice that I would like the house special and she apologised profusely and gave me extra sausage and toast.
We went on a tour of Toronto and the bus was fogged up with all the rain. This didn't stop the tour guide from telling us all about the buildings we couldn't see. One of the buildings was where the actor Kiefer Sutherland learnt how to whisper in a loud voice.
We stopped at Casa Loma, which is the largest castle in Canada (although it doesn't have a lot of competition). It was built by a guy who made his fortune in energy, rail and land. He was worth $100 million when he started building it in 1911 and worth $200 and living in a basement when he died. He knew how to spend. He ran out of money to complete the underground swimming pool so I'm hoping they'll finish it for my next trip.
We returned to a bar that we'd been to the previous day and I was impressed that the bartender remembered what we had ordered. I was a regular. Just to confuse him I ordered something different because I wanted to try as many different beers while I was in Canada. I ended up trying so many in Canada that I've forgotten them all and will have to go back again to find out which ones I liked.
We caught a taxi and had to wait while a procession of 6 black vans and 15 police motorcycles zoomed past. We wondered if it might be Barbara Streisand as she was in town but we didn't find out. We then walked around the former distillery district, which is now a trendy restaurant/bar area on the waterfront and it was there that I discovered that my shoes were so worn from all my walking (I walked 118 kilometres the previous week in Paris) that they were now letting in Canadian puddle water. I tried to walk on my heels.
We went to a restaurant and met up with Jen, Bev's niece, who is a dermatologist, wine and opera lover. We had the tasting menu - 5 courses with 5 matching wines. They had an option for 7 courses but luckily the others talked me into 5 as we were struggling after just 3. My so-called wine expertise was sorely lacking as I failed to recognise one wine as a riesling, let alone a Clare Valley riesling (of which I've tasted dozens of bottles). They also had a Hunter semillon and even some Australian food with Tasmanian ocean trout although I nearly missed out on claiming the glory because Jen thought Tasmania was part of New Zealand. I also tried some foie gras for the first time.

Wed Oct 18 - I went to a series of bottle shops to find some Australian red wine for Bob, as he was yet to find a red wine that he was really impressed with. I bought some Cape Mentelle Cab Sav, Penfolds Bin 28 and Rockford Basket Press Shiraz, all of which I loved in Australia but when we tried them later, they were all disappointing (maybe the trip across the equator).
We went to the St Laurence Markets which had a fantastic range of goods, far better than anything we have in Australia. I was stunned with the size of the king crabs legs (almost as long as my arm). There was also a place with 40 international beers on tap. Sadly they'd run out of Coopers, which I wanted to show off to Bob and Bev (didn't have much luck with showing off Australian beverages) but they did have my favourite beer on tap, Paulaner from Munich, and I also had a Fullers ESB. With 550 Australian wines available at bottle shops, the markets and this beer place I could get quite a liking for Toronto living.
That night we caught up with Jen for dinner and saw the Toronto Symphony Orchestra which is a very good orchestra that I saw 15 years ago. The Finnish violinist in the Tschaikovsky violin concerto had a different concept of tuning to me and the next piece in the grand tradition of pieces by young composers had every single idea he'd ever thought of including the kitchen sink in just 10 minutes. I did enjoy the Schumann symphony though. I escorted the young, pretty and sophisticated Jen back to her vehicle - a monstrous BMW SUV.

Thur Oct 19 - We did some CD shopping before leaving Toronto. They had the entire Wagner ring cycle brought out by Deutsche Grammaphon for only $40 but I resisted.
We drove for two or three hours to Bob and Bev's hometown of Walkerton and I got to see the last of the fall. I think the secret to the amazing colours they get is the vivid oranges of some of the trees to connect the yellows and the reds. I especially liked the lemon-lime trees.
I was introduced to their biting cat, Spunk. She bit you when she liked you and when she didn't like you. After a while I got to know which bite was which.
One thing I've discovered in North America is that if the toilet bowl is half full of water (like they are in North America) one can have a leak in the middle of the night, not flush the toilet in fear of waking others up and have it remain odour-free when it gets flushed in the morning because urine is heavier than water.

Fri Oct 20 - I got up for a traditional Canadian breakfast - a Tim Horton's breakfast consisting of coffee and a donut. Tim Horton's is more omnipresent in Ontario then McDonalds is in Australia, if you thought that was possible. It's not particular known for it's healthy food and the waiting staff (who must get meals for free) are a little more than a little on the hefty side. Every morning there was a big line of cars waiting for their drivethrough breakfasts (they didn't want to use up valuable calories making the walk from the car park to the front door).
We went for a drive and I was intrigued by a turnip waxing factory. They wax the turnips so that they can last for months through winter. I was rewarded for my curiousity by the factory attendant, who gave me two huge turnips, one unwaxed and one waxed. Bob said he didn't like turnips so he said I might like to take 5 kilograms of turnip with me in my luggage.
That night Bob cooked up pork chops on the barbeque, which were sensational. I became an instant pork chop fan and regret not begging him to have another pork chop night (although we had good food every night so there was no room).

Sat Oct 21 - I met Bob and Bev's son Bruce and he dropped off his dog Marley for a couple of days. Marley was a local celebrity, having been the pet-in-residence of the local petfood store while Bruce was running it. She made lots of different breathing, slurping and panting sounds and would have made a good Star Wars character. She made these sounds while we were sitting at the dinner table and a couple days later when Bruce took her back I missed the sounds so much I said to Bev that we should ask Bruce to lend us Marley for each evening meal.
Marley had stacked on the pounds and when I went to use the f word, Bev said they prefer to refer to her as "portly". I found this word very handy while I was in Canada because the Tim Hortons-inspired lifestyle had given the neighbourhood a portly hue. With her short legs and portliness, Marley didn't have much clearance between her belly and the ground. She also had a dodgy foot, so when we took her for a walk around the block it took about half-an-hour and Bev would carry her for the last bit.
We later went for a walk sans Marley along the river. We then went to the town hall and I did a couple of arias in the beautiful theatre they have in there. It was my Walkerton debut and I would like to perform there again some time, hopefully in front of more than three people.
After the applause died down we went home and I met Bev's brother Brian (lots of B's) who everyone referred to as Chum. He was a recently-retired 52 year old bachelor and was very keen on going to the Domenican Republic each year. After experiencing a little bit of the Canadian cold I could understand the attraction.
We finished the day with a visit to the pub for Oktoberfest. There were lots of peanut shells on the floor and I think it was called Oktoberfest because it was October. They had a good singer/guitarist there who was very accommodating to play Waltzing Matilda on request. I sang Danny Boy for the crowd and a man said "You have a fantastic voice, young man". I was so chuffed to be referred to as "young man". Later on the guitarist played backup to me singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" but he accidentally played in a key a tone higher than promised so when it came time for the high note my loins were extremely girded up and it was a very short high note.

Sun Oct 22 - We drove to a lake port town called Owen Sound. On the way we drove past a couple dressed in traditional Mennonite clothes driving a horse and buggy. We went to Owen Sound to hear a band play authentic fiddle music and see some step dancing. The core of the band was a father singing and playing the bass guitar and his son and daughter on fiddles, who had been the dual violinist champions of Canada. It was toetapping music and one guy in the audience kept yelling out "Yeah" in a deep voice with every song.
I got to try a cup of hot apple juice in the interval. It wasn't entirely my sort of music although I was impressed by the daughter who managed to have a big smile for the entire show, play the fiddle and step dance all at the same time. The singer mentioned that there were two people in the audience "all the way from Peru" and I nearly got away without being noticed except that Bev had inadvertently introduced me to an usher before the show, who snuck up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder and boomed "This gentleman here is from Australia". The singer responded by saying "Well, how about that. Are you enjoying the show?" and I gave a meek thumbs-up.
We were all outdone however by a lady who stood up because it was her 100th birthday that day. Get me some more of that hot apple juice! They finished the show with an excellent rendition of duelling banjos.

Mon Oct 23 - Bev and I went for a walk along the river in the other direction. She warned that it might rain. It didn't really rain, it snowed - wet snow, which melts as soon as it hits. It was the first time I had seen snow fall during the day in many years and after I had got used to the numbness in my ungloved hands it was great to look up at the falling snow, which was like rain falling in slow motion or like a speeding Starship Enterprise when all the stars whiz by.
At the post office, I inquired about sending my overdue library books back to Australia but when I found out it was going to cost me $240 to save a maximum $20 fine, I figured I would hang on to them until I got back.
That afternoon Bob and I went to visit Bill across the road. Bob made sure we put our coats on because when we arrived, Bill and his friend Doug were sitting in an outside garage in 2 degrees temperature drinking beer. We shivered our way through a couple of beers and Doug tried to talk me into going to singles night, which was on every Friday night catering for people from 30 to 70 and had a rule that you can't refuse the first dance. This meant that everyone was very alert so that if someone was approaching you had enough time to escape before you were obliged to dance. It would have been great but we were leaving before the next Friday night.
That night Dale the local historian came over with lots of interesting stories. He was the proud owner of a '64 Valiant and liked his red wine, which came in handy when a neighbour spontaneously gave Bob two glasses of homemade wine and Dale was the only one who didn't think it tasted funny.

Tue Oct 24 - We drove to a town called Tobermory at to the top of the Bruce Peninsula that separates Luke Huron from Georgian Bay. On the way up we stopped to pay homage to a statue of Whiarton Willy, who is the albino Canadian groundhog used for groundhog day (the Canadian version). According to the plaque, there have been three previous Whiarton Willies. One had died recently, so the groundhog anointers must be searching the land for a new one as we speak(similar to the search for a new Dalai Lama). No doubt there were fame-seeking groundhog couples everywhere trying desperately to give birth to an albino.
I was looking forward to going to the Tobermory sweet shop that had several big roadside advertisements for its fudge on the way but when we got there we found it was closed for the next six months. I offered to Bob to knock down each sign on the way back so that people don't go up there for nothing but we ran out of time. In Tobermory there's a huge car ferry that departs from there as the route north is popular in the warmer months.
On the way back we stopped at a museum for the local area. I read about a disaster in 1913 where there were 8 ships shipwrecked in one night with all hands lost on each vessel.

Wed Oct 25 - Bob works in the local nuclear power plant (he had taken two weeks off while I was there) so very kindly took me there for a tour. I couldn't go into the actual reactor area so we had a look around the outside. It has 3600 employees with all different types of skills. Working in the technology sector myself, I liked the idea of all the different technical roles available for people living in the countryside.
That afternoon we went to a brewery to try some of their beers. We went to a cheese house which had some lovely 1000-day old cheddar and I tried a pickled egg (I'm not rushing out for the next one). We then went to a place called Crabby Joes for dinner which is so-named because the person starting the restaurant had a crabby temper but disappointingly the waitress wasn't crabby and was quite dull. They did have fantastic garlic bread which I could still taste on my breath the next morning.

Thur Oct 26 - We started the day with breakfast at a A & W restaurant which have one famous product around the world - root beer. I have seen it in Australia, but normally only at Asian supermarkets or takeaways. I'm a big fan of root beer and have tried to drink a lot of it while in North America. I couldn't resist so I ordered root beer with my bacon and eggs and Bev looked at me strangely. We then went to a nearby store where Bev bought me some new black shoes to stop my socks continually getting wet from my old shoes.
We had been putting it off for days because it had been virtually raining non-stop since I arrived in Canada, but finally that afternoon we went on a joyride over the peninsula. We flew for 90 minutes at a speed of 100 miles an hour (give or take the windspeed) but it felt like we weren't moving. Walkerton seemed a lot bigger from the air and I could pick out the Tim Hortons. We also flew over a paddock with hundreds of cars and the pilot said the interesting thing about the job was one got to see all the strange things that people put in their backyards.
That night we had some neighbours over so that I could sing a couple of songs. Bev put out some flowers so we had to keep an eye on them as Spunk likes to eat flowers. Spunk was surprisingly sociable with the nine people in total and even bit a couple of them. Marley then chased Spunk around a bit as she didn't like Spunk to get too much attention. Bill brought some homemade white wine around which he said "isn't as nice as my red wine". It was strange tasting and I couldn't pick what grapes he used and when asked he said "a bit of everything" which meant that anything left over in the pantry that would ferment was used and even a few grapes.

Fri Oct 27 - We left Walkerton to drive south to Niagara and on the way we stopped at Tim Hortons for one last plate of chilli. I still crave the taste to this day but at the same time my trousers belt groans under the potential strain that it might cause. The leaves were less fallen the further south we drove so once again there were some nice colours. As we approached the Niagara region we drove past quite a few wineries. We then stopped to look at one of the locks on the canal used to get the ships from Lake Erie to Ontario, so that they don't have to go up Niagara falls.
We stayed the night at the house of Debbie (Bob's sister) and Randy. Debbie put on a lovely spread of food and Randy kept us supplied with one of the Canadian beers that I do remember the name of, Lakeport Honey Lager. It was excellent and only cost a dollar a beer.

Sat Oct 28 - We visited some Niagara wineries to try their famed ice wine and some table wines. We even tried some Cabernet Franc icewine, which is the only time I've had icewine made from red grapes (it didn't taste any different to a white grape icewine but was much more expensive). I was hoping to find some smaller wineries but even the smallest of their wineries was as big as the big ones I have seen in Australia. When we stopped for lunch the waiter recommended one winery to me as "the Disneyland of wineries" which didn't sound quite right.
We had lunch at the Anchorage, where two guys a couple of decades before had had quite a few beers and designed a game called Trivial Pursuit. Apparently they had an unpaid bar tab of a thousand dollars so they gave the owner shares in their company instead which later turned out to be worth millions. We then went for a walk on the beautiful historic main street of Niagara-on-the-Lake where one store was selling Australian rugby shirts made in Canada.
I realise I've mentioned several times this name "Niagara" so without any further ado we finally got ourselves up to the Falls themselves. We parked at the casino and Bev did some shopping while Bob and I went down to have a look. It was raining, which was fortunate because all the spray from the falls gets one wet anyway, so we were dressed for the occasion. From my days as a lowly student at boarding school where all the older boys pushed us out of the way to get the showers with the best pressure, I am a fan of good water pressure. As I watched the falls I drooled at the thought of a shower with such pressure. Being from a water-precious country it was also hard to walk away from the falls without thinking I should turn them off while not using them.
We rode up a funicular to get back to the casino and I met some Australian people. The lady said she was from Canberra and when I said I had lived in Belconnen she went all snobby on me because she was from Yarralumla.
I was really looking forward to dinner as the casino had a buffet including crab legs and prawns for only $20. The queue to get in was very long however and a lady gave us a reservation to come back in two hours. We went to the pub and Bev even got in some gambling but decided it was time to quit when she had lost $6. When we came back the queue was just as long and Bob didn't like the idea of pushing in front of the queue so we snuck in the gold members entrance instead, which meant we were given better seats.
The crab legs were divine - I was in heaven and its capital was Ottawa. I was quite slow on the first crab but then Bev spotted a Chinese lady eating crab who had a really good technique so we copied her. An hour and a quarter later, I was just finishing my third crab when I realised that Bob and Bev had finished their whole meal and I still hadn't even seen what was on offer in the other parts of the buffet. I rushed around and scavenged what I could and when I found out that soft drinks were on the house, I skulled one more cup of root beer and took an apple for the road.

Sun Oct 29 - In the morning, Randy showed us his mint condition 1961 Corvette, which is a beautiful car that is one of only ten thousand ever made. We then visited four more wineries, including the most famous one, Inniskillin. A lady there told us the history of icewine in the area and it was only in 1991 that people in Europe began to take notice of the Canadian icewine. Icewine originated in Germany and Austria but Niagara is the only region so far in the world that has good icewine conditions year in, year out. They need to have three days in a row less than minus 12 degrees before they will pick the grapes in the middle of the night. In the early days they found nightpickers by going to the pubs at closing time and offering the drunks more free booze if they helped pick the grapes. At Inniskillin I tried a sparkling icewine and wooded icewine for the first time. We did this in a barn designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Another smaller winery we went to hadn't picked grapes for three years because of the frost. Bigger wineries, such as Inniskillin, can afford to have powered fans to keep the air circulating on frosty mornings (once the frost hits a grape it will no longer develop).
We had dinner at Jane and Dennis's (Bob's brother) place. Jane took her cooking seriously and prepared a delicious meat-based pasta thing (forget the Italian name for it). She also provided a vegetarian canneloni which wasn't homemade and wasn't as nice so I was quick to say it was secondrate (complimenting by deduction) which she appreciated.

Mon Oct 30 - Unbelievably the two weeks had flown by and my time in Canada had come to an end and I still hadn't bought Reese pieces. It seems absurd to the Australian palate to have bits of candy filled with peanut butter but they are actually quite tasty (I had some in New York).
We left quite early because Bob said that it could take up to two hours to clear customs. Bob warned me not to point or say anything funny. The night before I heard that in times gone past the first guy at the border wasn't so bright, so after we talked to him I said to Bob "he didn't seem that dumb" and Bob whispered "careful, they've got all sorts of microphones and cameras at this place".
The next official was very stern as he asked me a few questions but then right at the end he gave me a big heartwarming smile and said "welcome to the United States of America". It was as if I had won a much coveted job and I was delighted. Unfortunately my fingerprints are officially on record so I will be trackable if a Big Brother society comes into existence. At least it will save people the trouble of fishing around in my rubbish bin to get my fingerprints like they do in the movies.
We drove across the border and then I experienced the unique thrill of trying to negotiate the American road system without really knowing where one was going. Luckily it was only for twenty minutes or so and Bob (with Bev as the steadfast nagivator) did an admirable job of getting to Buffalo airport without taking a single wrong turn.
After our heart rates had calmed down, I had a pepperoni pizza and said goodbye to Bob and Bev. I went through the passport check but the official wouldn't give my passport back until I said "G'day" so I put on my best Australian accent. I then stepped into a machine which blew blasts of air at me. I didn't find out why but I assumed it was to get my dimensions on record. I could have puffed out my cheeks to confuse them but I didn't think of it at the time.
The plane I got onto was quite small and the ceiling was only about six feet high. We taxied out to the runway and then the pilot said that there was a delay for half an hour (they refer to it as being placed in the penalty box). We flew downstate New York on the way to Newark airport, New Jersey and for the first time I got to see Manhattan sans Twin Towers.
I stayed with my Sikh friend, Inder and his wife Surpreet and five-month-old son, Maheep. There was a no alcohol, no meat and no shoes policy in the house which was a challenge but it did allow me to have my first alcohol-free day for quite a while. That night we went to the Sikh temple to a concert for a couple of hours which was also a challenge because one had to sit crosslegged on the floor the whole time. When I tried to stretch my legs out Surpreet said that it was disrespectful to the guru to show the soles of my feet. Later when Inder said that they were going to spend the whole weekend at the temple I decided that the weekend would be a good time to stay in Manhattan. I said to Inder that it would be interesting to go but that my knees wouldn't cope.

Tue Oct 31 - I went for a walk around Franklin Park, New Jersey which turned out to be an unusual thing to do. There were thousands of cars but I would only see another pedestrian every ten minutes or so. Some streets didn't even have footpaths. No wonder obesity is such a problem. I went to the supermarket and ran into Surpreet. It was Halloween so I bought some candy in case any kids knocked on the door but by the time we got home it was past bedtime. I would now have to eat the Junior Mints, almond M&Ms, Big Red chewing gum and Riesen chocolate all by myself.
When we got home I sat with the family for half an hour while Inderpreet said a prayer.

Wed Nov 1 - I was determined to leave early so that I could spend a full day in New York but just as I was ready to go, Inderpreet's mum indicated that I couldn't because she was just about to serve up some paratha (similar to naan, with some potato and vegetable filling). It was delicious and she was kind enough to give me four of them for the road.
I finally got the bus to New York which took nearly two hours. As we got closer I would get a glimpse of the New York skyline every few minutes or so and I became more and more excited. We went from New Jersey to Manhattan using the Lincoln tunnel which was very slow going and finally we emerged from the tunnel - drum roll ..... I was in New York! Without soaking it in too much, I raced to the subway and caught a train to my hostel. The hostel was just off the famous 5th Avenue but at the Harlem end.
I checked in, walked the streets of Harlem feeling very white back to the subway, and caught a train down to midtown and ran several blocks across town to the pier just in time to catch the three-hour Manhattan-circling Circle Line ferry. I sat down on one side of the boat trying to get my breath back and then swapped sides a couple of times (along with the handful of other people on that level) while the boat did a five point turn until we were sure which way the boat was headed. After the boat got going, there were things to see on both sides of the boat so I was constantly pacing back and forth across the boat to try to see everything before the tour guide had a break after about an hour and I discovered that there was a whole deck above mine containing about hundred people where one could sit and look out both sides from one spot.
The tour guide had a fantastic New York accent and was hilarious, especially when he pointed out the Yankees stadium and said that it was the venue for the 2007 World Series baseball between the Yankees and the Mets which was met by a groan from all the Americans on the boat who obviously supported a baseball team that wasn't based in New York. I took hundreds of photos, nearly using up both my batteries in the process (it would be three days before I could recharge them) and at the end I gave the guide a couple dollars tip and said he should make a recording of his presentation.
To get on the boat I had bought a New York City pass which gave me access to five attractions for about half the total price. I used the pass to go to another attraction - the top of the Empire State Building. During my last trip to New York it had been a smoggy summer but this time the air was much clearer. As an extra bonus, the queue was also only five minutes long because it wasn't tourist season.
I stayed up for about two and a half hours and stayed to watch all the city lights come on. From there I trained it to the Lincoln Center, where the Metropolitan Opera (arguably the most famous opera company in the world), the New York City Opera and New York Philharmonic performed. I assumed that there would be no tickets left for the Met (how wrong I was) and bought a $25 ticket to see Carmen at the NY City Opera.
It was a good performance and the murder scene was great but strangely the audience struggled to continue their applause through all of the performers bows. The conductor had to sprint from the orchestra pit to get to the stage in time for his bow and I think it was just me and one other person still clapping by the time he got there. I asked someone at the subway about the applause and they said that it was a good performance but because it was midweek everyone just wanted to get home and couldn't afford the time to clap (that extra two minutes is vital).

Thu Nov 2 - I went to the Met to see if there were any cheap tickets for the next few days. They had Joan Sutherland on the TV screen and I wanted to tell someone that she was Australian but noone was interested. I did a double take when they said they had $15 seated centre-of-the-row tickets. I bought a ticket and when I thought over how cheap it was I completely revised my plans for the next few days and went back to the ticket counter to buy tickets for two other nights.
I then wandered around the southern historic tip of Manhattan, took a few gratuitous photos of squirrels (they kept moving all the time and it wasn't until I got to the colder climate of Colorado that the weather had slowed one down enough to pose for me), had a look at the New York Stock Exchange Building and went to the twin towers museum. They had artifacts from the site, including plane bits, fireman uniforms and charred everyday office items. There were a couple of walls with thousands of photos of the deceased. They also had audio and written testimonials of some of the survivors including one by the fireman that was portrayed by the Oliver Stone film who still had a great sense of humour despite the horrific time he went through.
My very first Met opera was one of my favourites, Rigoletto. Juan Pons barked his way through Rigoletto, Joseph Calleja elegantly bleated out the Duke but I fell in love with the voice of a singer I have never heard of, Ekaterina Siurina, as Gilda. Her phrases were like expensive chocolate that melted in the mouth seamlessly to nothingness. It was a voice that brought back memories of recordings of Elizabeth Schwarzkopf or Nellie Melba. Most other singers I heard at the Met struggled to fill the cavernous space but she filled it with no apparent effort yet still had an innocent youthful sound to her voice.
I was so excited to be there that at interval I used my $10 phone card (worth seven hours of phone call to Australia) to ring a few people to boast about where I was, on a phone right near a bust of my favourite singer, Beniamino Gigli. They also had other busts and paintings of many of the famous opera singers who had performed at the Met in the last 120 years. For some reason the bust of Caruso was surrounded by four naked women(?).
On the train home I overheard someone talking about the vocal technique of Corelli (another great Italian tenor). I was sorry to interrupt but couldn't help overhearing the conversation and found out the guy was a baritone with the New York City Opera (it was true. I googled him later). I said I wasn't that impressed with Juan Pons and he said that the Met was a business and to make ends meet they employed the biggest stars not the best opera singers. He also said that they booked five years ahead, which meant that some singers may have deteriorated in that time. It will also mean that I will not sing there until at least 2011. I was so intrigued by what he had to say that I forgot to change trains and had to walk several extra blocks through Harlem after midnight but am still here to tell the story.
Back at the hostel I met a Japanese guy and he gave me some Californian merlot in a coffee cup which was a nice drop for only $6 a bottle.

Fri Nov 3 - At breakfast I talked to a lady who was born on Welfare Island (now called Roosevelt Island) and said that I should try to get a job at Starbucks because they gave good tips. Failing that, the church had good jobs. I thanked her and the information is now in my blog for future reference.
It was a particular cold day which also happened to be the day I risked venturing out without my jumper. I shivered my way around Central Park and tried to warm myself with some singing practise. Eventually I found my way to the Guggenheim museum which had 75% of its viewing area closed and the lady asked me if I was sure I couldn't come back in two weeks time. They had some nice Kandinskys and Fontanas (famous for slashing his paintings, maybe as my brother suggested having watched too many Zorro shows as a youngster).
I nearly stepped on a raccoon on the way out and went to a Vietnamese restaurant where I talked to a couple who said that the departure of Pavarotti had left a huge hole in the opera world. There were very good tenors but no superstars. I couldn't promise them anything but said I would do my best.
I rushed off to see the Cavellera/Pagliacci double bill at the Met. The first opera had a Ukranian soprano with a huge voice and an equally huge wobble and I asked the person sitting next to me if it was OK to boo but he said it wasn't done in New York so I tried to do as loud a silent clap as I could when she came out for her applause. Most other people disagreed with me apparently, as she received a huge seated ovation. Was this an updated version of the Emperor's New Clothes?
I liked the Swiss tenor, Salvatore Licitra in the Pagliacci opera. He had the sweetness in his middle voice similar to Pavarotti although not the glorious height to his high notes. He had great presence on stage, playing a great murderer and it was very instructive to see some of the top tenors of our time in action.

Sat Nov 4 - It was about time I visited a part of New York that wasn't Manhattan. The Brooklyn Bridge walk was highly recommended so I caught the train to Brooklyn Heights. I walked along the rivers edge of Brooklyn which offered spectacular views of Manhattan. I went to a bottle shop and was very impressed that they had some Clare Valley 2002 Riesling. I asked the shop attendant if he could recommend a reasonably priced BYO restaurant in Manhattan, indicating that I probably wouldn't buy anything if I couldn't. He obliged and I bought bottles of riesling, Californian Zinfandel and Argentinan Malbec. They all turned out well, including the restaurant.
After walking the bridge and exhausting the rest of the batteries on my camera I caught up with Matze on 42nd street, who was the husband of the Andrea who I had met in Berlin. Since Matze was German, I figured he would be suffering realbeer-withdrawal and took him to a place that brewed their own beer. The place was packed and we met a couple from Philadelphia and they were so impressed with us that they left within minutes and gave us their seats.
From there we went to Tartine, the recommended restaurant in Greenwich Village. It took a little while to find it, especially after we asked someone where it was and he said "Yeah I know where it is. It's up there somewhere" then pointed in the wrong direction.
When we got there, the place was packed even though it was only 6pm - a good sign. It was cold and there were no bookings so if we wanted a place we would have to sit at one of the several tables outside for half an hour until an inside table was free, which was fine with us. I thought it was very important that we start airing out two of the bottles of wine right away, so we snuck out a couple of glasses and decided to have a few sips to monitor how the airing out was going. Later on as we sat at our table inside I said to Matze that we had started a trend, as subsequent groups of people came and also waited outside with much opening of bottles and chattering of teeth. I raised my glass to them to say cheers from my warm seat in an empathetic gesture but I got the feeling that they thought I was just some smug bastard making fun of them as they endured their cold wait.
The meal was delicious and I kept interrupting the couple next to us who may have been attempting to have a quiet romantic dinner (impossible in such a densely packed place). They were drinking the West Indian beer Red Stripe and I said that they must go to the cricket world cup because it was just down the road. They said they would think about it.
There was a group of Norwegians with their New York host named Stan that we got on well with while we waited so I arranged for us to catch up with them after the meal. Stan took us to another bar and eventually seven of us went back to his place. Stan was an excellent classical guitarist and cellist so we put on a show doing a few arias and guitar/cello pieces and even combined on a John Dowland piece. There was lots of red wine but I had to be careful because I didn't want to wake up in a hostel with a hangover. It was a privilege to finally visit someone's apartment in New York after seeing New York apartment life depicted in movies and TV for so many years. Stan kicked us out eventually and I got to sleep at 2:30am.

Sun Nov 5 - I found a spot in Harlem to sit on the side of the road and saw four black blokes chasing a Hispanic bloke down the street. Actually it was the New York marathon and those Kenyans never did catch up to the Brazilian. I sat on a set of steps and a lady who lived there said that the shootout scene from Carlito's Way had been filmed there. I said that they had done a good job of mopping up all the blood.
I went to the Natural History Museum for a second time after my 2000 visit and this time remembered to go to the dinosaur section. The T-rex wasn't as big as it seemed in the movies but the blue whale was very impressive. I also liked the extinct megafauna, with a few Aussies such as the diprotodon in the lineup.
Catching the bus back to New Jersey was tricky as there were several buses but there only seemed to be one queue. As I walked alongside the queue I asked a few people if they were waiting for the same bus as me and one guy rudely said "Back of the line" in a broad New Jersey accent. I walked a few steps before thinking I shouldn't let someone speak to me like that but I wasn't able to start a trans-Pacific heated exchange because I didn't actually see who had said it. Of course it turned out to be the wrong line so I ended up waiting an extra hour.
That evening Inderpreet asked me about my singing and I told him about my newly acquired high C. He asked to hear it and I cranked one out after which Maheep bawled his eyes out for the next five minutes. I have this effect on babies.

Mon Nov 6 - I went to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) which had some paintings that I recognised. There were some excellent paintings but unusually for such a famous art gallery it only took three hours to get through everything. I bought some chestnuts from a street vendor but they weren't as good as the chestnuts that I cook in the sandwich maker at work in Sydney (someone said that the screws had come out of the sandwich maker while I was away but I wasn't there to blame).
I panicked a little bit when I checked the internet and found that there were no beds left in the intended hostel on hostelworld. I rang the hostel and they said that there were plenty of beds left.
I shelled out another $15 and went to see Rigoletto again and the Russian soprano was again fantastic. I took a couple of photos of the interior before the show started and got told off by an usher - I hadn't seen the no photography sign out the front. There were quite a few others who also hadn't seen the sign as there were numerous flashes going off during the applause.

Tue Nov 7 - I still had some Cheerios and milk left at the hostel from my previous visit even though I had traded them with a Japanese guy for some Californian merlot. All I needed was a banana and while out buying one I couldn't resist buying some American eggnog. It was much too sweet, so I left it in the fridge and it is probably still there to this day.
I met two Canadian nurses and went with them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met was fantastic and would take several days to do justice. The modern section was divided into abstract and realistic paintings and when I walked back from the realist to the abstract section (the highlight for me was a Jackson Pollock) it felt like I was going from the adult to the kiddies section.
There was an excellent ancient Cyprus section and huge impressive 19th century American landscapes or action paintings, including the one with Washington on the boat. There was also an impressive armour display (including Henry VIII armour) and musical instrument display. We went out for lunch and I got to catch my first New York yellow cab.
In the late afternoon I caught up with Stan, who was married to my second cousin Jodie (who I hadn't seen for twenty years). I rode the bus back with him to a different part of New Jersey and they put me up for a couple of nights. They had three children, the youngest of which Zali was very sociable and had me playing all sorts of games. Zali did a song and dance so I sang back to her. Later her six year old sister, Chloe the Irish dancing star, danced. Their ten year old brother Sam didn't have an act for the night but thought it was pretty cool that I was such a distant cousin.

Wed Nov 8 - I got up fairly early and Zali started to cry when she found out that I was already awake. I pretended to go back to sleep and she tickled me awake. It was raining the whole day which was quite a challenge as I only had my holey shoes with me, so I tried walking on my heels.
It was however, the perfect day to go to a gallery (rather than the intended Bronx zoo) so I went back to the Natural History Museum to see all the stuff that I missed the previous Sunday. It was impossible to see everything that I had missed but the choice was made easier for me by a list of sections that were closing at a certain time of day because they were hosting some rich shindig there.
Going around the different sections was a bit like working my way up from the lower decks of the Titanic during sinking time because after I finished each section they would close it off for the various functions and I couldn't go back. It became increasingly hard to get around the museum as more and more sections were closed off. When it was time to go it should have taken me two minutes to get back to the cloakroom to pick up my bag but instead took me twenty minutes as I did increasingly bigger and bigger circles in an effort to get past the Prada handbag display blockade. I felt like Rupert the Bear in the episode when he got stuck in a department store after closing (you know the episode, it was in the 1974 Rupert the Bear annual).
I had a hankering to go to a BYO restaurant with a half bottle of wine but in this neighbourhood I wasn't able to get good recommendations from the bottle shops - they said the restaurants would charge at least $15 for corkage. I resigned myself to once again visiting (for the third time) the Vietnamese place with Bass on tap.
By this stage my socks were really wet so I then hid myself in a toilet cubicle of the glamorous Metropolitan Opera of New York building with my socks on my hands in a vain attempt to dry them out while I waited for the start of my fifth and last opera, Madame Butterfly. I had a standing room ticket to Madame Butterfly, the seating for which had been booked out for months. It was a production directed by Anthony Minghella of The English Patient, Cold Mountain fame.
It was a fabulous production which included three Kabuki puppeteers playing Madame Butterfly's son. My feet were killing me but the use of coloured light and the dance numbers were breathtaking. The death scene was shattering with a fifteen-metre long red sash flowing from her neck in both directions after she committed suicide. When Pinkerton comes running back yelling her name and then the orchestra finishes with a dramatic chord change it is one of the truly great moments in opera and it was staged brilliantly. Apart from the boring middle hour-and-a-half and the singing, I loved it.
I had to wait an hour for the bus and one guy yelled out in frustration after he'd missed his. I later saw him passed out at the bottom of an escalator. I got back to my cousin's at 1:15am but fortunately it was still before Stan's bedtime.

Thur Nov 9 – I started the day with my first American bagel that Stan bought for me and it was delicious. It had a soft warm chewy texture inside and I had it with cream cheese.
It was time I visited a new borough so I caught the subway out to the Bronx zoo. One of the first things I saw in the Bronx was a juvenile detention centre with high walls and barbed wire. From the train, one could see over the walls into the exercise yard but sadly there was no prison outdoor life for me to view that day.
The zoo was fantastic with most enclosures having elaborate settings. A very popular attraction was the tiger enclosure with its own pool and small waterfall. I also saw a tree kangaroo, some bison and went through a tropical section and a nocturnal section. Each enclosure had their own squirrels as well but I don’t think they were supposed to be there. There was a zookeeper guarding some rare cranes and I asked him if he was making sure that they didn’t escape.

Fri Nov 10 – It was time to fly west but I couldn’t resist having one last east coast beer before I left, even though it was only 9:30am. I flew to Denver, Colorado and the land became much more barren the further we flew. I knew we were getting close to our destination when out of the billiard-table-like countryside sprung the magnificent Rockies. There are 56 mountains with peaks higher than 14000 feet in Colorado.
Denver airport was impressive with an underground train between terminals. I was called ma’am when I lined up for lunch and I resisted the urge to say that they must have some really ugly women in America.
I rang up Cathy the singing teacher and arranged a lesson for later in the day. The information person looked at me strangely when I said I wanted to get to Denver University using public transport and after some consultation with his cohort offered me a route. Over the next few days I would have four different routes to Denver University recommended to me, with each one promised as the quickest way and involving three or four different bus/tram lines.
I managed to get there with ten minutes to spare (I had started out nearly three hours before). Cathy listened to me and suggested I give up being a spinto tenor for now and concentrate on the lyric repertoire. What she said made sense as I think it will be quite a few years before I can sing the tenor in Tosca, so no E Lucevan Le Stelle from me for the next few years. The good news was that she said I could sing La Boheme, La Traviata, Mozart and most of the French repertoire.
I then caught the bus for an hour to get to the town of Boulder where the hostel only charged $19 a night for a bed. It was in a student area, which was especially in evidence when the local Mexican restaurant served me a margharita in a big soft drink cup.

Sat Nov 11 –