final adventures in europe

Well who would think that time would fly so fast since my last proper blog entry... Mum and her partner Nigel have come and gone... I've experienced my final taste of Europe for quite a while... the sun is bathing Edinburgh in a lovely little heatwave and I have two months of leisure and travel ahead before I head home.

Last week I finished at the local council where I was doing temporary admin work in the Social Work dept...that was a sad day as everyone there was so so generous and friendly and even the clients were more often than not nice to me. We had a coffee morning on my last day for which I'd promised to make some sort of Australian sweet...of course in true Becky style I didn't think about this until 10pm the night before when I realised that I didn't have a recipe for an Australian sweet let alone the ingredients...in the end I settled on honey crackles which were only really Australian because I called them that and not the British name of honey joys. Getting back onto the point, I really enjoyed working with the Social Work team...I've since realised this is probably because it's the first office I've come across with out any huge hierarchy segregating the office...I could talk to the big manager in the same way I could talk to my peers...and that was a very nice :)

Around the time that I left work my Mum and Nigel finally arrived in Scotland which was really really exciting. It had been so long since I'd seen Mum that I was a little nervous going to see her at the train station but that went away after a couple of minutes. We went to Paris very early the next day which was probably a bit silly...Mum and Nigel had been travelling non stop for a while and we were all pretty exhausted when we finally reached the hotel near the Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile. Paris is so so hot!! The first day we woke up to tanks rolling past our hotel and fighter jets flying over...turns out it was Bastille Day and we didn't even realise! It was quite bizarre watching all the tanks driving through the city...they're such violent looking machines but children and women were climbing all over them and getting their photographs. We wandered through the stifling heat along the Champs Elysées, stopping at the Tuileries Gardens (above) for lunch before tackling the queue for the Louvre Museum.

On the way we ran into a protest by the local 'feral leftie' socialists that was sort of against Bastille Day...I spoke to a few of the people participating that were dressed as clowns and they weren't able to agree on exactly what it was about, but basically I took it to be against war. It was pretty cool to have my first experience of being a war photographer when the 'pink love' clowns went into battle against the powder blue bumble bees! (pics on my photostream)

Anyway for the rest of that day we wandered around the monstrosity that is the Lourve, seeing of course the Mona Lisa and some works by one of my favourite painters Caravaggio. We had dinner at a Parisian Thai restaurant (yum yum) then proceeded to the Eiffel Tower, where we stumbled upon a huge crowd that had gathered for fireworks. That was a pretty cool experience because we not only got to see a spectacular sight, but we also got to watch a large gathering of French people doing what they do.

The next day we went out to the La defence district where we saw the incredibly ginormous Grande Arch which was designed by the fantastically named Johann Otto von Spreckelsen. We also went to Montmartre which is a gorgeous area of Paris set on a hill with amazing views. It 's the really romantic and bohemian part of Paris that we all know from movies...the Moulin Rouge is there and I recognised quite a lot from the movie Amelie. If I lived in Paris of course I'd love to live there but unless I win the lottery this is not very likely!

After Montmartre went back to the Eiffel Tower so we could go up and check out the view without the fireworks...it was a gorgeous night and probably one of the busiest nights of the year for the Tower...the crowds were horrible but we got up and down the tower without being crushed in a stampede so I guess that's pretty good!

On our last day in Paris we went to Notre Dame. Since it was Sunday there was a traditional service on which was pretty cool. After that we checked out the Centre Georges Pompidou quickly then jumped on the hottest train I've ever been on to the CDG Airport. I swear this train was hotter inside than a sauna. Anyway, that's all I'm gonna say about Paris...it was great to finally see such an important city, but essentially it wasn't a favourite for any of us. Paris is not the friendliest city and that's not because of the people (who were actually pretty nice)...it's very ostentatious and formal and in such extreme heat it was pretty unpleasant. Everywhere you look there's white concrete, gravel or stone, there are few trees and the little grass you see you're not allowed to sit on. I'm certainly not an expert on the city but I will say one thing - don't ever go there in July!

Next installment in my travel diaries: the Scottish Highlands

Au revoir!