MLai - Reflecting my Life

So currently I’m on a train from Brussels to Rotterdam. Thought I’d write a quick entry before I forget. I’m not too sure where I left off last, and which holes I haven’t filled. Since arriving in Paris from Bern, its been OK - great place to finish off the France section. So the day after my last entry - I turned up to the Eiffel Tower at about… 8:30 am. The lines weren’t so bad - maybe 30 people in front of me. There were 3 lines. Of course, I ended up in the line which was walking only. 670 steps to the second floor. Quite hard in the beginning, but it gets easier once you pass 200 steps. Then an elevator all the way to the top. It was great when I got there since not too many people had reached the top yet, so I was able to walk around freely enough. The view is quite nice. There weren’t too many people walking about either since it was sprinkling. Grabbed a few shots up there before heading back down.
Then walked over to the Arc De Triomphe. Who knew there was an underground passage way to get there. I just navigated through the 5 lanes of traffic. It wasn’t that busy when I was there. Walked again, up the few hundred stairs to get to the top. Love the wide angle  - I hope the shots turn out alright - just being able to fit 3 streets in at a time makes the image look sweet. Went back to the hostel to grab Nick, before heading back out to the Arc De Triomphe and walk down the Champs Elysees, then into the Lourve. There were no lines, so it was a quick walk in. It was a great place to escape the rain. The place is huge, and most people say it’d take at least half a day, if not two to see the whole lot. Notre Dame was next, then the Pantheon and then Centre Pompidou - which looks… kinda crap. Maybe I just don’t appreciate it, or the whole thing didn’t fit in one shot.
The next day, headed off to Lisses / Evry Courcouronnes to meet Rhys - basically the greatest parkour practitioner in Australia. He was… late, quite late, but once he arrived, everything started to look like what you’d see in videos. As we were walking to Lisses from Evry, I spoted a few things, one main one being the Dame Du Lac. Its a whole lot smaller than it looks in videos but its still at a crazy height once you stand at the foot of it. Getting to Lisses, you can see the stairs which David Belle descends from one to the other, and a small training quad which many videos and photos have been shot. Unfortunately I didn’t catch Rhys on those stairs, but grabbed some at the quad. Around the corner is a famous set of red/brown stairs, yellow/orange walls. I grabbed shots of this, but no action shots. The school where the roof gaps were just a bit further down. A rock right next to a 6 foot fence which many people jump straight over. Rhys showed me a local training route which the locals often do. Its a square park with rocks and trees around the boundary of the park. The aim it to not touch the floor, and if you do then to start again. The jumps get longer and harder, and climbing the trees is necessary. We hit the Dame Du Lac next, and that thing is amazing. As we got in, Rhys couldn’t help himself, and scaled it as fast as any other person I’ve seen. Its an impressive structure , in my eyes, built for nothing else but parkour - maybe rockclimbing in the early stages but its intention was to be a piece of artwork. I unfortunately didn’t scale it all the way to the top, but I did climb it.
A short walk back to Evry and we found a common playground in most videos shot in Evry. Here there were locals and guys from everywhere else there, practicing. It was great to see kids there, giving it a go, and wanting to. The other people there are all helpful, and its a great thing to see, something thats lacking in Australia. Watching Rhys progress is one of the most inspirational things you could ever see. He just tries and tries, there was a cat precision he has wanted to land for a while which he has seen last time, but wasn’t able to do it, and this time, after a few attempts, nailed it. Once is never.
Then it was to see the man power jump. The jump only 3 people (could be wrong about that) have done - David Belle being one of them. It was… not as big as I thought it was. Its a decent drop at 4 metres, the length would be about… 4 metres also. There was no way to get up there unless I hung off the outside of the stair case, so my shots of it are only from the ground.
It was a brilliant day, and the weather was great, I just hope the photos turn out looking amazing. Chilled out dinner last night. Met one of Nicks friends for lunch today before heading onto our train. I think there’ll be over a weeks worth of processing time for all my photos. I’ve been shooting RAW for the whole of yesterday, and quite a few more times in RAW.
France was pretty cool, Lisses definately topped it off for me. Just passed through Brussels, which we’ll be coming back to. So its Rotterdam for a night, and then Amsterdam for 3 before heading back into Brussels for 3 and then I’ll be off into London. I’ll be visiting the attractions on one day, one other day I’ll head off to Cambridge to check out the Parkour scene there because I’ve been told there will be quite impressive people showing up there. Also a bunch of Aussie guys will be there as well.

Sitting at the park outside the Eiffel Tower. The sun just set and the tower is lit up. Blue. The queues to get up are a bit nuts at the moment - so I might head back here tomorrow morning to check out the lines before heading up. We took the longest journey to get here. From Bern, train to Basel, then to Mullhouse Ville, before a train to Paris Est. A couple Metro trains took us the rest of the way. 7+ hours later we get here. Hostel - 3 ducks hostel - doesn’t look so great. The shower is in the middle of the room - so there is no bathroom. Oh and wifi is NOT FREE here! It is right next to a metro station which is good, but it seems metro stations are about 5 minutes walk apart. Definately time for some dinner soon.
Tomorrow - I’ll get up early to hopefully climb this Eiffel Tower, and the Arc De Triomphe. The most probably head back to the hostel to grab Nick before heading to Evry. I thought we should go there tomorrow and not the day after since its a Sunday - so on Monday everything will be open and possibly less lines. But also hope that tomorrow - being on the weekend - I might be able to catch some photos of people in Evry practising parkour.
Day after - Monday - will be to check out the rest of the sites. Tuesday we’ll be heading off to Holland.

Wow, not having written for so long makes me forget things. So I believe I was on my way to Marseille. Our hostel in Marseille was in an area right next to the station. It was amongst the run-down backstreets and so at night - it was a bit scary. The town itself is quiet and people are generally nice. The night we turned up we had Cous Cous which was well worth it. Recommended by the hostel receptionist as a cheap eat in the area. The next day, just a whole lot of walking and exploring and found our way up to Notre-Dame de la garde.

We only stayed in Marseille for one night. We then trained it to Lyon for 2 nights. Lyon was quite different again to the other towns since it was less touristy. We walked through the old town, new town, and climbed up another huge hill to get to a Basillica - Notre-Dame de Fourviere. Gorgeous view from the top - just wish it was sunset rather than in the middle of the day. That night I had snails for the first time. It was quite nice - just tasted of garlic and butter. Also had some kind of sausage which is famous in Lyon… It didn’t taste that great… and I felt kind of sick afterwards. The town is quite lit up at night. We went back to the basillica that night, but without the camera. The town looks amazing during the night with all its lights on.

I spent quite a bit of time holding my laptop out the window of our hostel room… just because there was no connection inside the room - anywhere - but there was some signal strength when I stuck the laptop out the window. I was clearly desperate for an internet connection and didn’t want to go all the way down to the kitchen for wireless. It didn’t help on the last day when the lift broke down. We were on the second top floor…

Next morning, we headed to the French Alps. Trained it to St Gervais and then a train to Chamonix. Chamonix would be quite alive in the winter time since it was packed when we got there. People are a bit rude and unhelpful in the town. The best place to go would be the tourist information point. We were told the main cable car has a 2 hour wait, so we headed to Grands Montets instead which isn’t as high, but there was no line. A bus took us straight there. Cable car to the top - you can see Mount Blanc - which I guess is the main thing you’d want to see. There are quite a few paragliders that travel the same path and jump off the edge. I really wanted a shot of those guys up close, but couldn’t get down to where they were and we were quite short on time.

We made our connecting trains afterwards, and made it to Bern… at just past 12 am. Arrived here, no reception, panicked a bit, called the “emergency” number, which I’m sure was just the hostel owners home number, and found out they left me an envelope at the bar downstairs. It was a good thing, otherwise we would’ve slept on the floor… somewhere… Today, walked around the old town (all these towns have an old town), along the river - which we hope to swim in tomorrow morning before we leave - its quite popular to swim in it during the winter, but it is a bit cold, and it did just start raining, so we’ll see tomorrow, and saw the bear in the hole… its a bit sad seeing people throw apples and things down at the bear, it just doesn’t seem right… Back in the hostel now for a break from all the walking.

Everything here is quite expensive. I guess Maccas is the best way to deduce that. It was just under 12 Swiss-Francs for a medium Big Mac meal… and our aussie dollar is 95 Swiss-Franc cents… so yes, instead of our 6-7 dollar meal, its nearly double… we ate it anyway… On the topic of food, chocolate filled crossants are the best breakfast snacks ever.

Tomorrow - train at about 10 am - 7 hour train journey into Paris. All the TGV trains are booked (it would take about 5 hours to get into Paris via Geneve). Not looking forward to that one at all. Then Paris for 3 nights… so I’ll want to catch the attractions, go to Evry and check out the birthplace of Parkour, and check out the shops. I’ve been told shopping is quite expensive there… I’ll hopefully have internet in the room.

So I’m actually in Marseille at the moment. Just a quite note for travellers out there. Make sure you bring a laptop with you. Most hostels charge for using THEIR computers for the internet. WIFI is FREE. So just as long as you bring a laptop / borrow one / buy the EeePC, the internet is then free. Internet prices range from 1 Euro for 10 minutes to 1 Euro for 1 hour. At hostels, they are generally 1 Euro for 15 minutes - 30 minutes.

So anyway, Nice was a relaxing town. We had KFC on the corner  of our block - extremely handy. I was however, locked out of my room in the early hours of the morning because the door handle broke. Long night. So on arrival we had a walk to the beach there - gorgeous colour - I’ve got some nice photos of the beach that day. We’ve been having quiet nights, both because Nick is still unwell, and also because the hostels we’ve been at lately don’t have common rooms and cheap drinks. The next day, we had a day trip out to Monaco. Its quite a rich town, nice looking ports and it just has that expensive atmostphere about it. Back to Nice and I went for a walk on my own to the highest point in the Old Town of Nice - as well as through it. Colourful place, small streets, lots of cafes and bars. The view from the top was quite beautiful - although the sun was out and there was a huge haze over the town.

Next morning - which was this morning, I headed out at 7 am to the beach. Only locals about - it felt really good to be amongst the locals, swimming and lying around - having them joke around. Its like a regular thing for them. Headed back at 10 am to pack and get some shopping done - only found a couple things - and then onto a train here to Marseille.

Blisters are killing me at the moment. Hopefully head out on a quick walk to the port this evening and catch some dinner and tomorrow a walk to the castle and some vantage points over the city before hitting a beach for the rest of the day. Tomorrow evening we’ll be heading to Lyon. Hopefully there’ll be free wifi there.

I can’t quite remember what I wrote last time, but I’m currently in Riomaggiore. Its my second night here. So possibly the last time I left off was in Florence. So the last night in Florence was a quite one since we had an early train out the next day (which didn’t really happen) to Pisa and then to La Spezia and then to Cinque Terre. So we headed to the Duomo and had to queue up for that. It just wasnt that great… We did however, and stupidly, climb the tower next to it. 400+ steps. It had the best view of Florence though. I’ve got a few pictures of that. In climbing this tower, we ended up trying to race back to our accommodation to grab our bags and back to the train station. When we got back to the hostel, we ended up 5 minutes out from catching the train, and we decided it just wasn’t going to happen. So instead, we went for a swim in the pool. As left after about 40 minutes (train comes every hour), we decided to grab a feed since we hadn’t had breakfast. Found ourselves an asian take out place and grabbed ourselves sweet and sour pork… it took about 10 minutes to make! And so we missed out train… for sweet and sour pork… which I guess ended up being worth it, but just not at the time since we ran with our backpacks to the station.
Train to Pisa took about an hour, and the walk to the actual leaning tower was about 20-25 minutes. As you arrive, EVERYONE is holding a stupid pose. It’s quite funny to watch, until you have to do it. I guess its a must do. The square in which its in is quite small. Nice buildings, but nothing else there.
Then we trained it to La Spezia and onto Riomaggiore. Found our accommodation. Its a bit of a shock the space allocation we’ve been given. Basically, its like a really small apartment. Kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, living room and a second bedroom. All livable rooms have at least 3 beds in it. The living room has 5 and no windows. Company is nice here, main aussies who are heading off to live in London and wanted a quick break before work begins.
Last night, we had dinner with a few people in our “dorm”. It was at a restaurant – the portion just wasn’t enough… it was then followed by drinks on the rocks next to the water. It was quite nice and cool. Had an awesome view of the buildings as well as the ocean.
Today, woke up early enough to get a move on with the walking track. Total walking time for all 5 towns was 3 and a half hours. We stopped in Vernazza for a lie down on the rocks. The weather turned out alright for the walk. We ended up getting to Monterosso and it was cold enough that we didnt need to or want to hop into the water at the beach there. The walk was amazing. It is actually quite scenic. The last section took about an hour and a half. Some people recommend doing it from Monterosso to Riomaggiore, so you get the hard bit over and done with first, but theres not much reward to end up in Riomaggiore. The first 3 towns are a breeze to walk. If you start at Monterosso, there are a tonne of uphill steps right at the beginning, which would basically wear you out considerably.
Just had pizza for dinner, shower soon – the weather isn’t the best to be out at the rocks again tonight, but we’ll see about that.We’ll then be off at 10am tomorrow to hop on a train to Genoa and then onto Nice and should arrive at abuot 4pm.
I’ve gone through all the CF cards I’ve got on me, so its time to start recycling, and I’ll have to double check all my cards tonight to make sure I’ve got all the photos saved before I hit the format button.
Nearly 3000 photos right now… and only 2 weeks have gone! I currently cant say I’ve got too many amazing photos, but enough I’m sure to satisfy me.