Moo

I am currently eating cheese. Delicious cheese. France does cheese very well. And yoghut. And pretty much anything dairy.
I'm definitely going to miss the dairy aisles of the supermarkets here when I return to Oz.

And in other news, I will definitely finish writing the rest of my travel story... I've just been procrastinating lately.

Two lists

I was thinking about lists on the flight from Prague to Paris and figured I may as well post two of them:

Here's my updated list of countries that I've visited (in chronological order of my first visit there):

Australia
Austria
Slovakia
Hungary
Croatia
Slovenia
Italy
Poland
Germany
Czech Republic
Vatican
France
Singapore
Macau
Hong Kong
United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales)
Switzerland
Ireland
Denmark
Sweden
Turkey
Ukraine
Transdniestr
Moldova
Romania
Bulgaria

The second list is a list of all the airlines I've flown with, which was an appropriate list to think about while flying (listed in chronological order of my first flight with each company):

Qantas
Virgin Blue
Emirates
SkyEurope
W!zzair
Jetstar
Tigerair
Oasis
Ryanair
Sterling
FlyNordic
British Airways
Czech Airlines
Airfrance

Part 1 of the Black Sea Adventure

At the moment I'm sitting next to gate D3 in Prague International Airport, waiting for my connecting flight to Paris, after flying here from Istanbul.
This is basically the end of my 2-week holiday after Lines 2008 through the countries around the western side of the Black Sea. I'll be back in Paris soon (although it seems like ages because I have to wait until 20:10 for my flight to board and it's only 19:20 at the moment).
It's been a great trip, through several new places, all of them interesting in their own way. The trip started with a flight to Istanbul from London, where we (Kat and I) spent a couple of days before taking a 2-night ferry to Odessa, Ukraine. Odessa was a pretty town, and will probably be a lot nicer in the coming years as it seemed like half of it was under renovation or reconstruction. I found my basic knowledge of Polish to be quite useful in Odessa (and on the ferry, which was a Ukrainian company) because I was able to understand quite a few basic things, especially a lot of foods and menu items, which was handy in restaurants. We stayed just one night in Odessa, in a strange hotel (also under major renovation) where our room had a rather large support beam right in the middle of it, which was a trap for tall people, but useful for hanging clothes on to dry/air.
After Odessa, we headed to a city called Tiraspol, which is the capital city of Transdniestr (sometimes called Transdinistria in English), a country which doesn't actually exist, apparently. The rest of the world belives it to be a region in Moldova, but the Transdniestrians are quite certain it's an independant communist state (basically the last remnant of the USSR). The government building is called Soviet House. We hadn't heard of the country before we read about it in a guide book while in the hotel in Odessa, and then proceded to visit this country that very day. On the way in, from Ukraine, the border post to what the rest of the world regards as Moldova, is actually Transdniestr. The border guards were actually quite helpful, and one of them spoke fairly good English, who asked us if we knew that it was Transdniestr and not Moldova, and told us that we would need to register with the Police if we wanted to stay longer than 10 hours. At that point we'd considered staying overnight in Tiraspol, but the thought of dealing with Soviet-style biurocracy convinced us that maybe a short stay would be better. After arriving in Tiraspol and looking around for a couple of hours, we realised that a stay of less than 10 hours was really all that was needed to see all of the city, so we hopped on a bus and headed for Chisinau, Moldova. At the "border" between Moldova and Transdniestr, the Transdniestrian border guards (who didn't speak much English at all) told us that we needed to have a stamp on our transit pass in order to be allowed to leave, which was contrary to what the first guy had told us. We pointed this out, but they either didn't understand, or didn't want to, and kept trying to convince us that we'd need to return to Tiraspol to have our papers stamped. This happened at about 7pm on a Friday night, and we didn't feel it was likely that this magical passport office would be opened late Friday night, or all weekend, for that matter. After quite a bit of discussion (while the rest of our bus was waiting patiently for us, thankfully), one of the guards took us into a small room, closed the door and windows, and said "Chisinau OK, present" and we got the hint that if we were to slip some money his way, we would be allowed to leave. We tried with all the Ukrainian Hrivy that we had (I can't remember how much exactly) and with the 55 or so Transdniestrian Roubles also remaining (which aren't able to be exchanged in any other country because the money apparently doesn't exist according to the international community). This apparently wasn't enough for him, and I remembered that I had a 20euro note in my bag, so I offered him that and he accepted it right away and let us continue on to Moldova. Incidentally, Moldova doesn't have a corresponding checkpoint there because the Moldovans don't regard it as a border, so we technically never entered Moldova. This incident was my first experience bribing border guards (or bribing anyone official, for that matter). After Tiraspol and Transdniestr, Chisinau seemed positively refined and civilised, and it was quite a relief to get there.

London

I'm in London. I arrived here yesterday evening, and I'll be leaving very soon. In about 15mins, in fact, to head to the train station to catch a train that will hopefully take me in the direction of Cold Ash, where I'll be spending my summer. Well, most of my summer.

Trois trzy three

Il me reste trois jours avant que je n'aille en Angleterre.
Jeszcze jest trzy dni przed jadę do Anglii.
There are three days left before I go to England.

Je vais partir en Angleterre

Oui. Je serai en Angleterre jeudi soir. Je vais prendre l'Eurostar et j'y vais arriver vers 17h30. Vendredi, j'irai à Cold Ash, la petite village où se trouve l'école où je travaillerai cet été.
L'été dernier, j'y étais et mes colleagues m'ont dit que facebook était bloqué, pour quel raison unconnu. Ce n'était pas un problème pour moi car je ne m'étais pas déjà inscrit, mais cette année j'ai peur d'être incapable de regarder mon profil, et de ne pas être capable de jouer du Scrabulous pendant six semaines! Quelle horreur!
C'est possible que les informaticiens à l'école ont changé d'avis, et qu'ils ont debloqué le site facebook. Que j'éspère.
Sinon, ne vous inquietez pas, je jouerai du Scrabulous sur fbook dès que je pourrai.

Football noise

Spain has just won the Euro Cup 2008 (football/soccer for those who haven't been following it). Germany lost the final. Nat is probably happy, as it will be quieter in Berlin tonight than if Germany had won, but I think the Germans in Paris would be fewer and quieter than the Spaniards here, so I think I would have preferred it if Germany had won. I would like to get to sleep tonight, and it's not an option in this weather to sleep with the windows shut, so I guess I'll just have to put up with the sound.

Groan... why couldn't a quiet country have won? Like Iceland, for example. I'm sure there wouldn't be too many Icelanders in Paris, as there aren't many in the entire world, so it would be a more peaceful win.

This reflects my experience in Ireland

In most countries, road signs are used to help motorists get from one place to another. In Ireland, it's not so simple. Sign-posting here is heavily influenced by Einstein's theories (either that or the other way round) of space/time and works on the basis that there is no fixed reference point in the universe, or not west of Mullingar anyway. Instead, location and distance may be different for every observer and, frequently, for neighbouring road-signs. The good news is Language: Ireland is officially bilingual, a fact which is reflected in the road-signs. This allows you to get lost in both Irish and English.

(I didn't write this, I copied it from the interweb, but I can't work out who originally wrote it)

Open letter to the other occupants of my building

The lift is small. It hasn't got any windows, nor any other form of ventilation. The trip from the RdC (ground floor) to the top floor (6th) takes some time. I appreciate being able to breath oxygen during this trip, which I, and many other residents, make frequently.
Please DO NOT smoke inside this lift! It's disgusting and obnoxious, not to mention rude and selfish (which, it seems, I have just mentioned). Another resident of this building attacked the ashtray with sticky tape, in the hope that it'd give you the hint, but that doesn't seem to have worked. For fuck's sake, stop smoking in the lift!

L'ascenseur est petite. Il y a ni fenetre ni ventilation. Le voyage du RdC au sixième étage prend du temps. J'aime bien pouvoir respirer quand je suis à l'interieur, et j'y suis souvent, comme beaucoup d'autres habitants.
Merci de NE PAS fumer dans l'ascenseur! C'est immonde et détestable et egoïste. Quelqu'un a déjà mis du scotch pour condamner le cendrier, en ésperant que cela dissuade d'éventuels fumeurs d'enfumer l'ascenseur, mais je crois que ça n'a pas marché. Merde! Arretez de fumer dans l'ascenseur!

Poor Kermit

I guess Jim Henson's demise affected Kermit too:



For more info, click here.
(Thanks Crispin for alerting me to this issue)