when in rome...

get jealous.

[aliveandtravelling]

the aftermath: this is why we can't have nice things.

i'm not happy with Europcar - and that's saying it nicely. I'm actually fucking furious right now.

I had to end my holiday early because unfortunately, my Grandmother passed away, so we returned to Sydney early. I rang Europcar before booking flights to double-check what the fees were for changing the drop-off location from Paris (the original plan) to Prague.

Keep in mind, the quote on the contract, which I hold in my hands right now says "Estimated Charges: 716.15EUR", which for having a nice car for 27 days seemed perfectly reasonable to me. No where on this contract does it at all mention anything about one-way fees.

Now, the lady on the phone at the Europcar call centre, which was the phone number on the car keys, assured me several times that there were no charges. I then rang a different number I found online after some intense googling, as they make it very hard to find said phone number. This second lady also told me the same story.

Now, dropping the car off after 11 days, when it was booked for 27 days, with the assurance of no one-way fee would sound to me as if the charge should be (11/27)*716.15? Does that sound reasonable? I think so. I also wouldn't be offended if there was maybe 100 or maybe even 200 extra as a one-way fee, but to log in to my netbank this morning and find my credit card has been charged 3000 fucking euros was a bit much to handle.

First thing I did, was call CommBank, who assured me they can reverse the charge, but firstly I had to contact Europcar and try to negotiate it with them. Which I have now done, and have a reference number. and hopefully will get results.

If this doesn't get solved quickly, there's going to be trouble. Especially since my credit card is now pretty much maxed out.

[aliveandtravelling]

day 9: language barriers, foreign exchange and family emergencies

So here we are in Prague. What I'm told is the most beautiful city in the world. I was a little sceptical at first. When we were driving in, the autobahn disappeared almost immediately after crossing the border, and then the towns started, and then the concrete turned to cobble-stone, and then the cobble-stone turned to dust. Very "borat" indeed...

It was roughly lunchtime at this point, so we decided to try and find somewhere to eat. This was more of a challenge than we thought - for two reasons.

1. Neither of us knew a single word of Czech.

2. We didn't realise this before, but they don't use Euros in Czech Republic

We still don't know what the name of the currency is - i have the notes now, as we exchanged our Swiss francs that we're not going to use, it's written write there in front of me, but I have no idea how to pronounce it. Looks and sounds kinda like Russian.

We did find a radio station playing pop songs like katy perry, one direction, green day, etc all covered in czech...kinda weird, but i liked it.

So, the lunch solution was McDonalds. But of course, there's never one when you need one...typical. We found a McDonalds, somewhere along the dirt road, and then realised we have no idea how to order, since we can't really read the menu, and we can't really ask them what things are. So, some cave-man grunting and pointing had to happen, and then we had our meals. It cost us about 270 thingymajigs, which works out to be fairly decent value. The burger was surprisingly nice too. A beef pattie, some lettuce, mayo and a thick slice of camembert, on a sourdough roll. Why do they not sell this in Australia?!?!

More driving down the borat expressway, I decided that this must be one of those countries with horrible road accident statistics. Turns out I was right. In the 160km we drove through CZ, we passed about 7 accidents, and saw two more whilst on foot in the city.

After seeing this, and sitting in one of the worst traffic jams I've ever been stuck in, we decided it would be best to leave the car somewhere and continue through Prague on foot..and wow. Just wow.

It looks like a dodgy, poor little town on first glance, but it has an absolutely beautiful river, with some amazing buildings right on it. The people are lovely too. They may not be able to understand much english, but they do the best they can to accommodate the tourists. We walked up and down the river, and through the little laneways in the "Old Town" region. In and out of bazaars and markets, and found a nice little pub for dinner, serving some real Czech food.

I had a pork knuckle, roasted on a sword. it cost me 220 thingymajigs, and my 1L of beer cost me 33.90 thingymajigs. That is a meal fit for a king, could easily feed two or three hungry people, and less than $10 aussie dollars. Curtis Stone and Coles can go stick it, they need to learn from the pros.

Now, a few things you should know before visiting Prague. If you're a non-smoker, make sure you request a non-smoking hotel room. Also, people are allowed to smoke in restaurants, so sit outside if you can. That way, you're not trapped inside with all the smoke building up. It just ruins a good dinner.

Secondly, learn some of the language before going in. It's handy for Prague, and necessary for everywhere else.

Thirdly, don't assume that just because they're in the EU means they'll accept Euros. You will be disappointed.

Now, unfortunately, our holiday is going to be cut short because of a family emergency, but hopefully some day in the not too distant future, we'll get to finish things off where we left them.

[aliveandtravelling]

day 8: meine furher, concrete walls and terrible coffee

Today was probably the most educational day I've had since finishing highschool. I discovered that I actually didn't know much at all about German history, which is a little embarrassing since I'm a quarter German, and also not to mention technically being half Jewish.

We left the car at the hotel and ventured out into Berlin's public transport system, which works in a similar way to the Melbourne transport system. One ticket, for all modes of transport, at a reasonable price, divided into 3 zones. The lines are easy to navigate as they are all numbered, and the announcements at each station are repeated in English and French for the tourists (how thoughtful!). Also, being German, they are very efficient and run exactly to schedule. No train or tram we caught today was more than 10 seconds behind schedule. Rail Corp could learn a thing or two from these blokes...

My grandfather, who unfortunately passed away before I was born, grew up in Berlin. Dad wasn't absolutely sure, but had a very good feeling about one particular address in Charlottenburg where he thinks his father lived. We started by taking the train out there to see what was the suburb like. We even found his old house, which is now a 3-star hotel.

Even though Germany likes to appear as an ultra-modern industrious nation, Berlin is still filled with buildings and artefacts to remind them of what went on in the 30s and 40s, right up until the early 90s.

I was a little upset that they had commercialised everything though. At the Brandenburg Tor, you could pay to have your photo with someone dressed as a US army soldier - or, for some unknown reason, a photo with Darth Vader. Same goes for Checkpoint Charlie.

The Reichestag had some amazingly beautiful architecture, and inscribed on the walls were Adolf Hitler's famous words for addressing the nation, "Dem Deutchen Volke". The park out the front has an amazing amount of open space, presumably for the hundreds of thousands of Germans who would come out to see Hitler make a speech during his time as fuhrer.

Nearby to Brandenburg Tor was a Jewish memorial. To me, it just seemed like a whole lot of differently shaped rectangular prisms all over the place. I didn't really understand the symbolism, but if it makes you remember the Jews, I suppose it was a success.

At Checkpoint Charlie, there are monuments all over the place to the Berlin Wall, and information boards explaining the whole story of how, and why it was put up, and then how and why it was removed. There are bits and pieces here and there of the actual wall still in place, but just a few minutes walk down the road, in the less commercialised sector of that suburb, there is a 100m stretch of the wall which was still left in tact, as it was in 1989.

Also, at Potsdammerplatz Baunhof, one of three of the remaining Watch Towers was placed at the square outside. It's currently being used as a Traffic Light.

Oh, and another little highlight for the day was finding a Bugatti dealer in the city. The building looked like David Jones, and was set out like a shopping mall, but all the shops inside were car dealers (all from the VW brands). At the Bugatti dealer, they of course had a Veyron - the world's fastest production car. 8L W16 quad-turbo engine, 1200kw, top speed of 410km/h. Fuel economy: 23.1L/100km combined.

Dinner tonight was at another local German cafe. The food was delicious, and again, dirt cheap. The atmosphere was really great, and with the quality of the food, and the decor in the place and the indie music being played, it kinda felt like being in a cafe somewhere in Balmain or Rozelle.

Also, something outside the hotel window keeps going "bang" every few minutes. Sounds either like someone is launching fireworks one at a time, or firing a gun. Not quite sure what it is, but I'd like to find out...then again, I don't really wanna get out of bed. I'll write about it tomorrow if I find out what it is.

Tomorrow, we head on the road to Prague. This is probably the only place we're going to where Dad and I are both completely out of our depth as far as language barriers go. From the looks of things, Czech words have too many consonants in them.

This ought to be fun...

[aliveandtravelling]

day 7: volkswagen, volkswagen and more volkswagen

Today, en-route to Berlin, we stopped by Wolfsburg, which is an industrial city where the headquarters of one of Germany's most famous companies is based. I'm talking, of course, about Volkswagen. There's a giant museum on the factory site, including a glass-walled factory where you can see a car starting from a metal shell to a finished product driving off the production line in just 2 hours.

Volkswagen is more than just VW cars. They also own Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini, Skoda and Seat, and they also provide parts for a number of other manufacturers. Chances are, something in your car came out of this factory.

VW seems to be all about ultra-modern technology, and the Autostradt museum showcases their ideas of what they expect the world to be like in the near-future utilising some of their inventions. The first, being the carpark. As you enter the carpark, you leave your car on a ramp at the front door, and take a ticket. You hang half the ticket on your rear-view mirror, and stand back as a robot comes to collect your car, and places it on a shelf in one of the two 40m towers located on-site. When you want to get your car back, just scan your ticket, and the robot fetches your car and places it right in front of you in less than 2 mins. I like gadgets and gizmos, so of course, I was very impressed by this. They also explained that it's not out-of-the-question expensive to build something like that, where the costs you would spend on the extra mechanical machinery, you would save on repairing accidental damage to your walls and floors caused by "carpark dings".

click here to see a video of the auto-carpark in action.

Inside the Autostradt, it seemed kind of like the Powerhouse Museum, but all with car-themed or environmental-themed exhibits. They also had facilities for learner drivers to do a driving test, and for other drivers to test a 4x4 on their test-track, and to try stunt-driving in a Golf R or Scirrocco. There was also, of course, the showcase of cars from all the brands, which you could feel free to look inside and sit in any of them, and purchase them straight from the factory if you wanted to cut out the dealer.

Something that seemed like a really good idea was the factory ordered car sales. People could make an appointment to come in and customise any of the VW branded cars, select whatever options they wanted, and then sit back and watch as their car is assembled on the spot. Roughly 3 hrs later, they drive it out the door. This was a really popular option, where we saw a car leaving the showroom floor at least every 5 mins, and pretty much every car on the roads in this town was a VW, Skoda or Audi - including our rental car, for that matter.

Time just flew by today. We arrived at VW-Werk at around 9am, and didn't leave till about 3pm, as there was just so much to see that day - and we didn't even get to see every exhibit. It was just too much.

With 260km to Berlin still left to travel, we wanted to beat peak-hour traffic, so we ventured back to the Autobahns for another death-wish. After yesterday, I was thinking and thinking what the best way to approach this was, and I decided that the reason it was so scary was because it was intimidating to be overtaken by cars at such high-speed, so if you can't beat them, join them! Today's average speed on the Autobahn was 160km/h. This actually felt a lot safer. People weren't overtaking me as fast, and I was actually overtaking a few other people myself. I felt in control of the car at all times, and everything was going well, except our fuel economy jumped up from 3.5L/100km to 5.6L/100km - otherwise, it was much nicer, and we were in Berlin in less than 2hrs.

Tonight, we had a very lovely dinner at a local German restaurant in the neighbourhood where the hotel is. Very cheap food (for Aussie standards) and extremely cheap beer! The food was so rich that I had to go for a walk around the block a few times after dinner to feel a bit better.

I think I'll sleep well tonight. :)

Tomorrow, exploring Berlin properly.

[aliveandtravelling]

day 6: tulips, autobahns and electricutions

We started today with a trip to the Keukenhof, which is basically the Dutch version of the botanical gardens - and wow. Just wow. So many colours, and it was such intense colour. I can't really describe it well with words, you'd just have to see it. It shits all over "Floriade" any day.

Walking around those gardens, which by the way costs a 15euro to get in, and 6euro to park the car, you really appreciate just how much work goes in to making those gardens perfect. Every flower arrangement was absolutely beautifully arranged, and the colours blended really well. I would defs recommend a visit if you're ever in the area.

Next, we got back on the freeway and headed east for Germany. This, of course, meant my first experience on the infamous Autobahn. This has by far been the scariest experience I've ever had behind the wheel of a car, and quite possibly in my life. The roads may be well maintained, but the people are absolutely insane! When I drive in Australia on the freeway, where the speedlimit is 110km/h, sometimes I may stretch that a bit to 115, but never more than that for a prolonged period. Here on the Autobahn, I was doing 140kmh, occasionally stretching that to 150, and at one point 160, but I was STILL being overtaken by the locals!

It's even more difficult because cars are approaching you at god knows what speed, so you can't really judge gaps very well. If someone pulls in front of you and slows down, you need to plan well in advance, or just completely luck the fuck out to find a gap big enough for you to pull into the left lane and overtake without causing a crash or pissing off other drivers.

On the plus side, it was all over quickly, as it was sort of a "blink-and-you-miss-it" moment.

So here we are in Hanover. What I like to think of as the Wollongong of Germany. Nothing much to report here. Went for a walk around town, found nothing of interest there. Nothing of interest near the hotel either. Except the hotel itself has a bit of character. It's quite possibly one of two hotels I can think of that still use actual keys for the doors. Also, the lift buttons electrocute you when you push them (I'm guessing some faulty wiring there), but we very quickly learnt to use a credit card or the plastic tab of the car keys to push the lift buttons.

Tomorrow, we head to Berlin, where hopefully things are a bit more interesting.

[aliveandtravelling]

day 5: mini-pancakes, red lights and laundry

We had a very late start today for two reasons.

Dutch people don't wake up on Sundays till noon-ish

The carpark where we left the car last night was locked this morning until 11am.

This was especially bad because my winter jacket was in the car - and of course I couldn't get to it...even though it was 0 degrees this morning. All I had was a light vest, which I suppose was better than nothing, but not much better.

At breakfast, I discovered poffertjes. Probably the only good thing the Dutch have to offer to the culinary world. They are mini pancakes (no bigger than a 20c coin), which isn't all that special, but the way they are made is really something. They squirt the batter into special tins, then use a pair of chopsticks to flip them constantly, and very quickly. If you haven't seen someone do this in person before, look it up on youtube.

We eventually got the car out from the garage, after the man (who very obviously was unimpressed that he had to work on a Sunday) opened the doors. The drive in to Amsterdam was very easy. Again, the freeways in the Netherlands are very well maintained. 5 lanes in each direction, all with 130kmh speed limits, and some sections with no limit. It made the journey very easy. Parking was surprisingly easy, and also free - which was lucky because the parking meters here no longer takes coins, nor do they take credit cards. You can only use "Maestro" or "Chipknip" cards - and no, I haven't heard of them either. Were credit cards just too easy? Or cash for that matter? Gddmit...

Amsterdam was beautiful, but very crowded, and I suppose the fact that everywhere smells like cannabis is a little distracting. I was a little disappointed that the queue for the Rijksmuseum was so long, and the Van Gough museum was closed for renovations, but hey, these things happen.

We walked all around the city and found plenty of interesting sights. The canals are beautifully presented even though the water is filthy, the restaurant areas are pedestrian-only zones, and the landmarks are clearly noted with multi-lingual signs. A very well thought out city.

Now, I know I did say in a previous post that I didn't fly halfway around the world to eat food I could have at home, but we did eat at an Australian-themed pub for lunch. Mainly because of the funny slogan they had on the door, but also because as I said, there isn't really much good dutch food. The barmaids were Aussie, I was able to have a 150 lashes, and some faily decent fish and chips. Win win, eh?

The red-light district was tamer than I thought it would be, but still kinda like kings cross and oxford street combined, and put on acid. Sex shops, peep shows and seedy old men drooling over the young women at each shop, whilst smoking a joint. Not exactly an ideal neighbourhood to be hanging around in.

Also, the places people were parking their cars was a bit odd. They parked right up to the canals, but there are no barriers on the sides, so I'm certain that there must be quite a few cars in the canals, or someone must have fallen in getting out of the car - I just don't get how they do it.

Afterwards, we drove back to the hague and decided to do some laundry. Finding a laundromat wasn't easy because only one turned up on Google maps, and it was on the other side of town, which was plagued with endless diversions and dead ends due to various roadworks projects. It seemed kinda like an old man's shed - full of half-finished things that he'll finish "next week".

Dinner tonight was at an indonesian place in the suburbs. The restaurant looked like it used to be someone's house, but the food was excellent. At least, better than I was expecting. The Dutch connections with Indonesia was probably my random fact of the day that I learned.

I know today's story wasn't that interesting. Just lots of walking, driving, and laundry. Hopefully tomorrow's will be more exciting.

[aliveandtravelling]

day 4: windmills, mayonnaise and marijuana

Today has certainly been an interesting one. I'm also really exhausted at the moment, so I'll keep it brief - and please excuse any grammatical/spelling errors.

This morning started with waking up at about 8am, packing up the room and having breakfast in the hotel, ready to depart at about 11am. It was at about this point when I was just flicking through some of the superfluous apps on my phone that I found one called "mapfactor navigator". i cannot believe i forgot i had this. Basically, it's a GPS turn-by-turn navigator which, unlike google maps, doesn't need internet to work.

if i had known i had this, yesterday would probably have been half as painful. so we set the navigator for den haag, and got on the road, of course, now that we had the gps up and running, there weren't any dramas as far as navigation was concerned. in my opinion, this takes some of the fun out of tourism, but at the same time, makes it a whole lot less stressful for both me, as the driver, and dad, as the navigator.

crossing the border into the Netherlands was again, completely unannounced. We only knew for sure when the numberplates of cars in people's driveways turned from "B" to "NL", which seemed to happen exactly on the border.

The south of the Netherlands, through the Zeeland region has some fantastic infrastructure. The tunnels are really well built, if not a little under-lit, and the roads are smooth as silk. As an added bonus, the tolls aren't that expensive, compared with France at least.

Also, windmills. Windmills everywhere.

We arrived into Rotterdam, where we decided to have lunch, and this time when Dad remembered a certain place he liked to have lunch, he actually knew where it was for sure. This was because in the late 90s, the company Dad was working for had a client from the Netherlands who constantly flew him back and forth to complete a certain project with them. After 15 different 2-3week trips, he was fairly confident that he knew his way around town.

My expectations weren't that high as far as food was concerned, but I was pleasantly surprised. Of course, it's not match for France, but the food was still very good. Only thing Dad forgot to mention is that if you don't want your chips covered in mayonnaise, you need to explicitly specify that when you order. Now, there's a mistake I won't make again.

As we drove into The Hague, Dad was feeling very nostalgic. He remembered every street and every tram track, and knew exactly how to find the hotel, the train station, the shopping district, the restaurants and all that. He even found his old office, but most importantly, his herring shop. This stall set up just outside the houses of parliament in the city sells herrings, pickled herrings, pickles, pickled onions, salty herrings, mackerels, pickled mackerels, salted mackerels, all scaled and chopped on demand. It was something he'd been looking forward to for 14 years.

I have to say, give it a go. If you don't think that sounds like something you'd like to eat, just try it. The pickled herring that we had didn't taste overly sweet, or sour, or vinegary. Just tasted like a fresh fish with a subtle acidic flavour. I can defs understand why he was looking forward to it so much, but I probably wouldn't want to have one every day.

We also passed a few "coffee shops" on the street. Now, for the naive ones, there's a difference between a "coffee shop" and a "cafe" here. Only one of them actually sells coffee. The other one specialises in brownies.

There's also a distinct smell of these "brownies" in the hallway of the hotel we're in.

Tonight's dinner was at a Mexican place that Dad quite often went when he was here on business. Apparently they always had ribs and frozen margaritas. Now, I didn't know that ribs were mexican, but hey, they still tasted pretty damn good.

Tomorrow, we explore Amsterdam.

[aliveandtravelling]

day 3: narrow streets, traffic jams and chocolate

Mum, if you're reading this - you were right. I did need my windcheater. As I look on my phone now, it tells me it's 3 degrees outside. I wouldn't doubt that for a second. My windcheater was certainly well appreciated.

We started this morning looking for a very particular chocolate shop. But as it was so cold outside, and we were en-route to Brussels and Antwerpen, we decided to take the car. This was a real test of my defensive driving skills. I tell you what, though, it would be a really bad idea to buy a BMW with M-Sport suspension if you lived in Brugge, because almost all the streets are cobblestone. Our car was fairly comfortable, but my back is already killing me...not to mention the constant droning noise!

Driving through the narrow streets here was a real challenge. Those of you who have been to my house might know that I'm fairly confident on narrow streets, but this was really something else. Imagine the narrowest streets of Balmain - and then make it a two-way street, with pedestrians everywhere, bicycles and scooters going anywhere they like all over the road, and having to dodge the locals who drive on these streets at 70kmh! It's really insane. I don't think I drove any faster than 25kmh at any point on these streets.

In the end, we couldn't find the shop, and gave up. Heading for the freeway, we had a fairly nice run out to Brussels. One thing Europeans really seem to understand well is moving to the right unless overtaking. Unlike Australians, they really don't hang around in the left lane, unless they really need to. I like this. Also, the freeways here don't seem to have a speed limit. I also like this too. The traffic management, however, horrible. I don't like this at all.

In Brussels, it was like driving down George St in peak-hour. Everywhere. All day. Crazy. Antwerpen was worse, but I'll get to that later. In Brussels, I had no idea what to expect to find, and Dad had some idea of a boring city, kind of like Canberra. What we found, was a boring city like Canberra, but with a few little spots of 15th century architecture. Unfortunately, I was unable to take any photos as when I got out of the car in Brussels, I noticed I forgot to put the memory card back in it after taking the pictures off last night. *facepalm*

We didn't hang around there long as Dad wanted to get to Antwerpen by lunch time because he wanted to show me this particular row of cafes he went to on a previous trip here. We drove in to Antwerpen and got stuck in what is probably the worst traffic jam I've ever seen. Keep in mind, I work in Western Sydney, so I'm a frequent user of the M4, M5, Parramatta Rd and Victoria Rd. I see a lot of bad traffic, but nothing like this. There is a very simple reason why. In Australia, traffic lights have sensors to dictate when the lights need to change. Here, they all run on timers, all the time. All that does is create amazingly bad traffic jams. A trip that google maps estimated at 48mins ended up taking almost 3hrs.

We got to Antwerpen, couldn't find the restaurant, ended up getting lost due to endless roadworks putting us on endless detours and then ending up in loops, and just annoyed us more and more with each turn. Eventually, we gave up and decided to venture back to Brugge to have another go at finding the chocolate shop.

As we got stuck in yet another traffic jam, I was getting fed up with everything and just about ready to write this one off as a bad day, but very tempted to not let this happen, Dad suddenly had a brainwave of where the chocolate shop would be - of course, it was 3 doors down from the hotel *facepalm*.

Soooooooo much chocolate here at the shop, and reasonably priced too. I think we may have bought a bit too much, but hey, more to share around with everyone if and when they make it back to Sydney.

Tonight's dinner wasn't all that exciting. All the restaurants here seem to have exactly the same menu. They all have mussels, flemish stew with your choice of beef or rabbit, or Waterzoid chicken. Not sure what Waterzoid chicken is, but every restaurant here sells it. I have a feeling it's some sort of casserole.

The highlight was dessert. A proper Belgian waffle, with proper Belgian chocolate. Yum.

After dinner, we went for a walk around town and stumbled upon the Brugge version of the easter show. Rides, fairy floss and showbags everywhere. Kids screaming on rollercoasters, music, carnies selling ringtoss games, they had the lot! And it was all equally expensive, only difference is that people seemed to be going to this one.

So, what started off as a really bad day that just kept getting worse ended up all better again, thanks to chocolate.

Tomorrow, The Netherlands!

[aliveandtravelling]

day 2: calais, brugge and too much food

Firstly, something i forgot to mention in yesterday's post about the flight. One of the stewards on the SYD-KUL flight had the name Yasser Arafat. I kid you not, that was exactly what his name tag said.

Today started very early. Dad and I both woke up at 5am, finding ourselves with the lights still on, above the covers, me with a magazine on my face. I think that may mean jetlag, or just the 34hrs without sleep finally got to us. Especially since the last thing I remember was contemplating watching something on tv at about 7.30 last night, sitting down on the bed and thinking i might just rest my eyes for a few minutes...well, a few minutes later, I opened my eyes and it was 5am.

So, after a quite pleasant breakfast in Reims at the hotel, we loaded up the car and planned to take a slower route using the motorways as less as possible, for two reasons.

We're here to see the towns, not the freeways

Tolls are very expensive here. The A26 motorway between Reims and Calais has a 21.30EUR + 16% tax toll. I don't think I'd ever complain about the Cross City Tunnel tolls ever again...

We decided the way to go was to drive to Calais, and then take the coastal road to Brugge. This turned out to be a fantastic decision. The road to Calais was fairly non-descript. In fact, the highway seemed to be exactly like the Hume Hwy, but in a mirror. I did notice though, that the petrol stations near highways are more expensive than in towns, and unlike Australia, the price of Diesel does fluctuate, a lot. It varies between 1.29EUR and 1.68EUR per litre. Even so, it's still cheaper than petrol. If I listen to each car passing on the street, it's understandable why this is the case, seeing as there seem to be more diesels than petrols here.

When we got to Calais, Dad and I decided we would sit by the bay and watch the ferries coming and going, and see if we could see England. The answer is yes, yes you can see England, but we didn't really wanna stay out too long as it was blowing a gale - and it was FREEZING cold. To put it simply, I'm very glad I brought my heavy windcheater.

After standing out in the almost 0-degree winds for about 10mins, Dad and I decided to go and find a cafe to get some coffee. We initally rocked up to a place with a boulangerie, but it was closed for some reason. When we walked around the back, it had very clearly been on fire recently, so I suppose that ruled that one out. Looking around, there didn't seem to be much open, but given the fact that I could have sat down in the middle of the road and not get run over for quite some time, I suppose it was justified.

We found a place advertising itself as "Hotel and Restaurante de La Plage, self-rated as 2 stars, which didn't fill me with confidence at first, but seeing as it was the only place open, we didn't have much of a choice. Now, I don't know about the hotel, but the restaurant was fantastic. What started as an actually acceptable cappuccino and hot chocolate ended up as an absolutely delicious lunch and very reasonable prices.

I had a grilled sea-bass, which tasted as if it were caught when I ordered it, and Dad had a pot of mussels in Rocheforte sauce. French food is amazing. There's no denying that. And all for 13EUR each. In Sydney, that price wouldn't even get you fish and chips at a pub...

After lunch, we got on the road again, and headed for Dunkirk. We stopped at the beach where the English invaded in WW2 looking for Germans. It was easy to find the spot, since the street was named "Rue de 8 Mai 1945" (I wonder when the invasion happened...)

Sticking to the local roads, we crossed the border into Belgium. I was surprised to not see any signs to point this out. There's even a sign on River Rd in Wollstonecraft to say you're entering North Sydney Council, but no sign here to say you're entering Belgium. Weird...

Driving through the little towns was nice. We got to see the mix of Dutch and French architecture styles on all the houses, and also what the modern designs look like. It was a little weird driving around with the Trams in these towns, especially since it meant doing Hook Turns. Now, I've driven in the Melbourne CBD and I'm quite confident that I can do a hook turn to the right from the left, but turning left from the right lane felt like starting from square one again. I was totally clueless, and tried to avoid it at all costs.

Eventually we arrived at the hotel. Novotel Brugge Centrum. Nicer than the Reims hotel, and roughly the same price (winning!). I like the fact that I know what to expect from a Novotel so I know I'll have certain luxuries available to me. From Novotel, we went for a walk around town. Up to the market square and through the little back streets. Like all towns with canals through them, there is a sulphuric smell in the air. Luckily, the smell of good food is more powerful.

What kind of disappointed me was the fact that most of the restaurants in the square were so focused on pleasing the tourists that they were just serving food from those countries rather than their own. Even the restaurant we went to had Kangaroo on the menu! I certainly did not fly halfway around the world to eat something I could get at home easily.

What I did end up having is Rabbit in Flemish Stew (ie, guiness, onion and bacon), which was delicious. First time I've ever had rabbit, and if i had to describe it in one word: turkey. That was the main thing that popped into mind.

And so, at 10pm where the sun is just falling below the horizon, I write this now from the hotel room, with the heat blasting, and completely exhausted, ready for bed.

[aliveandtravelling]

day 1: flights, car troubles and Reims

i know this is going to sound extremely "north shore" of me, but this is the longest flight I've ever taken in Economy. I've been to Europe before, but in always in Business class, and I have to say, it was not exactly the most pleasant experience.

I couldn't sleep. My neck is killing me, and I can't feel my toes, and no matter how many movies I watched, that GPS seemed to just move slower and slower and sometimes just felt like it wasn't moving at all.

Credit where it's due, Malaysia Airlines is still my pick of the crop. The food was good, the seats were as comfortable as they could be, and the service was down-to-earth - true Malaysian style. Also, they had a decent pick of movies.

This didn't really interest me though, as my aim was to enjoy the SYD-KUL flight for the entertainment, and then sleep through the KUL-CDG sector on the supposedly quieter, more comfortable Airbus A380. I have to admit, it was definitely quieter, and more comfortable - at least when the air con started. I have this theory that the A380 is like a Toyota Prius - it gets the job done whilst remaining extremely sound-proofed. You really had to focus hard to hear the engines inside the cabin. Also, the tail-mounted camera giving an outside view of take-off and landing was a pretty cool touch.

So we arrived at Paris Charles-de-Gaul at about 6.40 this morning. Being a full flight, bags took forever to turn up, but the customs officer didn't even ask us a single question. Just looked at the passports, stamped them, and sent us on our way.

Next step is to get the rental car. This was my first time renting a car in another country on my Accor Staff discount through Europcar, so I was worrying it would be a little bit of a drama. Turns out, I was right - but it had nothing to do with the staff rates, just the car. The nice lady at the desk, who luckily spoke English relatively well, gave us the keys to a Renault Megane when we had originally ordered a VW Golf. She also offered us a Dacia Duster, which I took one look at and said "no thanks". But anyway, we took the Renault, I did the thing I told myself I wouldn't do and went for the wrong side of the car. Got in, thought it was actually a very nice alternative. Comfy seats, 6sp manual, GPS (<-- this is worth it's weight in gold) and an Aussie voice on the satnav! I very cautiously started driving for the exit gate when I noticed the windscreen was cracking - very severely from the top, on two different points. So of course, we did the sensible thing and go back to tell them about it. The lady didn't really understand what the problem was, but immediately offered to get us another car.

After 20mins of fart-arsing around, we were given another set of keys to "another one of the same car", except the first thing I spotted was a Skoda logo where the Renault logo should have been. I decided at this point that if it had 4 wheels, cruise control and air conditioning, I wasn't going to go back to that desk again, so we took the keys and headed for the highway. Sadly, no GPS in the Skoda *sadface*

This is my first proper experience of driving on the right side of the road, in the left side of the car. I did smack my arm on the door a few times trying to go for a gearstick, and I'm constantly flicking on the wipers when trying to indicate, but apart from that, all has gone well so far - except for a very near miss just outside Paris (not my fault!) - and I'm not afraid to say I actually like the Skoda.

Reims is about 90mins out of Paris, and famous for it's Cathedral - and not much else. We got to the hotel at about 10.30 crossing our fingers that they had a clean room ready to go, luckily they did. (Remember - we had just flown for 26hrs and had not slept a single wink the whole time).

Got up to the room, took a long-needed shower, then decided to go and explore the town on foot. The cathedral in Reims really has to be seen to be believed. Those who know me well will know that I'm not easily impressed by historical figures/buildings, but wow! Just the sheer magnitude of the place. No roof too tall, no gargoyle too pointy, no pipe organ too big. This place is just proof that the Catholic church had an amazing ability to cause shock to their target audience. I was pretty impressed.

afterwards, we stopped at a nice looking restaurant right near the cathedral. now, either the food here was absolutely amazing, or the food on the flight was so bad in contrast - i would dare say a bit of both actually. I had escargot and steak tartar, in true spirit of my "when in rome..." attitude. It's been 5hrs, and my stomach isn't showing any signs of regret, so i'd say that's a good sign..right?

tune in tomorrow for day 2: belgium.

[aliveandtravelling]

4 more sleeps!

passport: check

international driving permit: check

hotels booked: check

car hire: check

euros and francs: check

paperwork all together and organised: check, check.

i think i got this covered. now...to pack my bags o.0