The Land of The Basques

Currently in San Sebastian --the Basque are absolutely beautiful people. They have a language that has no latin roots and they have no traceble lineage -- meaning that they are one of the oldest civilizations living here in Spain.

We got an absolutely amazing little hostel and are so upset that we just booked one night! The hostel is like a home -- not too many people so everyone becomes like family -- huge bathrooms like we are in someonés house &we can cook anytime we want in the little kitchen. We even have a dvd player!

Yesterday after getting into town we sat on the beach -- so nice to finally wear bikinis. Then we ate some amazing Pinchos (called Tapas everywhere else in Spain...basically like little appetizers served during siesta time). So we had cod, skewers of sizzling shrimp and sangria of course!!

This morning we did our first Spain shopping (make room in the shoe closet mummy!!). Although my bag is already quite heavy with the 4 articles of clothes i brought with me so i´m really going to try to limit myself.

Tonight we are off on a first class night train to Barcelona. Adios!

To view some pictures of the trip this far, click here!

Ju nu comprend pas Francais!

(as a warning -- the keyboard here is hard to type with so my punctuation is off!!)

J'arrive en Paris mon cheries!

We trained here from Amsterdam which was an interesting experience. It was quite comfortable and we shared a quartet section with a fascinating West African civil engineer turned sikh turned yogi master. We had such intellectually stiimulating conversations on religion, politics etc that the 5 hours flew right by. We are going to drop into one of his yoga classes today which should do loads for our backs and our mental state after all of this cold depressing weather! This is what i love most about backpacking -- often times its not the places you see but the people you meet that shape your experiences!

oh no! the rest of my blog got deleted :(
i don't remember what i wrote but probably just raved about the wine and the cheese. I feel like Carrie when she didn't back up her system!!! arg.

[yogi ram we met on the train - and the kundalini class we dropped into]

[cheese and bagette party we had in our hotel room]

[stopping in front of moulin rouge]

[mmm bagettes at lunchtime]

[Notre Dame cathedral]

[la'Tour Eiffel: Standard Pose]

[The Louvre]

Roxanne [you don't have to put on the red light]

I'm typing my heart away here at an internet cafe in Amsterdam. What an eclectic city this is! Canals pass through the city making it very hard to navigate, but its so quaint...even when we end up going in circles. The food is absolutely delectable, and there are tons of little shops (winkles) selling everythin from buttons to housewares to illicit goods. The streets are all darling but as you pass by you inevitabley smell marijuana wafting through your nostrils from the many "coffee shops". We havn't ventured into one and we likely won't but every other shop sells magic brownies and internet under the shroud of being a coffee shop. Thats why it took us so long to find a coffee shop that sells just plain coffee and internet.


Everyone rides bikes here - it is the most efficient form of transportation...the cobblestone is a bit hard on the feet so our plan was to get bikes today but things didnt really work out as planned! The locals are quite nice and it is really neat to get to know them. We made some friends in random shwarma places and cafes - mostly locals that give us a glimpse of the "real" Amsterdam - the one that has police everywhere even when you think they aren't there, the open-mindedness, and the friendly locals ready to give directions when you are stranded in the middle of a gracht (canal) and a curving stracht (street).

Yesterday evening after we got in we decided to do a bit of exploring. We went to the red light district - which was so crazy to see. So many women, standing in windows lit by dim red lights and flourescent black lights beckoning tourists and locals to give them a try. Prostitution is legal here but to see it displayed so freely was a bit odd as it is something pushed so underground in most other countries. In the end it is safer for the women this way, but it was a bit disturbing nonetheless.


We had our first bump along the road last night in our hostel, and we ended up sleeping on the couches in the common room!!! It was pretty fun though as it was a good story and we had a tv! We immediately got transferred to a hotel this morning though which is nice. We woke up and trekked across the city (doesn't take that long...Amsterdam is pretty small) to the new hotel, checked in and then went to the Van Gogh Museum. It contains some of his most famous works including many famous masterpeices. It showed the works in chronological order, which illustrated his growth as an artist and transitions of different periods of his life...how he was influenced by artists and other cultures, such as the Japanese.

Then we went to the Anne Frank House, who was a victim of holocaust and whose house has been set up as a memorial to show how her family hid from the Nazis during that time period. 8 people hid in the house during this time until they were betrayed and split up in different concentration camps.

After some yummy crepes we ended up here, a non magic brownie coffee shop! Tonight we are just going to relax and tomorrow we have our first Eurorail experience to Paris!

Still on Commonwealth Soil...

We just finished day one of our trip...its probably going to go by so fast from here. We got into London last night and trained it to our hostel which is right smack dab in the middle of Picadelly Circus. We were wide awake because it was barely 6:00 Toronto time but 11:00 London time. After dropping our bags off in our hostel, we decided to walk around for a bit outside and take oh-so-touristy pictures in those very picturesque red london telephone booths. Of course by the time we got home it was already 3:00 London time and we couldnt sleep because our clocks were still working Canadian.



We woke up this morning to a stereotypical London day - ominous clouds and a hint of humidity and chill. I saw a Mephisto store and of course took a picture in front of it! Then i proceeded to see if they were the same price in London as in Canada [Affirmative - phew!]. The Mephisto lady told us to buy umbrellas from Boots, the chemist down the way [read: a pharmacy similar to Shoppers Drug Mart]. So we strolled to Boots expecting to pay £5 for an umbrella...but to our shock and dismay they were priced at £22!! We felt sooo violated!! Of course, we opted to take the chance without one!

This city is beautiful but reminds me a lot of Melbourne...obviously very Victorian architecture. Walking around this morning i felt as though i was in a movie...the cars are all weirdly shaped. The bright red double decker buses are made by Mercedes and everything is the same price it would be in Canada - just multiplied by 2.2. Pents not cents. Must pay to use the bathroom. I'm glad i'm not here for too much longer! Although the people here do have an undeniable coolness...maybe its the accent?!? They also seem to have an uncanny way of making tourists feel like tourists with there blatant dry sarcasm. Obviously, we can't hide the fact that we are tourists since we look left before right when crossing the road and stop in the middle of crowds of people trying to re-navigate using crude tourist maps!


We spent the day being our own tour guides and bought a full day train pass to check out all the sites. We saw Buckingham Palace and the changing of the gaurds, Big Ben, West Minister Abby, the London Bridge, a huge ferris wheel (the London eye?) and fed some pigions in Trafalger Square. We also forked out a hefty sum to see Madam Tussauds Wax Museum...it was well worth it! Right when we walked in we saw a Bollywood exhibit with Amitabh, Sharukh and Ash! Being the fobs we are, we took pictures pretending we were the head heroines. Chaiya Chaiya was playing in the background...ahh these are the times of our lives! We then went on a quest to find some fish and chips...mission accomplished! The true London way - at a pub no less. After that we decided to jump on a random double decker bus and i had a little Harry Potter moment. Just call me Hermoine!

Tomorrow morning we leave for Amsterdam!

Merrells: My Nemesis

I've reached a roadblock. My images of Europe included me, a self-proclaimed fashionista, looking crisp and cool in the UK - the London look, if you will. In my mind's eye, i looked a Paris Chic - alluring and mysterious, with one of those scarves thrown haphazardly but still methodically around my neck. Visions of sashaying through the white powdered sands of the Mediterranean Sea in a flowy azure dress tantilized my senses...until...the issue of comfort came into play. Now, most people traveling Europe recommend "backpacking shoes" - as pictured above. Merrells, comfortable backpacking shoes - the bane of my existence. Now I know that every woman has to make the inevitable choice - comfort versus style. But why, may i ask the shoe gods, why can't a woman find a comfortable yet stylish shoe? I may be backpacking but i don't necessarily want to look like a backpacker! So here my dear friends starts the quest to find a pair of sexy comfortable shoes that will show off the flowers on my toe polish and allow me to feel oh so stylishly European....a girl can dream, can't she?


*Post NB: Mehphisto is the only thing that kept me stylish and comfy through my backpacking adventures - a bit of a splurge but a great investment and lots of styles to choose from!

Globetrotting

Wanderlust. The itch to travel. The nomadic gypsy life. Whatever you may call it, I just switched over my old blog (bye bye crocodiledundeena *sniff*) to this new one to more accurately represent my travels. I will also be updating my blog through my upcoming eurotrip...and the countdown begins...

Meena Nanji, B.A.Sc. (Waterloo ON)

My university world is in 5 medium sized identical UHAUL boxes traveling across the country right now...how dramatic. It's been a full week and now I have some time to reflect...it seems so unreal that its over. I guess its been finishing in phases....my closest friends left while i was in Australia so this goodbye wasn't as crazy as it could have been...which is a good thing. I've been saying my goodbyes every four months for five years now...i'm used to it...but i still wouldn't say I'm too good at it.

I had no idea what to do with my fishy Electra...so i decided to set him free in Columbia Lake. I know i probably aided in its death by depositing it into dirty (possibly man made) waters where it will likely be eaten alive by bigger and more ferocious lake dwelling fish...but i guess the first couple of minutes of his freedom felt incredible when he realized he wasn't looking out through those glass walls. Oh the visceral irony of it all...how i wish i could stay in that glass bowl for a bit longer. Not one part of me is ready to enter those murky waters of real life.

The day of my last exam i decided to go incognito on this side of the world and do a little uni documentation of all the spots that meant something to me these past 5 years. Here they are below...

311 - the venue for pre-bar, post-bar, and themed parties, chilled out conversations, tv marathons, lots of laughter, cooking mishaps, post bar conversations lasting till the wee hours of morning...always good friends, always a distraction whenever needed...i'll miss it.

Currently named FUBAR (stands for Fu*kd Up Beyond All Recognition) but will always be Loose Change Louies in my heart! How many Thursday nights did we spend here...a hell of a lot thats how many....until Ceaser's came along.

Our regular Thursday night venue this past year...good times were had by all. The bouncers, the walks to and from in the freezing snow with open toe shoes, the lineups, the late entry and slamming double fisted doubles...

What were Friday nights in loo without Revolution? Although it changed throughout the years...the boys got ghetto-er, the girls got younger...the music got worse, the bar got a makeover...i guess we just got older. Memories of Moet, Pre-drinking with Hyp, checkered floors and lockers in the bathroom...how happy would we be when our 75 cents actually worked?? thats when we knew it would be a great Rev night...

And what would Rev be without Gino's after?? Although now called Campus Pizza...(was it ever called Ginos when i was around??), a night was never complete without a cab ride to Ginos...veggie pizza with garlic sauce, shooting the sh*t outside for a bit, post rev chilling session at our place...then sleeping through Saturday and S&TC on Saturday nights...then dc on sundays...that was the reg.

The walk to engineering...

My most favoritest bubble tea place ever! What great energy! I will miss their small chilled milk honeydew mango bubble tea with tapioca pearls :(

Ahhh Phat Cat gyros...and the gyro nazi...he was absolutely crazy but i still ate them for lunch at least 2wice a week...i dont know why i never just paid for the extra topping!!

Mel's was never our spot - but good milkshakes and rubbery eggs. Sugar mountain when we were in need of a sugar rush. And for all the sushi i ate here this term, i should have been called Mrs. Sushi.

DWE - the chem eng's home. Sitting in the same classrooms for hours on end while the non english speaking profs came in and out, stumbling over their words and offering brutal assignments as consolation...

The suffocating halls of DWE...


Ah, the pleasant smells of the 4th year room...the computers that were always locked and the mad rush to copy/finish assingments...my how our morale dropped as the years progressed...

Well, there it is folks. My university career in a nutshell...I'll miss my little fishbowl. Now onto the murky waters of real life...

Missin Melbs Heaps!

Never thought I'd miss Melbourne so much. Farrer Hall, O-week, me 8 by 10 inch concrete res room on 2nd Floor Lords, Monash Meeting Point with $2.20 handrolls, wedges and sweet chili sauce, The Roxannes- formally known as Kanye West-formally known as Group 13, the walk to the Nott, Fibonacci's Chai-Tea Lattes, slops, tv marathons, the terrible dance music, the 80's revival mullets and skinnys on all the men and women, the aussie accent, and the goon...most of all the goon. My ghetto phone with the really loud ring going off at precisely 4am every morning, the avacados, Flinder's Street Station and random hip hop classes off of Chapel street....St Kilda bakeries, sour straps and shoe shopping, Chaddy, the useless buses in Clayton, Murrummbeena station in the train window and Federation Square's artificial stars...the Yarra lit up in fireworks, the ferris wheel, the southern cross and of course the people.

but no worries, mates. I'm continuing the blogging business in my last year to keep me sane of course...but i cant help but feel so incredibly nostalgic...


"The moments of the past do not remain still; they retain in our memory the motion which drew them towards the future, towards a future which has itself become the past, and draw us on in their train." - Marcel Proust

Home Sweet, Sweet Home

Mummy saying: "Hai hai, Meena toh yehri!"

The past couple of days have been a whirlwind of events. I walked through those airport doors at 11:40 PM to find all my loved ones waiting for me with bouquets of flowers and roses. The first thing I did was…drumroll please…burst into tears!

"Oh my God Salim, how did you get so tall??"

I loved how Jahaan kept saying to Appa: "Mummy, I like Khala"

We spent some time at the airport and then retired to our respective homes. I tried to fend off my jetlag by staying up but I still couldn’t get to bed until about 6 in the morning! Didn’t wake up until my brother forced me out of bed at 3:45 PM!! Six months in the southern hemisphere will really mess with your biological clock. On Thursday, I had a little surprise party complete with a Welcome Home cake and presents, including my very new and tres cool electric toothbrush! It is so, so sick that I am actually brushing my teeth more then normal!


Drove around with my music blasting (the Katchafire Reggae I got from NZ) and it was so therapeutic. I feel like life here is still the same. There has been a lot of growth (Cali-g is now a million strong!) but nothing has changed significantly. In some ways, I feel as though I never left. People keep asking me: Do I miss Australia? Sure…I grew quite accustomed to calling peppers “capsicums” and sunnies “sunnies”. Handrolls were my meal of choice and I'm itching to hear “Feel the Love Generation” or Rogue Traders “Watching You”.

Take me downtown
It's where the people rock,
Three-hundred sixty five ?
cos we never stop.
Take me downtown
Cos' peoples runnin' wild.
See how we kick it in a brand new style.
Take me downtown
It's where I wanna go.
Everyone I know is going to my show-
Take me downtown
Where the city hum,
Then get your head numb
to the beat of the drum cause,
I see you watching me watching you,
And now you see just where you gotta be.
I see you watching me watching you,
And now you see just where you gotta be.

Bobbing my head just feels so good. I listen to “Livin’ on a Prayer” and I think of the Nott. I'm unpacking the multitudes of crap that I have accumulated and each postcard and magnet and article of clothing and rock and leaf tells a story.

I went out last night to the Met and I'm finding it really hard to dress in Calgary fashion. I'm sticking with my Australian style cuz I’d feel like too much of a bogan if I wore flare leg jeans. I busted out the skinnys and the boots and the leggings and I can’t help but feel oh-so-Ozzy.

Well, back to seeing the Big Dipper rather than the Southern Cross! Crazy how time flies.

(Meena+Jenn)(Tokyo)=TROUBLE

Well we finally got all of our clothes, shoes and accessories packed after much struggle and suprisingly we were able to leave the Bangkok Airport without paying for extra luggage charges. I still dont know how we managed that, considering the hideous state of my bags!! I was wearing four sweaters and my jean jacket just so it wouldnt add to the extra weight in my suitcase. Now thats what you call resourcefulness!

Between Bangkok and LA we had a day-long stop over in Tokyo. It was absolutely insane and we loved it! We flew into Narita and took the Airport Limousine Bus service to Tokyo which only took an hour and a half. We arrived in Tokyo right in the heart of the shopping district (of course) called Shibuya. The main shopping part of Shibuya is called Shibuya-109, which is a mall with floors and floors of boutique shops. Everything we saw on every mannequin was something we would wear! What made it even better was that all of the sales girls were just HOT! And as if it couldn’t get any better, they were playing reggae in most stores—we wanted to set up shop and just start dancing! (Music in Australia sucked with its “house” dance music, and there was no decent reggae anywhere! Thailand had some really good old skool rnb but the music in Tokyo was by far the best.)

In the first half hour Jenn and I had already made 2 purchases each! I got a hot pair of extra huge sunglasses (so what else is new?) and a half backless shirt to show off my tattoo! Jen got sunglasses and a hot hat! Then we had some missions trying to find sushi…I was under the impression that it would be everywhere but it wasn’t! It was actually effort to try to find a sushi place. We finally found one and enjoyed a quick efficient lunch…it really said a lot about Japanese culture. You just get in, do your ish, and get out!

After Shibuya, we tried to navigate through the very, very complicated Tokyo train system.

This city does not cater to tourists at all!! We finally got to Harijuku station which was beside this next shopping area called Takeshita Street. It was here that we scoped out all of the new fashions that will likely be hitting Canada in, well, 5 years. There were 3 basic types of people we saw trendsetting on Tokyo streets: The hot Jap girl trendy look (nails done up in jewels, brassy long curly hair, nude lips, defined eyes), the doll Lolita look (almost scary, a little too much!) and the Goth-Punk look (for emo rebels). It was all very cutting edge!For my fellow Fashionistas, these are the trends that I observed. Mark them down for infiltration into North America in the coming months/years!

• Garters (like wedding garters) showing outside your clothing. Also saw one built right into a skirt.
• Wearing lingerie (leopard for good measure). We actually saw a girl walking the street (one of the hot jap trendy girls) who looked like she had just forgotten to put on clothes!
• Military/Army wear (which is in right now in Australia as well)
• Leggings under a skirt or with a long shirt (so very 80’s, also just passed through Australia and being worn in Europe)
• Teased long curly hair
• Overalls that are shorts or skirts with one strap un done (kris kross style).
• Suspenders. Not sure if i can deal with this one!

After strolling through the fashionable Harijuku I realized that I have really embraced the Asian Goddess within me…like I think I was Japanese in a previous life. What else explains my so very cutesy and oh-so-Tokyo cell phone with its charms and big pink hearts and sparkles? I used to make excuses but I’d be proud to hold it in my hands in Tokyo! I think I could definitely live here – I just need to learn some Japanese! It was simply enchanting!

Crikey! Its Over Mate!

Bangkok has been absolutely mad and bonkers and wonderful. The heat is almost suffocating and the smell of exhaust mixed with durian and jackfruit is overwhelming. All you hear are the sounds of impatient tuk tuk horns bleeping, people shouting, and music blasting out of every nook and cranny. It is an overload to the senses with people dodging traffic with no regard for health and safety standards and colorful lights and scarves and trinkets and noisy wooden frogs and tropical fruits and the dance of bargaining at every stall.



I call it a dance because that is what it seems like. One extra second long look at something you may have found visually appealing and you have commited about 5 minutes of your life to bargaining. It is a careful courtship; you cannot start at a price too high that the seller will say yes right away, and you cannot start so low that they will laugh in your face and not even bother with you. So you judge value quickly in your head, do your conversion calculations whilst not changing the look on our face no matter how bad you would like the item. And then the dance begins, with back and forth swaying using the universal language of a calculator and as much body language as you can muster.

"Hello okay missy, hello okay how much?"
"40 baht"
"Oh no, no, cannnnnot, cannnoot missy, you give me more"
"Ok you tell me how much you sell?"
"I sell you 150 baht missy"
"Noooo noo, tooo much" (as you start to emulate their speech to get the point across)
"Ok fine how much you pay"
"50 baht"
"You pretty girl, i give you special price, i give you 120 baht"
"No, way too much" (as you start to walk away)
"Okay, okay, okay, (as they grab your arm or wave you back) look i give you best price i give you 150 baht for two!"

And the courtship continues until one loses patience or the other pursuades. It' s an incredible thing to watch.

The day we flew into Bangkok from Chaing Mai we walked Khaosan Road and then came home exhausted and ordered Pizza delivery. (Is that english...i dont even know anymore....) It was absolute heaven! And the first time I had pizza since our 3 day courtship of Pizza Hut in New Zealand! On Sunday we spent the day at MBK, which is this 7 story tall crazy mall with bargaining allowed. We got fobbed out sticker pics of the three of us, and got the last random things on our list. Yesterday in the day time we went to the floating market in the morning and then saw the Imperial Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.




Last night we ran into some friends and we went to Pat Pong, the Red Light District in Bangkok. It is definitely something to see...but....definitely not something to see again! They do quite unmentionable and revolting things with ping pongs, candles, razor blades (???) and the like (that's when we left). Ew. But it was interesting, i must admit. It was more curiousity on all of our parts, we got semi scammed like we knew we would. 100 baht for cola and free "looky-looky" but if you stay more than 2 minutes its 300 baht for cola an looky looky. So we sipped our colas and looky lookyed.

I leave tonight...and this is it! One 12 hour stop in Tokyo tomorrow so we are planning on grabbing some expensive sushi and a postcard or somthing. I reckon going from the baht to the yen is a little to hardcore for shopping. Throughout this trip i've been in an on-again, off-again relationship with Deet. On-again because I know I need Deet, off-again because no matter how much i put on i still get feasted upon by the misquitos. Seriously, I'll be sitting in a mini bus with like 20 people and the misquitos will all just come to me, pick a limb, and have a buffet. I'm surprised i dont have West Nile yet. I heard it happens if you eat to many bananas (increased potassium levels in blood...) but i gave up bananas in Australia because they were about $12/kg after the cyclones and I still got eaten alive. But that's neither here nor there....

My backpack is practically bursting right now. It took 3 of us and a whole lot of muscle to get that thing closed. My right hook does have quite a reputation though so I wasnt too worried. Half a year later and I am coming home a bit plumper, a lot darker, and without a watch. I am less stressed (even thought i'm currently unemployed and homeless in September), more independent, and i'd like to think my tattoo makes me about 2.57 square centimeters cooler. It's going to be weird going back home and having personal space again...I dont know if i can handle it...it will definitely be an adjustment! But I have a Welcome Back Surprise Party with my family on Thursday...quite excited about that! Oh how i love surprises :)