Yep, I'm officially back again. Got back to Melbourne this morning, after stopping off at Sydney, after stopping off at Seoul, after catching a plane in Paris, after getting on a train three hours earlier in Avignon. Yeah, it was a
very long 28 hours... Haven't slept yet. But jetlag hasn't hit me like a brick to the head quite yet, so let's try for an update anyway...
So, Europe. Erm, where to start? I'm not actually sure. Here's a brief outline of the movements anyway: flew to Seoul (yeah yeah, I know that isn't in Europe) and spent a night there, then flew to Paris. Bummed around there for a few days, doing touristy things, and then high tailed it to Munich, staying a while in Brussels along the way. After Munich headed down through Austria (COLD!!! -8 degrees, people! To a poor little Aussie cold-wuss like yours truly, that's cruel and unusual torment) into Italy. Hung around in Venice (well, in Mestre, the town next to Venice - staying
in Venice itself costs an arm and a leg, not to mention it was flooding at the time) and Florence, and then drove along the coast (passing through Monaco on the way) back into France. Then we stayed at a friend's place in a little town in Provence for a bit under a week, and then it was back to Paris/Seoul/Sydney/home! Whew - no wonder I'm tired.
I ate what felt like my bodyweight in cheese, gave my liver a right pounding with all of the lovely European wine and beer, tracked down all of the most morbid historical sights I could find, got hideously sick in Venice (we're talking virtually bedridden for two days - I haven't been so ill in over ten years), ran gleefully after flamingos in the swamps of the Camargue, used the most confusing toilets ever, went on some truly epic supermarket adventures, and generally had an awesome time.
If I tried to write all about what I did, I'd be here all bloody night, so I won't. And if I tried to post all of my pictures, everyone's computers would crash, so I won't do that either. So here are some of the better photos:
Because everyone loves a German beer hall... Here's the brother, showing off his manly, beer wrangling strength (hey, those things hold a litre apiece - they're heavy!)
Here's Venice, now with 10% extra flooding. I was so annoyed to get sick at this point of the trip, because Venice was basically the thing I was looking forward to the most - I've wanted to go for years, because I've studied a lot of the history and just generally dig the place.
Some of the Roman ruins in Arles. They had a fantastic amphitheatre in Orange as well, but I'm particularly enamoured with how blue the sky was on this particular day. To be frank, the weather was rotten for most of the trip, but while we were in Provence it treated us wonderfully (aside from the first few days of having our arses frozen off by the Mistral).
I took heaps more - that's just a few at random. Suffice to say, I had an awesome time.
And yes, there was knitting. I only got one pair of socks finished the entire month I was away (can we say pathetic?), but I'm quite enamoured with them. Noro goodness...
And they match! For some bizarre reason, it turns out that when you knit a women's size 11 sock with this yarn on this size needle, you end up magically back at the start of the colour repeat when you finish. Total fluke. Weird. Anyway, I love them quite a lot. It means I can reprise my look of head to toe black with brightly coloured socks from a few years back - it'll brighten up the law school at least, even if everyone does think that I'm a right idiot...
