The Dogs

It's been a while since I have talked about the dogs, so I will. We've had Cleo the whippet for nearly 18 months now. She was such a timid little thing when we first got her and did not accept human contact at all. However, I guess it has been only the last 6 months or so where she has become very attached to Miss R and I, she'll even jump up on us and snuggle in behind our backs on the couch when we're watching telly. She's still quite independent and won't come back inside from the park when called, but she lets us clip her on the lead at least, so we have to walk her in. It's funny, as much as she loves running full tilt across the oval, she just as much loves trotting along on the lead down the street sniffing every tree in sight. When we're not in her familiar environment, such as down at the dog beach or down on the farm, she never leaves our side. Merlin the retired racing greyhound is the crowd favourite though. Over the last 6 months we have become much more confident in controlling him and we're not afriad that he's going to ru off never to be seen again. IN the park at least we can let him off the lead no worries, it's all fully fenced and he tends to just follow me around now without looking out for the next opportunity to escape. He is even getting better with other dogs, he even plays now which is great to see. If another dog barks at him or snaps at him, he is very quick at high tailing it for home, the brave dog that he is....not. He did himself an injury last time we were down on the farm, his front right paw must've done a tendon in it or something as he can sometimes have an obvious limp there. Still, once he warms up he has a big 30 second sprint around the oval, he is then flat on his back for the next 12 hours. I swear, if you're after a low maintenance dog, a greyhound is for you. So yeah, the two of them still get along well, they'll take turns in chasing each other around the park. A greyhound should be a darn sight faster than a whippet, but they can't turn as quick, so Cleo gets away in that respect, plus a greyhound doesn't have the endurance of a whippet, not by a long shot, and also Merlin is quite stiff in his back legs so he doesn't stride out all that well. I really want to take them down to Templestowe flats where I hear there is a bit of a rabbit problem, let the dogs do what they were bred to. I think Cleo would probably catch one, but I doubt Merlin would.

So, back in Melbourne......

It's been almost 6 weeks since we got back from Europe. Man, time has flown hasn't it? So, now we're heading into the Christmas season already. And what of this whole global financial crisis that is supposedly occurring? Well, from where I'm sitting, I've noticed the phone stop ringing a bit, especially since I got back. What I do is primarily linked into the start of big budget residential developments across central Melbourne. Luckily, we have a pretty good working relationship with a few of them and I asked them how the current financial situation is affecting them. Well, not much apparently, well, not in the strict sense of the word. It so happens that they're going to sit on their hands until the new year before starting new projects. They're still able to get funding, they're still quite solvent, so I think you'll see things start to turn in the new year. I guess we're lucky here in that our housing market is not artificially inflated by too much, supply and demand you see. There's not much vacant housing here, and with 1,500 new people arriving in Melbourne per week, these people need to live somewhere. I'm not a economic genius, but it makes sense yes? And Australia is still exporting hugs amounts of natural resources, be it food or minerals, so I don't think we're doing too badly, even in this day and age, I guess primary industries are still the bedrock of any good economy. I hold grave fears for net importers of foods though, such as many European countries. What if we closed off food exports to look after ourselves first? Wow, now that would make us pretty poor, but on the other hand, at least we wouldn't starve.

The trip part 11

So, our final full day in Paris and of our trip. We caught the tourist shuttle (again) around to LaFayette for Miss R to try and find some perfume or some such, but in actuality, we were going to have to re-mortgage the house should she wished to buy anything, such was the shameful performance of the South Pacific Peso at that point in time. So we left there and tried to find our way to Montmarte and the Sacre Cour Cathedral. This meant having to brave the Paris underground metro system. Now, four years ago I never had any problems with it, I used it quite easily, but for some reason this time around I was apprehensive. We asked a ticket booth lady which ticket to get, but she a grumpy little thing that was obviously upset by our mere presence, so we used the automatic ticket machine. Somehow we made it to the right station and walked up hill...a very long hill. What I wasn't expecting were laneways filled with dodgy secondhand dealers and equally dodgy people. Suddenly we weren't in Paris anymore but the back blocks of Doveton. Seriously, not pleasant. We took a look at the cathedral at the top of the hill, as impressive as it was, and walked back down the hill. Let down factor 10. I also got hit up by the infamous bracelet scam, where some African guy comes up and asks you to put your finger in a loop of string. Apparently they go on tie a bracelet around your arm and then 'insist' that you pay for it. They were very insistent, Miss R wanted me to be polite, but I was ready to sink my fist in his face if he didn't leg it. So, we made our way around to the Musee D 'Orsay, really, the best gallery in Paris in my book. The Louvre is a waste of time and money (The countless floor to ceiling renditions of the crucifixion get a little tiresome if you know what I mean). Anyway, the best bit about the Musee D Orsay was the Impressionist section. Here were some of the world's most famous paintings, all in one spot. Van Go, Monet, Renoir, all of them. Even Miss R, who isn't an art buff, was suitably impressed. And this wasn't just a pissy little room, with 5 paintings that the National Gallery of Victoria would put on, no way, there were about 5 large rooms, with 10 paintings from EACH artist. Breathtaking. So, that was that. We had dinner at a lovely little restaurant around the corner from the hotel where upon I had my final Creme Brulee. Pretty bloody nice it was too. The next day, our shuttle arrived to pick us up and take us to Charles De Gaulle airport. Not the prettiest of airports in the world one must say, and certainly one of the worst security checks in the whole world. Only 1 x-ray machine to serve about three plane loads of people. stunning in its inefficiency. We had good seats home, the trip from Paris to KL was uneventful, prescription sleeping tablets working a treat yet again. However, the trip from KL to Melbourne was not so good. Apparently we had found ourselves in the unofficial 'baby section'. I'm really not convinced that a 10 hour plane ride with a 6 month old is a pleasant experience. We had 6 of them in close proximity, plus a few toddlers whose parents decided to suddenly disown them once in the confines of the plane. I think check in people should just put all the kids and parents together in the one spot, maybe down the back, behind a sound proof screen perhaps, because, from the reactions of everyone else on that plane we were with, that would've seemed like the smart thing to do.

The trip part 10

As soon as we arrived in Paris it was if everything became easier and much more user friendly again. We had splashed out for a private shuttle to collect us from Orly airport to our hotel. Yes, we had a man standing, waiting for us with a little whiteboard with our name on it. How special are we huh? He was such a nice driver too, he loved explaining to us the city sites as we made our way to the city. He even gave us a few handy French words to use, he was great. Our hotel was in the (we found out later the upmarket bit)7th district, between the Hotel Invalides (the big old army hospital) and the Eiffel Tower which we could see from our sixth floor window. Awesome. The whole notion of French people being rude and arrogant is unfounded. I was last in France 4 years ago and for a much longer period of time, and could've said the same thing back then. We always found everyone to be extremely helpful and pleasant, unlike some of the Barcelona locals who really thought their shit didn't stink at all. Miss R and I wandered around Paris during the afternoon, walked up the Champs de Elysee for a bit of gawk and then found ourselves a little cafe near the hotel. Anyone who knows me knows that of all the desserts in all of the world, I simply cannot get enough of Creme Brulee. And here we were in ground zero of Creme Brulee. Miss R bet that I couldn't eat one at every restaurant we went to during our stay, but I did, and these weren't your little ramekin ones either, these were practically served in breakfast bowls. Outstanding really. I wonder if a city can ever reach a restaurant critical mass. Paris seemed to have one on every street corner and in between as well, and yet they were all busy, even on a Tuesday night. We found ourselves on another tourist bus the next day, an easy way to get around to be sure, but again, the headphone commentary was rubbish at best. But it's a good way to see everything and to get around. We started at the Eiffel Tower, dodging the super dodgy street merchants trying to flog the crappest of all tourist tat imaginable. There really is too much to explain to go into any great detail, but Paris is simply stunning, really it is. If you see a gold topped dome on a church, the Hotel Invalides, or the old Opera House, it isn't paint, it's actual gold leaf, and it really shows. We stopped off at Gallerie Lafayette, which is quite simply a staggering temple to consumer-dom. We're talking umpteen floors of department store madness here, and we're not talking your $10 home brand tracky dacks here. All the high end stuff was to be found, from Gucci, YSL, Prada, Versace, Chanel...just staggering. I'm not sure how many people were actually in there to buy anything as opposed to just having a good ol sticky beak at how the other half live. A $350 t-shirt...come on, that's just silly. We got on the bus and off again half way along the Champs and found ourselves walking back to the hotel through some very exclusive streets. We bought some very very high end chocolate from a lovely chocolatier who was very excited about us being Australian. According to him "I simply luuurve Australians, you are always so happy." Warms the heart really huh? We ended up having dinner at a restaurant next door to the hotel which, from what I thought, were pretty reasonable main meal prices. Yet, the bill came to a staggering €75.00!! I was amazed, yet they had pinged us for coffees that were €4.50 each...yes, that's almost A$9.00....for a coffee....boggles the mind that people over there can afford anything.

The trip part 9

Our last full day in Barcelona allowed me the time to get my money's worth at the all inclusive breakfast buffet. Quite an unhealthy array of fatty pastries, meat, eggs, cereal and more pastries were consumed. I was hoping it would tide me over until dinner time as we had found that lunch, and take away food in general was becoming prohibitively expensive, especially since the Aussie dollar continued its downward trajectory. Our plan was to visit the tallest building in Barcelona, La Sagrida Familia, or, as a rough translation, the 'massive funny lookin church'. The cathedral, if you aren't familiar with it, is the pinnacle of design from the architect Antoni Gaudi. He was famous for rounded, organic lines in his buildings, inspired by natural shapes and geometry. Truly breathtaking indeed. Construction of the cathedral began around 1890, however, due to the complexity of the design, engineering limitations of the time prevented the entire cathedral being built. In fact it has been a constant work in progress so much so the the expected year of completion will be sometime around 2050. As a result, the interior still resembles a building site, although much had been done since I last visited four years ago. But, in truth, I dunno if it is worth the admission. A building site is a building site, and not very exciting at that. Despite that, Miss R and I completely lost track of time and realised we had spent nearly three hours in there. We got on the tourist shuttle again and headed for Parc Guell. I thought it would be nice to chill out there for a while. Parc Guell is a park constructed by Gaudi for a good friend of his, but is thankfully open to the public. The unfortunate thing was that this was a sunny sunday, so I think just about every person in Barcelona had the same idea as us. It wasn't bad, just not very peaceful. Dodgy men from north Africa were everywhere trying to sell 'tourist tat' and were being 'moved on' by the resident security guard. We decided on having some good Spanish tapas for dinner and we weren't disappointed. If I could remember the name of the restaurant I'd write it here for a strong recommendation. If you're ever there, I think it was north of Placa Catalunya and had a red and white colour scheme. Anyway, the food was great, the establishment clean and the staff very friendly. Our waiter was very interested that we had come all the way from Australia to be at his restaurant, but I don't think he was as enamored with the American couple sitting next to us. So, the next day we flew out to Paris, but here was where Spain was to give us one last bit on the bum. Miss R checked us out whilst I stood outside the hotel with the taxi driver waiting...and waiting...and waiting. I went back in and asked what was going on. Apparently, all those 'collect calls' we had made to Australia had cost us €78.00. That translates to about A$160! for three phone calls! Talk about rort, we were even told that they were reverse charges. But oh no, the check out guy suddenly couldn't speak English and wouldn't understand our protests. So what else could we do but suck it in and pay. As if they hadn't already got enough of our money. Then, so cap it off, we had found that teh taxi driver had had his meter running the whole time, so before we had even left the hotel there was €6 on the meter! That's $A12, enough to get me from Reservoir to Fitzroy and still have change, and yet we hadn't even moved yet! By teh time we had gotten to the airport, the total amounted to €35...phew, not a total rip off...until the driver presses a few buttons on the meter and suddenly the total is €45! Easily the most expensive cab fare I have ever taken. Step into Barcelona airport and it was pandemonium. The check in queues were hideously long and they weren't moving at all. I thought, this can't be right, these people aren't all going to Paris, indeed they were all heading to Madrid. And then I saw it, three check in counters at the end with three people lined up at each. It occurred to me that sometimes people are just sheep, they just accept the norm, whereas, thankfully, some people break the mould. I lined up adn we checked in in 10 minutes. If we had stayed with everyone else in the long lines we would've missed our flight and that would've just taken the biscuit. Quite frankly, Barcelona this time around was a disappointment. It just felt dirty, tacky, touristy and like no-one was willing to help us and that everyone was trying to stitch you up. Good weather but.

The trip part 8

So, having our main suitcase back meant at least we could change into some clean-ish clothes, and head out to do some touristy things whilst the hotel changed our room. We headed for Placa Catalunya around the corner and the plan was to catch the tourist bus around, see everything, then the next day stop off at what we wanted to spend more time at. Best laid plans of course. The main tourist bus, the government run Bus Turistic, has a ticket booth queue stretching to Madrid, so we opted for the 'other' tourist shuttle bus. Now, I don't mean to sound harsh here, but the running commentary by this bus company was sparse at best. Miss R kept turning to me and asking, "Did you understand that?/what does she mean?/I can't hear what she's saying," etc etc. Yes, not the best as you can well imagine. I think if you are going to offer an English option, at least get a native English speaker to speak it. Heck, I would've done it if they had asked me. It was quite a warm sunny day, we were sitting on the open top deck, but it was likely soon we'd get sunburnt, so we went down stairs. As it was getting near lunch time, Miss R and I decided to get off the bus at some random stop near the main palace. After walking around for a little bit we stumbled upon a 'medieval' market. Despite how tacky you might think that sounds, it was actually very good and the Spanish do know how to make good assorted bakery products. My Spanish was rubbish, I should've brushed up on a bit before we landed. One of the main words I should've learned was for 'meat' (which is 'carne' by the way...DER!) as Miss R is a vegetarian. So trying to ask a Spanish stall holder which dishes were vegetarian was quite futile. I don't think there is such a term in Spanish for vegetarian, as from what I could gather, their diet is strictly carnivore. Miss R's attempts at communication was to sound like a mentally challenged person putting on a bad Italian accent and asking "No meat no meat??", nup, still non comprende. Anyway, it was a nice little market, we picked up some ridiculously fat laden chocolate pastry thing that dripped all over my hands. Why aren't Spanish people fat...oh yeah, that's right, most of them wouldn't have been able to afford the hideously overpriced food we encountered. After a day out doing a big lap in the tourist bus, we made it back to the hotel and at last, a shower that drains away!! YAY! After three days stinking like a dog, it would have to have been one of the best showers I have ever had in the history of me. We had dinner in a lovely restaurant around the corner from the hotel. The staff were really very very nice and accommodating for our lack on language skills. I had looked up a few phrases courtesy of babel-fish before heading out, so at least we knew that we could ask ¿Esto tiene carne?

The trip part 7

So, Barcelona...where to start. Okay then, how about with the shittiest airport experience ever?? Actually the flight from London to Barcelona was very nice, in a British Airways airbus. Now I see why Airbus is a far superior product than anything Boeing can dish up. Seriously, the cabin noise was virtually non-existent, and the seats much more comfortable. Really, if the French can do it, why not everyone else huh? Anyway, the walk from the arrival gate to the baggage reclaim area can only be described as epic. I think it took nearly 20 minutes. And upon arriving at the baggage carousel we managed to claim one of the our suitcases...the one with all of Miss R's shoes and our dirty washing....but wait a minute, everyone else from the flight has gone, and we've still to get our main suitcase. And I'm talking our main suitcase here, with all of Miss R's new clothes from London, not to mention all of our clean clothes and toiletries. And still we waited....... In the end we had to go to the baggage counter and file a report of a missing suitcase. The lady was okay, but seriously, their system of missing baggage has to be put into question. The poor lady had no idea where the bag could be, their system in Barcelona is not linked with BA's system. She gave a claim number and that was that. So we were left with the clothes on our backs and a suitcase full of shoes and dirty washing. Great. So, having been to Barcelona 4 years ago, I had remembered about the Aerobus, a shuttle bus to the city. The automatic ticket machine was infuriating, so I kicked it and we bought a ticket from the driver instead. Seriously, by this stage I wasn't enjoying this country at all, can you tell?? We got to our hotel, which, thankfully, was very very nice and well appointed, as well it should be considering how much we paid. By this time it was 1pm, so we thought we'd head out for a wander, at least have something to eat, and see some sights, and maybe by the time we got back to the hotel our bag would have turned up. We hired a couple of bicycles which was awesome, and probably highly recommended. It really is s great town to cycle around, although a bit scary with cars being on the opposite side of the road. We rode down to the beach, along the harbour and up through the old city. The weather was great. I must say though, that coming into evening, we found ourselves in some very dodgy back blocks that we quickly high tailed it out of. We got to Placa Catalunya right in the middle of rush hour, and seriously, there were people freakin everywhere. We couldn't ride anymore, had to walk the bikes around. So, we returned the bikes and made our way back to the hotel hoping to see our suitcase there. Alas, not to be. By this stage we were getting pretty peeved, no doubt. We rang the number that the woman at the airport gave us only to be told to look it up on the internet tracking system. But he had no idea where the bag was, and couldn't say whether it had left London or not. So we rang BA in London only to get a recorded message saying to call back later when the lines weren't so busy....which we did countless times. So, we thought we had better ring our travel insurance company. Oh, but wait, they had reps in every country EXCEPT SPAIN! So, we had to somehow find out how to make a reverse charges call to Australia. We had no luck. The phones were crap, no-one would help us. So we went down to the reception, and she ended up ringing for us, but of course, it wasn't business hours in Australia was it? So we thought we could at least have a shower, clean ourselves up, use the hotel supplied soap etc. Oh, but that would be too easy wouldn't it? We turned the shower on and in the space of a minute the whole bathroom floor had flooded and the expanding tide was making its way out the door. Closer inspection had revealed the sink hole to be plugged full of hair. Ewwwww. We rang reception, they sent up a maid to mop up, but they couldn't change our room as they were full, and they couldn't fix the plug hole as the plumber wasn't available. So we couldn't even have a shower. I'm not kidding, we hadn't washed since the night before, and we stank. Nothing to do except get some cheap take way, and wallow in the state of how crap Spain had been to us. The next day, still nothing on the internet regarding the bag. Questions start running thought your mind....was it nicked off the carousel? Did someone take it by mistake?? Would they take it back to the airport? Why wasn't it here?? We made our way down to breakfast, ate a minuscule portion, not hungry at all. Miss R and I were fed up, we were going to go back to the airport and talk to someone face to face as the people of the phone were freakin useless. We got back into our room and guess what....our suitcase had magically arrived!!! Oh I actually heard angels singing such was the joy. Hopefully Barcelona was going to redeem itself...unfortunately it was only going to be fleeting.

The trip part 6

The final few days in the UK really went by terribly quick. We went into central London to conduct a military assault on our credit card balance. First stop was the half price theatre ticket booth in Leister Square. We wanted to see Wicked, and quite honestly, I highly recommend this option. We had looked online the night before and A-Class tix were in the order of £60 each, which with the way the Aussie dollar was nose diving, equated to about $5,000 each. But anyway, after going to the booth we walked away with two A-Class tix for the price of one. Bonus! Then it was shopping time. I mean, people in Melbourne think they have the best shopping? Come on, who are you kidding?? Even country towns in England have a better selection of clothes than the tripe served up at somewhere like Myers. So anyway, Miss R and I successfully wore out the magnetic strip on the back on the credit card. That night we went to see Wicked at the Victoria Apollo. Yes, strictly not the West End, but damn handy to Victoria station and the train home. As far as musicals go, it was very very good, and I'm not a big musical fan by any stretch of the imagination. The good thing about the Victoria Apollo, and it's only a small thing, but it means a great deal, is the fact that as it was one of the more recent theatres built, so the seats aren't built for midget sized people. The next day we headed back down to Brighton on the train. This time we left in good time so I could show Miss R around the place a bit. After dawdling through the North Laine district yet again, we found ourselves in the more touristy Brighton Lanes area. Now, I really cannot for the life of me remember this or not, but quite frankly there were jewellery shops everywhere. It was a dazzling array of silver and gold, and suffice to say Miss R was drooling at every opportunity. We then made our way to the famous Brighton Pier, truly the epitome of tourist tackiness. The worst thing was that the wind was blowing an absolute gale and the thoughts of a pleasant lunch eating fish and chips on the pier were not to be. Anyway, from there we made our way back to Grandma's for what would be my last visit. It was bittersweet, truly it was. It was just so nice to see her again, yet being the last time on the trip was very very sad. I said that we'd be back for her 100th birthday, and you can mark that in your diaries right now folks; December 2010. Our final full day in London, and MIss R and headed up to Camden Market, I had been looking forward to this all trip to be honest, but I was sorely let down. It's funny how your brain plays tricks on you isn't it? I seem to remember things a bit differently up there, yet, all of a sudden every second shop was selling tourist tat and the in between shops were selling punk fashions. Not exactly my bag. Once in the markets, maybe if you're into second hand clothes, then it might be the place for you, but since I've kinda grown out of that then the attraction had kinda worn off. Luckily Miss R and I found a kindly suitcase shop where we had to buy a second suitcase in order to transport our copious amounts of shopping on the plane home with us. From there we decided, as our last touristy thing, that we'd go to the Natural History Museum. In the end we only found ourselves with only 90 minutes, which is simply not enough time to do the place justice. And that was England. I swear, you could spend weeks holidaying there and still not see or do everything you want to. I guess that is like anywhere else too I suppose. And then it was onto Barcelona......