Lyon, Luxembourg, Lucky

When I was in Budapest, chasing goose through the casino, it suddenly struck me - and I passed out with all the painful pain.

Budapest is the new Krakow which is the old new Prague. I'm not quite sure where Tallinn fits - though possibly its the old Budapest. I'm not really sure because I am so tragically unhip (I only have one Kathmandu bag for e.g.) that I've only just done Prague, a decade too late for me to have any kind of travelling currency. (Get the pun, huh?)

Right now, I'm sitting on a train to Luxembourg. Even though my Eurail pass is only valid for Austria, France and Switzerland, the train conductor couldn't be bothered to make me pay for "so few miles" - he would've had to fill out forms in triplicate and that just sounds dangerously like work. To an outsider (implying you untravelled readers), it seems paradoxical that a culture as lazy as the French could invent bureaucracy with its intricate web of inefficient effort. Yet, now that I am rapidly becoming Fracais - eating chocolate bread for breakfast, painting my meister work in my spare time, sweeping back my luscious locks and picking out the stale croissants crubs from underfoot - I understand the genius of the invention of beauracray... its such pointlessly difficult work that its the perfect justification for doing nothing. for e.g.

"Monsiuer, I know that you are ungry, yet you must understand that I would lurv to serve you some lunch after two in the afternoon, but I'm afraid you would have to fill out one of those pink late lunch request forms, file them with your local la d'shat, and return with the stamped approval form. Would some delicious chocolat bread abate your unger, monsieur?"

When I share this amazing insight into their culture with the French, they regar me with pitying eyes - as if there would be any other use for bureaucracy.

Yet, strangely, I am not sure that I would like France any more if they served breakfast at a civilised time, like three pm.

My introduction to France was less than stellar. The hostel I wanted to stay at - mostly because it was the only hostel in Lyon - didn't allow web bookings or, like, ANSWERED THEIR PHONE (this may require talking to people and thus be too much like work). Walking through Lyon's quaint cobbled streets may sound lovely in the phoney planet, but with a 15 kg backpack on your back and (my own fault admittedly) loafers on your feet, those cobbles become like thorns in your side or John Lawsie in your ears. Painful.

After a bus driver dropped me rather aways away from Vieux Lyon (ie on the middle strip) and wandering aimlessly through these quaint cobbled streets (quaint is just guide book talk for confusing and small) I finally found the street on which the hostel was based. It was on a hill. Here's a diagram of said hill to demonstrate the angular relationship between said ostel and moi.

OSTEL
/
/
/
Moi

Where one / = what seems like forever.

So after I reached the top I overheard the following conversation between three French guys and the receptionist.

"Baguette la police?"
"Non, non, paintin, cafe"
"Ah, rouge, rouge, ville"
"Japalle merci too vous lurv"
"CROISSANT CROISSANT CROISSANT"

With my fluent French, I was able to translate this conversation into:

"Sir, would there be the possibility of some accomodation in your fine establishment for my two travelling companions and myself?"
"I am sorry sir, but we have had an unexpected flux of visitors to our charming little town of Lyon.
"I understand. Do you think you could recommend anywhere else that would be able to put us up for the evening? We won't cause any bother."
"I am sorry, Sir, but everybody is full."
"Thank you for your time, good evening."

So I figured I might try one of the cheap hotels near the main train station. After working my way back there - easy but slow as it was the last of the underground trains - I discovered all the hotels were full too.

Frustratingly, the French also close their Train Stations temporarily overnight (until around 4 or so am). So I slept in a bus stop for a few hours until the station opened then I slept in the waiting room for hours. Ironically, I got one of the better nights sleep I've had since leaving the security of the Motherland during that time.

Oh, and something happened to all my Zurich photos during that time. They went to Photo heaven. Still have to conduct a technological resurrection to drag them screaming back to earth.

But now I am in Luxembourg and I boogied out to the Subways last night. Which is one of those weird once in a lifetime things. Never heard of the Subways before, although they are one of the New Manchester 'the' bands - quite young, full of energy - they did put on a good show. The after party was fun. We met a very strange English fellow from Brighton whose pick up line was (and I kid you not):

"Would you like to see the real spiderman? Take a chance...."

We have photos to prove it.

Complete aside --

For all those that care and remember me fretting over whether dropping all that coin on that Nikkon 18-200mm lens was worth it - short answer: HELL YES.

That said, I had a near disaster with my camera in Praha. The benches at the dinner table in Sir Toby's were deceptively thin (like French Women) and I underestimated said thinness (like French Women0. One evening, I rested my backpack on the bench to take out my camera when it lost stability and the case fell out backwards - smashing into the back wall. I was too scared to check it over immediately. I figured it was like Schrodigger's Cat (or however you spell it) - if I didn't open it then any damage would exist in an unresolved state of flux until an observer forced certainity onto the chaos. After too many Becharovka's that evening, I forgot all about it...

until I climbed many stairs to reach the Giant Metronome overlooking the city -- its on the former site of The Stalin Statue - and I took the camera out to take an amazing shot of the city. Then I remembered. I shook the camera gently... and it sounded like a rattle filled with glass or one of those frigging rain sticks. Slowly, I slid the camera out of the bag and there were massive cracks all along the front of the glass. Massive cracks. MASSIVE. LIke it was a plumbers convention. My heart sank.

Crap.

In a way, I could live without the camera - but the lens! This is the lens I spent nearly a month hunting for, found one place in Sydney which had one, and which I wouldn't be able to replace while overseas - at least not till I was in Japan. It's been serving me so, so well.

I bit my lip and looked closer -

miraciously it was ONLY the UV Filter which had cracked. It was so well built that the glass shards hadn't even fallen against the lens behind it. The lens itself was crack and scratch free. I carefully picked out all the shattered glass and threw it in the bin. The next day, after some hunting I bought a replacement filter and some lens tissue and a lens blower and blew away any fine particles left behind. Phew. I learned my lesson - always work with the camera somewhere where it can't fall.

Oh yeah, I am seeing B B King play here in Luxembourg tonight in a few hours. Its actually why I'm in this strange little town which I'm actually enjoying. The architecture is beautiful. The town is so stylish that even their tunnels are oh so couture. It doesn't quite match chasing geese in Budapest but not much else does.

"After a few of your fine whiskies, the most amazing thing happened on my walk home - the road stood up and hit me in the face."

(I wrote this a few days ago but I couldn't post it until now. Deal.)