Boulders, Castles, and Parisian beauties

'Sup.

Certain people, by which I mean 'Patrick', have been telling me I should update this thing. Since I have exciting pictures to update it with, and also since he's probably the only person who reads it so I should do what he says... it's UPDATE TIME.

The subject of this update: The awesome 4 days near and in paris of two weekends ago.

Will there be pictures of awesome rock, stories of awesome beer and snails, and general merriment the likes of which makes you wish you had been there rather than doing whatever the hell you were actually doing? Oh, Count on it.

Right, so anyway, we met in Paris. I am pleased to say I never once referred to it as "Pah-reeee", except to take the piss out of people who do so sincerely (with the exception of the french, who are allowed to, but who you can take the piss out of for other reasons).

Speaking of taking the piss out of the french, we'll start with a joke from Richard:

Why do the French like the Tour de France so much?

Because it's better than watching German tanks drive down the Champs Elysees

Nice going Rich, you culturally insensitive bastard. To be fair, it's gotta have something to do with it though. I mean otherwise you'd just watch the WRC, right? Moving on.

(note: Richard is not actually a culturally insensitive bastard at all. He is a legend, and he went to Gallipoli last year on Anzac day with an NZ flag, so don't get the wrong idea).

Anyhooooo.

I arrived in Paris on the TGV. I travelled first class, because I am a FUCKING ROCK STAR! And also because they had run out of second class tickets.

This is what it looks like out the window of a train travelling around 1/3rd the speed of sound:




Hardcore eh? It would have been better if I have taken the shot when we were going along next to the highway and blowing past crazy frenchmen in their Peugots (who already drive like Schumacker on PCP) like they were standing still. Better yet is the fact that you don't need to get screened, don't need to check in, don't need to do nada. I arrived at the terminal where I boarded roughly 5 minutes before the train left on a connecting train from Baden. When it stopped 3 and a half hours later I was in the centre of Paris. Passport control consisted of 5 TOTALLY disinterested people wandering down the train, who didn't even ask me for my passport (which was a bit rough, considering I'd kept waking up the night before from some bad dream that I didn't have the right permit to get into France). To be fair, they were slightly pickier on the way back to Switzerland (in the sense that they wanted to make sure that I actually had a passport, there was still no stamping or anything). Once I got off the train, getting through baggage collection, customs, etc took me roughly 2 seconds. I just wandered down the platform and met Jaron and Ben, said "Yo, wassup homeys", and proceeded to make our way to the car. It is truly the way to travel.

From there we gapped it out to the airport to pick up Richard, once again cause for joyous reunion highfives, and then laid a patch for Fontainbleu.

Fontainbleu is an awesome castle type place surrounded by the bouldering mecca of the world. Look it up or something... and bear in mind that I've probably misspelt it. I don't care. It must be time for some pictures of sweet, sweet rock.This is Richard on the first day. Or his hands anyway. Stunner. The place is incredible, all this beautiful forest with nice open sand floor and green leaves, with boulders EVERYWHERE. It rules, and I am totally going back there (although I am also totally going to check out "Magic woods" in Switzerland, which is reported to be almost equally awesome).

The next three days went like this.

Climb Beer Snails Steak Wine Sleep Delicious Pastries French Bread Climb Shelter From Brief Drizzle Climb Drink Red Wine And Eat Cheese For Lunch Chill And Look At The Forest Climb Some More Beer...

This is a good point for an interlude. I don't know if one of the others has a photo - I suspect not - but after the second day of climbing we went for dinner at this awesome restaurant by the road in the middle of the forest area. It was all log cabiny, and had a fire, and generally ruled. It also had several french bar girls, one of whom was on the "really pretty hot" side of pretty. So, when the time to go and order more beers came, I decided to do it in french. Why? Because I am classy. Oui. Unfortunately, I don't speak french, so Richard had to teach it to me. At around this time we decided that it would be even MORE awesome if we manipulated my pretended lack of understanding of French to comic effect (and remotely possible hot french girl kisses - which failed to eventuate alas).

I learned to say:

"Bonjour. Je voudre twa beer a une coke si vous plat" or at least something that has roughly the same phonetic pronounciation as that. It means "Hello, I will take three beers and one coke please".

I also learnt to say, as a follow up:

"Vous avec tres beau jour"

Which Richard assured me meant "You have very beautiful eyes" (hey, she did ok?).

It was agreed by all present that saying the first would make me a slick french dude, and pulling off the second while successfully pretending I was simply continuing ordering drinks would make me the freaking master.

Now, I already KNOW I'm the master, but the world is full of skeptics. Plus, possible french smooches. I delivered it like a pro.

Result:-

Girl: Pardon?

Me: um... vous avec tres beau jour

Girl: Pardon?

Me: ummm

Girl: Maybe you could say it in english?

Me: Aren't I just ordering beers and a coke?

Ahhhhh, it was great. I didn't get french kisses, but we did get plenty of smiles, and hey, you only live once. I was just pleased I said it all right under pressure.

Almost anyway, right Rich? You see, as we found out the next night when I (after several cocktails) said the same thing to the barman just because, we discovered that "jour" actually means "cheeks". "AZure" means eyes. So no wonder the poor girl was confused. To be fair, that probably worked in our favour. I mean "you have beautiful eyes" is the weak pickup line of a muppet, whereas "you have beautiful cheeks" is the obvious fumbling of a charmingly inept foreigner. Hugh Grant, I'm coming for you.

After that we drank some more beer.

Day 3 - The best climbing thus far I think, and then more beer, and then cocktails and playing poker until late and then going and finding an indian restaurant and then dying in bed. It was tres good. We were all pretty much dead after three days on the rock though, and both Ben and I had to shoot through the next day so...

Day 4 - Train into Paris for the day. This was not so cool, firstly because I had to carry my pack around because I needed to catch the TGV in the evening (I could have put it in a locker, but we really had no idea where we'd be going back to), and secondly because the French commuter rail trains seem to be the ones that switzerland sold 30 years ago when they decided they needed awesomer newer ones. French trains - you kinda blow. Or at least the skody ones from the styx. Course, they're still significantly better than the CRAP that runs from central wellington to johnsonville, but so is walking (or at least a close second).

We did ate some parisian food, drank some parisian coffee, took photos of lots of parisian architecture of varying merit, including plenty of shots of the outside of a certain pyramid... oh yeah...


This is Richard being just super freaking AMPED that the louvre is closed. I dunno what it was closed for, but it's probably safe to assume it wasn't cleaning. Word was they were on strike or something.

Anyway, then we walked down the street and saw the arc de triomfe and looked at a arms bazarr like weapons industry moguls (including chatting up the helicopter sales girl trying to find out what the fuel consumption on a battlefield scout chopper was like - she only wanted to sell us training flights sadly) and then I had to catch the train home where I met super gorgeous french girl.

But I'm bored now, so I'm off until next time... which I'll try to make soon. Though I may not make on blogger, because it's handling of embedded images is making me want to stab it.

Adios compadres!

Behold, I am healthy

It is early in the evening (7pmish) and I have just got back from a RUN. Granted, it was a pathetically short run, but my beer was calling me home.

What am I going to do, resist the beer? You resist the beer. Mmm, beer.

Anyway, tonight brings us to the next stage in the explorations of switzerland, namely the inside of my apartment. Exciting stuff, I know, but photos need to be posted somewhere.

First off, the bedroom, window looking out over the terrace of yesterdays fame and river beyond. Noice. One of these days I'll remember to close the window when I go to sleep, so the room is actually warm in the morning - Baden gets hell morning fog on a regular basis (walking into the station this morning it was rolling off the river). The bed is not just a mattress on the floor, despite appearances, and is hell comfy. It also has two roughly double bed size duvets (for a queen size bed) which, while seemingly slightly odd at first blush, actually now strikes me as a great idea - a perception that will no doubt increase in intensity when I find a gorgeous swiss mountainbiking lass to persuade to climb into it with me.
Yeah, that's right girls. We men finally have an answer to the problem of duvet theft. TWO duvets. Whatchagonna do now eh?
What's that? Steal both of them? Oh. Dang.

Anywayyyyyyy....

The lounge/dining room. For those who are around the 5'5 mark and below, the couch represents a palatial expanse of surprising softness and niceness. Taller people will have to get their hunch on, but it's no biggy. Says me, who gets the bed :)

The rest of the lounge is basically loungelike, and looks out over the street, which looks like this.
It has real cobbles, which is very cool. Also, throughout all the towns I've been in so far, they have these little fountain things you can drink from running all the time into big, clean pools all over the place. You can see one on the right of the photo, just before it turns the corner. One day, once I improve my hardcore photographer skills sufficiently to do one justice, I'll take a photo - they are usually made from stone, and quite nice.

Finally, the kitchen, which is quite boring but has all the usual things you'd expect in a relatively nice kitchen.

And now I'm going to go and read my book. It's about the problems with aid allocation in Africa, which I intend to solve (or at least get a trip to Africa out of). Till next time...

The rockpartment

See what I did there? Because it rocks. Yeaaaaah. Keep up.

First, about why I'm being a blog-snob rather than putting all this shit on facebook like a normal person.

Reason 1. I pretty much hate facebook. It is evil and sucks your soul when you least expect it.

Reason 2. I tend to go on at length when typing. If I do that on facebook, you can just click through the photos and totally ignore my witty commentary. On a blog, you at least have to scroll past the commentary to get to the photos. I mean sure, you could just not look at all, but one day there might be a picture of a naked gorgeous european girl. Willing to risk it? (Note: Girls reading this, if you like, please feel free to substitute a mental image of some really awesome shoes in place of the last, though I think if we're honest we can admit that everyone can appreciate a naked gorgeous european girl)

Reason 3. I've been thinking about photos, and what makes a photo more than a snapshot. Like, what do those smug bastard photo-journalists have that I don't that makes their photos captivating/compelling/where'smycreditcardI'mgivingsomemoneytotheredcross-ing/I'mgoingtocrybutit'sokforthesamereasonthatit'sokwhenaheroicdogdiestryingtosaveit'smaster-ing.
The first thing is (generally) war zones. Well I'm in Switzerland, so pretty much screwed there. The second is prodigious skill and natural talent. I'm out there as well, but maybe if I gave a damn about photos (i.e. stopped thinking of them as snapshots) it'd improve. The third (and this is where the blog comes in, so pay attention) is context. What used to be a home lying flattened and filled with silt - that's interesting and sort of compelling. But add even a brief story about how it's the flattened home of 3 children who are also now orphans because the same boxing day tsunami that took their home also took their parents and BAM - that's red cross material.
Naturally I'm hoping not to encounter too much tragedy along those lines, but I figure a picture of a tree will be a lot more interesting if there's the back story about how it's the tree that caught me when I was climbing along the cliff above it and fell off (safely fell off mum).

See what I meant about going on? Yeah. Though you all knew me anyway. There'll be some photos soon, promise.

Ok, so anyway, I'm now in Switzerland and look likely to be for a while. I'm also now out of the skanktel, and into the aforementioned rockpartment, so it's about time I gave an update. With photos. And context. High fiiiive.

The rockpartment is awesome. I have just finished eating tea out on the river terrace. Somewhere in the background, over the muted sound of the river, is the sound of someone playing an acoustic guitar. They're not Stevie Ray Vaughn, but they're not bad either. General mood - maxin the relaxin.

Because the river terrace is awesome, it gets a photo. This is looking down the river - the way I walk to work (note: though I could understand some of you thinking I walk there on the water this is not correct - there is a path along each side. Not to say I couldn't). At the point where the river fades out of sight there's a bridge, which is where I catch an awesome elevator (which I'll try to remember to take a photo of sometime) up to the level of all the shops. It comes out in a big outdoor cafe/bar/pizza place. Home to cafe/bar/pizza place - about 4 minutes gentle stroll... though I'm sure that I could do it in one if the elevator was well timed and there was urgency in the air.

You'll notice that the river looks very clear. That is because it's very clear, which is because it flows out of lake Zurich. Lake Zurich is very clear, because it surrounded by lots and lots and lots of money. Know what else has lots of money? Corrupt people. We can infer from this that money absorbs corruption, and corruption is like a contaminant/impurity; ergo the money surrounding lake Zurich is absorbing all the impurities from the water, leaving it clear. Ta-da! And I think in Switzerland if you even look like thinking about letting your dairy farm runoff anywhere near a waterway they shoot you - no questions asked. Mostly it's the money thing.

In the foreground of the photo is my dinner. It looked a lot less blurred in real life. It is bread that was still hot when I got it home, smeared with cream cheese, then covered in salmon, then normal cheese, then grilled. It was delicious, as was the wine (which cost me 5 francs for a bottle). Nom nom nom nom nom. Admittedly, it's not the healthiest dinner in the world, but it beat eight kinds of hell out the kebabs I've been eating for the last month (the skanktel was not equipped with any sort of cooking facility). I am now, however, quite worried about my cholesterol levels and early onset heart disease.

To the left you can see me worrying intensely about cholesterol levels and early onset heart disease. Worry worry worry I go. Mmmmm, winethatcost5francs. Worry worry.

Finally, before we abandon the river terrace, the magic of the interweb brings you

1) Me looking happy rather than pretentiously introspective.

2) Some whitewater kayakers playing around in the rapids just under the 300 year old bridge running along beside where I'm sitting.




Stay tuned for tomorrow, when I show you then INSIDE of the apartment! Or some other day - life's unpredictable, no sense getting all craaaaazyyyy with the whole planning thing.