My Corner of a Foreign Field

Photo 4: “Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings”

Heinrich Heine, 1820.

Photo 5: Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Victims of War and Tyranny

Ok, so I’m going to try and take advantage of a decent internet connection to upload some photos from Berlin. There’s a lot that I want to post, so there’ll be at least 2, if not 3 sets of them. I’m in the middle of writing an International Experience report for my school here, but I’ll write about Berlin as soon as I have time. In the meantime, enjoy these photos.

You’ll have to forgive me if I uploaded some similar photos after my first visit, back in March.

The final set of Prague photos. Berlin coming soon.

They say an Englishman’s home is his castle. Unfortunately, this cannot be said of 72 Rue de la Tranchee. The photos above show the state our kitchen is perpetually in despite my protestations. The rest of the flat, aside from my own room, is in a similar state.

This, my flatmates’ and the squatters’ attitudes towards this and their complete refusal to do anything about it, as well as their general lack of respect for things, is really threatening to mar my last few weeks in Poitiers.

So, onto Prague. We got the coach from Wroclaw at about 2pm, and arrived at somewhere in the region on 5.30pm. It turns out Becca gets travel sick, and so she spent most of the journey alternating between sleep and looking very green. Once we’d arrived, we had to get to the hotel. Easier said than done. I managed to misread the directions given by the hotel (which in my defence were very misleading) and so instead of 20mins it took us about an hour to get to the hotel. 

The hotel itself was very nice though, and the staff spoke good English and were very helpful - they gave us a money off coupon for a traditional restaurant around the corner, which was set in the Czechslovakian contribution to Montreal Expo 67. We forgot to use the coupon - possibly something to do with a litre of wine costing less than 8 euros - but it was so cheap there it didn’t matter. And, it was delicious as well.

The next morning we got up early and headed into town for the 11am free walking tour with Discover-Prague. The tour guide, Simon, was very entertaining, and gave us a really good tour of the city, including a stop at a coffee shop that legitimately sold the biggest meringues I have ever seen. The company he worked for also ran tours up to Prague Castle, the biggest castle in the world, so we grabbed some food from Starbucks and set off on that. The castle is home to a monastery that has brewed beer for hundreds of years, so naturally we had to try some - in my case, a very nice amber ale called Jantar. We spent the best part of two hours going round the castle before heading back to town in search of food and drink. We settled for another traditional restaurant, this time on the square. We sat outside under an awning with a beer hiding from the rain, before heading inside to eat - the dish I had, goulash with dumpings (delicious!) cost 8.20 euros if we ate outside, but only 5.60 euros inside!

Dinner eaten, we wandered around for a while taking in the sights by night, before the rain drove us back to our hotel in preparation for our early start the next morning - a 9am coach to Berlin.

So, onto my most recent trip. Last Saturday, me and Becca went to Poland. We got the train to Paris, the coach to Beauvais airport, and then flew to Wroclaw in Poland. A brief taxi ride into the city, and we were at our hotel: the incongruously named Akira B&B. We dumped our stuff, and walked into town in search of food.

With only a vague idea of where we were heading, we eventually made our way into the heart of the old town, and found a place called ‘Spartan Gyros’ on the main square. We were lucky that one of the guys working there spoke English, since Polish looks almost indecipherable. Totilla-kebab ‘thing’ eaten, we headed to the nearest bar to sample Polish beer - Piast and Okocim - before heading back to the hotel.

We got up and headed into town after breakfast the next morning, this time with our luggage. We walked around for a while, took some pictures, saw the flower market and some event sponsored by the city’s football team, sat and had a coffee, then headed for the bus station: we had a 2pm bus to Prague to catch. 

We’d read about a very good pierogi place on the way to the station, but unfortunately it was closed Sundays, so we made do with trying some at a greasy spoon type cafe at the bus station. Probably not as good as if we’d had them at the other place, but good enough nonetheless. A quick hunt for the bus, and we were on our way.

And now, in no particular order, the out-and-about photos from London. Courtesy of Becca, Thy and Aaron.

It turns out there’s a limit to how many photos can be uploaded in one post, so I’ll have to split this into two.

LONDON’S CALLING: The Essay

So, went to London last month. And when I say we, I mean about a dozen of us. It was a pretty crazy trip. And awesome. Definitely awesome. I’m going to post two sets of photos, possibly in more than two posts - I don’t know if my internet will let me upload lots of photos in one go now that my flatmates are all awake and using it. The first, attached to this post, will be ‘Stereotypical London’. The other will be sightseeing photos and the like.

We flew into Stansted on the afternoon of the 22nd March. Being EU citizens, me, Claire and Aaron could go through the E-Check in process when we arrived, which basically meant looking at a camera and swiping our passports. Much much quicker than waiting in line with all the Americans and Canadians! We had to pretty much run to get our bus, as we hadn’t accounted for just how long it would take to get off the plane and through Customs, and then had a 75 minute coach ride into Victoria station. Cue a long wait while we waited for the rest of the group to arrive. The next ordeal was dinner - my second McDonalds of the year. This done, we traipsed around trying to find Queen’s Gate and our hostel.

I wasn’t feeling going out that evening, so I got an early night and got up early the next morning and went and got breakfast and a haircut. We’d arranged to meet the  rest of the group - Ben, Rudy, Alan and Santi had booked later than us and thus ended up in a different hostel - at Embankment at whatever time it was, so we headed over there and waited for about an hour for them to turn up. A short walk across Hungerford Bridge and a few photos and I was off to meet Aaron and Claire at Marble Arch to see the much awaited Hunger Games film. That evening I went to meet Robbie, a family friend who I’d not seen in nigh on four years. We had a few drinks, set the world to rights, and then I headed to Picadilly Circus to meet everyone else. Ben’s mate had suggested a club to go to in Soho, but it turned out  he’d been having us on - Madame Jojo’s, despite being international renowned, had a 70’s funk night. At this point, some of us went back to the hostel, and others - the more drunk and energetic - went off to try and find somewhere else to go.

The next morning, me and Aaron got up and went to the Tate Modern, having gone for a full English breakfast with Becca and Jenny. It wasn’t quite up to the Spoons’ standard (think not being able to walk for at least half an hour after) but it was pretty damn good all the same. I mistakenly thought I’d been to the Modern before - I checked this morning and it was in fact the Tate Britain that I’d been to before - so I was slightly confused not to find Damien Hirst’s Pharmacy there. Nonetheless, it was worth the visit. 

A quick trip to Starbucks and we headed along the river to Tower Bridge and the Tower of London - the intention had been to visit the London Dungeons exhibit, but it was over £20 entry and the queue was too much even for me to face. We crossed the Bridge and headed to St Paul’s, before deciding enough was enough and a trip to the pub was in order. It was barely 3pm. 

Having spent the whole trip telling everyone how good Spoons’ was, we headed to the nearest one - found thanks to Aaron’s IPhone and Starbucks’ free wifi. It was just off Fleet Street, and sadly, was closed for some sort of reception. Cue walking into the next pub we saw: Ye Olde Cock Tavern, one of London’s oldest. I got in touch with my cousin, who I’d not seen for a couple of years, and he came to meet us. The Canadian girls, who’d been off on a coach tour, also came and met us, and we ended up having dinner there as well: my first steak and kidney pie in a long time. Delicious!

A flying trip back to the hostel, and me and Aaron headed to Camden - let’s face it, if you’re in London, you’ve got to go to Camden at least once - while the others went back to Soho. David, my cousin, had recommended a bar there, but it turned out to be over-21st on Saturday nights. We ended up in a jazz bar, which, while rather odd, was a nice enough place. Random conversations with random people ensued, until it was time to go back to the hostel. Easier said than done. Not a taxi to be found. Eventually we happened upon a queue outside a taxi office, and after paying up-front for the ride, we were taken back to the hostel where half the group had returned, and the others were still out ‘somewhere’.

The next morning Thy, Ellen and Aaron had to fly back for class on Monday. The rest of us headed around the corner to Kensington High Street, where me and Claire found an M&S (completely with their amazing carrot cake) and a place that sold hot sausage rolls: heaven. These eaten, we met Aly, Jenny and Becca in McDonalds and headed to Hyde Park, where we stayed for a few hours. A quick trip to Oxford Street and it was time for me to catch the train home.

Overall, a cracking trip. I finally got to see London ‘properly’ rather than just travelling through or visiting friends, which gave me a completely different perspective of it. The weather was fantastic too, which definitely helped. The hostel was certainly an experience too - me and Aaron were the only guys in a room of 9 people. Seeing 7 girls from different countries living in such close proximity and trying to agree on things is eye-opening!

So I’m finally making time to update this again. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do - this post is about my trip to Copenhagen, but I’ve also got London and my recent Poland-Czech Republic-Germany trip to talk about, as well as anything else that takes my fancy.

So, as I possibly mentioned previously, I went to Copenhagen after Berlin. Think 8 and a half hour coach journey with the first hangover I’d had in months. The darkside of absinthe.

Aside from the hangover, it wasn’t too bad a journey. We caught the ferry from Rostock on the north coast of Germany to somewhere on the same island as CPH, and it was here that I was able to get some more Minttu - if I remember, I’ll post a photo at some point. In case I don’t, it’s a Finnish mint vodka that I fell in love with last semester. Good stuff.

Marcelo met me at the station and we went back to his, where I was staying. I went pretty much straight to bed, but we woke up early the next morning and went on a tour of the city with David, my flatmate from last semester. Going on bikes was a really nice way to see the city, and very different to the usual touristy things to do. In the evening, we went out with some of his friends there.

The next day Marcelo had to work, so I went into town by myself. I went to the LEGO shop (obviously) and just walked around for hours taking in the city - and trying Copenhagen’s famous hotdogs. I was trying to find the English bookshop that we’d been past the day before, but sadly I was unable to find it. In the evening we went to CBS’ student bar before going to a club where we met some random English guys in the queue. David met us there as well, and we took full advantage of the 60kr-entrance-unlimited-drinks-until-1am deal they had on. the next morning I got up and caught a flight back to France.

All in all, it was a short but busy trip. Copenhagen is a really nice city, quiet and calm. I’d been led to believe it was pretty expensive, and while it certainly wasn’t cheap, it wasn’t as expensive as I’d been led to believe. I guess that’s the benefit of local knowledge - CBS’s bar had a happy hour, which meant two pints for 25kr: ~3.33 euros. Aside from Berlin, the cheapest pint I’ve had in Europe.