Europe: days 12 to 17

Ok. So where did I leave off last time. I think with Easter dinner on Sunday.

The rest of my time in the south of France was a little less busy, which was nice. Monday we had a car so we drove up to a town called St Paul De Vence. It was quite a cute little town on a mountainside, looking down towards the water and Nice. We wandered around looking at the shops (art shops mostly) and walked along the town walls for a bit. Tuesday I took the train to Cannes and on Wednesday I went back to Nice. Since the weather was nice both days, I did a lot of water front promenade walking and reading in the sun. In Nice I hired rollerblades and skated the beach front walk - probably about 5 or 6km each way. That's the first time I've been on rollerblades in maybe 10 years, but it came back to me right away.

Tuesday night, Liz and I went out in Monte-Carlo for an "authentic Monegasque experience." First we went to a cool cocktail bar called Buddha bar which was housed in what used to be part of the casino. The ceilings and walls were very ornate, and it was all quite fancy. The cocktails were expensive, but not that much more than what I would expect to pay for something fancy in Sydney. After that we went across the road to another fancy bar called the American bar. There was an excellent live band and when you ordered drinks, they came around with cheese, grapes and chips. This was a good thing, because It gave me something to nibble on while Liz had her cocktail. While I'm not usually one to opt out of something for financial reasons (alcohol especially), I just could not bring myself to pay €26 for one drink. That's nearly A$40! As I said "authentic Monegasque experience." I had a taste of Liz's and it was excellent and the atmosphere was nice....so it was almost worth the price (almost).

After that we went to the best Japanese restaurant in Monaco with some of Liz's friends. Liz had previously warned me off the sushi in France. Not surprisingly, they apparently don't of it well, however this place is supposed to be great (according to general French consensus). This place was really trendy and we had dinner at about 10:30pm (way too late for me - I guess I'm not 'hip' cause I like to eat earlier). Some really famous F1 driver was there, and the table next to us had a bunch of guys I assume were there for the poker tournament which was going on while there. The service was horrific (see previous comment re:authentic experience) and the sushi was average at best and set me back €30 for two rolls. I would compare it to what you would get at an average takeaway sushi shop in Vancouver for $10. I'm a bit of a sushi snob though, so I can see why it would be considered really good in a country (and continent?) that doesn't do sushi well. Overall it was a fun night though - something a bit different and it's nice to do something fancy once in a while!

On Thursday morning I flew to London. I was at the airport at 8:45am and of course most people at the cafe had a beer or wine instead of coffee. I guess if you have to be awake at that "ungodly" hour, you need something stronger than coffee to wake you up. I also noticed that electronic cigarettes are very popular in France. I guess cause there is such a large population of smokers, they are more common here than in Australia. Good that so many people are trying to quit.

In London, I'm staying with my friend Jess, who moved here about a year ago. She's just moved into a flat in the Greenwich area of East London and has a spare room. This is the first time I've been to London since I moved to Australia 2.5 years ago. What I've really noticed now being here is how English Australia is. I'm surprised at how many 'Australian' things are actually English things. Expressions, pronunciations, styles, etc...."Or-a-gan-o", 'hundreds and thousands', "mm-aw-ca." I guess Australia is more influenced by the British than I thought (btw that's oregano, sprinkles(!?!!) and mocha for the North Americans out there).

Thursday Jess and I caught up and then went over to covent garden. We looked in some shops and then met her boyfriend for drinks and a really good dinner. We then met up with my friend Jeff, who I know from my brief stint in Perth 4 years ago. He's been in London for a year and a half and I haven't seen him in 3 years, so it was fun catching up. We all got way too drunk (of course) but oh well. I'm on holiday!

Friday was a bit of a battle, but I managed to get out and do some stuff. Went to the Churchill war rooms and museum, which was excellent. I've been once before maybe 10 years ago, but it was better this time as they have added an entire section on Winston Churchill that one alone could have spent hours looking at. It was very interactive - things to touch, try on (winstons top hat, etc), videos to watch, and so on, so I really enjoyed it.

After that I went to Borough market for lunch, which is a big food market. The choice of things to eat was overwhelming. I eventually settled on a big bratwurst and then of course had immediate food envy when I saw other people eating other things (like scotch eggs and sweet potato fries).

Saturday I did the British museum and then some shopping. The British museum (which houses old artefacts such as the Rosetta Stone, Egyptian mummies and Greek statues and carvings) was also very good, but I feel like I have been to a lot of the places the pieces are from (Egypt, Greece, Rome, etc), so there was too much stuff that was "new" to me. But it's still an excellent museum and the building is beautiful.

I'm finding that London is very expensive. A lot of things seem to be the same price in £ as they are in $. But of course, the aud is 1.8 to the pound, so that makes things nearly double. I did some shopping on Oxford street and some stores are a good deal (primark, uniqlo) but the better brands are insanely expensive. I need a new pair of runners and found that my Nike ones (which I paid C$130 for) were £119. So that's nearly double. I'm sure if you work here and make pounds, it's fine, but making dollars and coming here is pricey.

Food and drink is the same. Some places are a good deal - we had £4.50 cocktails on Thursday night which were pretty good - but others are really pricey. I had fish and chips Saturday which cost me £13 or $23. That's a lot for fish and chips!

Saturday night, we did the 'electric run' in Wimbeley park around the stadium. It was a '5k' run in the dark with glow sticks and lights. It was ok. We were actually able to run most of it, but it took forever to actually start the course because there were so many people and they were letting people go in waves. It also wasn't 5k - we thought it seemed short, and then we spoke to someone with a running watch who said it was only 4.3k. Also, they had advertised it so that it looked like there were tonnes of lights everywhere, but at some sections, it was kind of just like running through a parking lot. But with that said, it was a fun evening - it was pretty cool seeing so many people all lit up in the dark and we went for ciders after, so it was nice to do something a bit different.