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Published: April 12th 2009
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Happy Easter everyone. Trust you all enjoyed your time off work or study.
Well, I’m now unemployed! At the start of April I said farewell (again!) to the Horwich Farrelly gang. We did have one last night of fun, my leaving drinks was a riot with some nice beers and tasty cocktails followed by lots of dancing - wicked times!
The next day I made the most of my last day in Manchester by, finally!, visiting the Central Library (very beautiful inside) and then the John Rylands Library which is stunning outside and even more so inside. That night I went to a gig by Denis Jones, a great local musician. The gig just happened to be in a vego café - perfect!
I spent the following day with my flatmates at the Ramsbottom Chocolate Festival (chocolates, cakes and chocolate ale - yum!) and then we went to see two Panoptican structures: one representing an atom and the other a bunch of pipes, ‘The Singing Tree’, that made interesting sounds as the wind passed through the pipes.
After that it was time to get dropped-off in Leeds, farewell Aggi and Jo and then see a performance comedian
Ross Noble (impromptu hilarity and absurdness as always!) before making my way to Amsterdam via Leeds Bradford Airport.
In Amsterdam I caught up with my friend Erwyn who I met in Seattle last year. I also had plans to catch up with Vancouver travel buddy Christine, but sadly she is holidaying in South America - lucky duck!
Amsterdam was my early departure point on my Contiki trip back in 2004 (naturally Amsterdam and Contiki go together …), but at that time I was missing my Contiki buddies and a little over the whole travelling thing so I didn’t have the best of times.
I had a much better experience this time around and took lots of long walks around the city, checked out some cool sites, avoided the coffee shops (fortunate that too as UK customs pulled me aside for a ‘random’ testing) and basically took thing easy.
After an overnight stay in London (using my time there to catch up with Vaughan and see Fremantle boys Eskimo Joe play at London’s Koko) it was then an early train to Paris (a few dramas with stuffed up trains, forking out extra cash etc etc but I
wont go into that!!).
My third trip to Paris was great, if for no other reason than the fact that the city offered-up the warmest weather I’ve experienced in over six months! Sure it was cloudy at times and actually drizzled on my last night, but the sun was glorious when it was out. I really miss the Perth summer, hopefully Vancouver will partially make up for this (and yes, I know there is an obvious solution if I want a real summer!).
The purpose of my Paris trip was to see Antony and the Johnsons, the same band I saw in Helsinki, and this concert was even better than the last one - it better have been, the ticket cost me over 80 Euros …
Whilst there I also went to a gig by the strangely named ‘God is an Astronaut’ who play instrumental rock and gave me the chance to do a little head banging.
The rest of my time in Paris was spent walking everywhere, and I mean everywhere! I must have clocked-up over 50km over my 2 ½ days.
I took in some of the tourist traps (Eiffel, Champs Elysees, Arc
du Triomphe, Moulin Rouge) as well as lots of lovely gardens and the slightly alternative Bastille district.
Now back in London (for another concert, this time by David Byrne of Talking Heads fame), a little chocolate in honour of Easter and then tomorrow its time to take the train to Brussels (hopefully I will get the train time correct this time!) and then I’m off to Budapest.
Take care all!
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