So, so much happens in Paris, that it becomes impossible to frame a coherent narrative around your experiences. So as has become customary practice on the Internet, I will present a random list of experiences and trust you to stitch a story together out of these spare parts. A Frankenstein's Monster Blog, if you will... My brilliant wife's definition of the souvenirs at Disneyland at 'craperphenalia'. My brilliant daughter allowing us to photograph her modelling all manner of craperphenalia Australians everywhere!!!! You have to love a city where a crepe bought at a street stall really is an entire meal And given the conversation, a show as well The Parisians for again proving cliches regarding their aloofness to be completely baseless The magic in the expression on Maia's face as we turned the corner and she ... read more

It's been quite a contrasting experience, this planning for the second camino. Firstly, it's been coming from such a long way away. In my, undoubtedly questionable, remembrance of 16 months ago, it feels like I made the decision to do the camino and left within a couple of days. That's wrong, but I don't remember counting down the days the way I have been this time - I just remember being busy and leaving. Maybe I remember it like this because of the difficulties I had with the actual trip over - no Vietnamese Visa, transferring luggage, buses that wouldn't move, broken trains, and now in memory, it all feels like it was rushed and improvised and everything happened at once. This time round, we've been counting steadily for weeks and weeks and weeks. Plane tickets ... read more

Actually I left Santiago today but I´ll be talking about it so that will be close enough So for those of you playing along at home, on Friday I reached Santiago de Compostela, thereby completing the Camino Frances, receiving my certification, and hence having a whole bunch of sins remitted- purgatory now holds no fears for me. It was only the second day in which I´d had to walk in the rain, and I´d woken at 2am having been attacked by the camino´s greatest enemy - the bed bug. So I basically walked the final 37 Kms wet and itchy. I walked straight past all the monuments, the cathedral, the lot, so that I could get to my hotel, get showered and changed and head to the pharmacy to get something the ease the bites. Once ... read more

Does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body I dunno (Still Ill, The Smiths) Actually, I´m in Villafrana del Bierzo, but what´s 25 Kms between friends... So this morning I just wasn´t feeling it. The route out of Ponferrada was not well waymarked, my guidebook was no use, I´d had a crappy night´s sleep (BTW, what is the aversion that the Spanish have for fresh air. They look up a room tighter than an anally retentive buttcrack, consequently raising the room temperature to about 1,000 degrees and ensuring that oxygen deprivation in the middle of the night becomes a real possibility), and I was just changing into my cranky pants. This made me even worse, because I hadn´t felt like this for a couple of weeks - in fact I´d been ... read more

I like Leon. I have to say, it´s got a great feel to it - a combination of the medieval and the Belle Epoque and lots of places to sit and watch people and drift around. Yeah, a good spot. But what I want to write today is not so much about place as it is about a line of thought sparked by a snippet of conversation I had at dinner last night. I´m somewhat loath to go into details as the person with whom I was talking to may read the blog and I don´t wish to embarrass them - either by misquoting them or by imposing my interpretation of the conversation upon them... So with that caveat... To summarise what I think was the crux of the conversation: the person who I was talking ... read more