Blogs from Europe - page 14472

Geo: 53.5757, -2.15876Went over for a friends 21st party (via ferry to Wales & then stopping in the nightmare that is Crew station)- main thing I remember is the friends 2 ex-pat uncle's discussing the merits of the West Of Ireland with the memorable line "Shligo for feedin' Mayo for the breedin'". Great shopping town I remember getting 'Red or Dead' shoes. Didn't go to the Cornation St studio, Man U grounds (naturally enough we wouldn't be interested) or The Haçienda but that'd be hard is it was defunct at that point! So what did we do... wandered around St Peters Sq, went shopping in the many many shops (which is actually the main thing to do there), mooched around Deansgate Locks etc., seemed to get mini-cabs to pubs a lot I also remember. Hooked up ... read more

Friday 7th September 1990 I awoke fretting (no pun intended) about the chords to "Yesterday". When we got to the school hall for the concert, there were hundreds of people there. The enormous hall was jam packed with, pupils. First surprise was a presentation to Trystan to mark his eighteenth birthday (tomorrow). He was given some flowers, a medal and a plastic concrete mixer to remind him that the purpose of life is to build achievements or something like that. This proves that the Russians do have a sense of humour after all, just that it's very odd indeed. A bunch of girls traipssd onto the stage and mumbled the Byelorussian national anthem to themsslves whilst a man independently played it on the accordion. He remained whilst a similarly unenthusiastic crew of boys came on to ... read more

We woke up when Paris started coming back to life and we went into the station to catch the first train to Calais. We’d just got settled when a guard came along and told us that the train was going to be split half way through the journey and we were in the half that was not going to Calais. We found the correct carriage and were just getting settled again, when I heard this familiar Welsh accent. Two seats back was Allan, half way through chatting up a group of French girls. Coincidence or what! Allan was on his own, as Richard had had his passport and Inter-rail ticket stolen. He was still in Paris trying to sort it out. We waited in Calais for him, but it was three hours before he turned up, ... read more

Had a comfortable night’s sleep. It got a bit cold and since I no longer had a sleeping bag, I ended up requisitioning an SNCF blanket from the first class carriages. No where near as good as my sleeping bag, but it did the trick. When we arrived in Paris, the Australian guy then off to meet some friends, leaving the English guy and I to check out some more of Paris. First stop was the Louvre. The queue was huge, but we eventually got it. I was to be very disappointed. Like the galleries in Florence it was just full of religious art. Baby Jesus, dying Jesus, dead Jesus, the Mona Lisa, Baby Jesus, etc. De Vinci’s masterpiece did look a little out of place. The Louvre is so huge that you could walk round ... read more

After a reasonable night's sleep and an ice cold shower - you had to put money in to get hot water - I got the bus-boat back to Venice to check out everything that I had missed last time. Venice is another place where my natural sense of direction would come in handy if I had one. I got hopelessly lost on the way to the station, but who cares, I had plenty of time and it was great to wander round. I used the last of my lira to buy an ice cream. If I had to pick the Italians two biggest strengths, it would be their dress-sense (obviously) and their ability to make ice cream. It’s another example of where foreign imitations can never come close to the genuine thing, it being their invention ... read more