Forty-something (late forty-something) from Sydney, Australia.
“I'd like to know who approved this”, my friend David said today of the Jeff Koons exhibition at the Versailles Palace. “I mean, I quite like his work”, he added, but wondered why this world-famous building was deemed an appropriate space to exhibit Koon's famous statue of Michael Jackson and Bubbles. “Maybe it's because of the extravagance of the work. Or maybe he was influenced by Versailles?”, I wondered out loud, trying to understand myself. I mean there's a certain … [Read more...]
“Just keep walking, it's a scam”, I shouted to the young tourist couple, hoping they understood my English. I knew something was awry when on the approach to the Eiffel Tower, I saw a young girl approach them, pretending to have found a gold ring in the sand and asking if it was theirs. Just a minute or so earlier, an identically dressed young girl had done the same thing to me. As she bent down, “discovered” the ring and came towards me, I knew something wasn't quite right. With one … [Read more...]
“Oh my God, she's going to ask for directions”, I thought to myself when the forty-something glamorous woman with a suitcase called out to me today. “Oh my God, how do you say I'm a tourist?” I thought to myself, as she beckoned me to stop. She quickly recognised I was an English language speaker, and explained to me her car wasn't far away, and asked if I wouldn't mind standing in the free car space she had found while she went to get her car. “Only two minutes”, she assured me. … [Read more...]
”Yes, it's like this every day”, my friend David told me with a certain disdain on his face. As I looked around the carriage most of the other passengers seemed to have the same look on their faces, as a group of buskers started playing music in our carriage. Although it was the first time I've experienced it, apparently it's quite common on the Paris metro to have musical buskers in your carriage. I wasn't sure, though, if the locals genuinely disliked their peaceful trip on the metro … [Read more...]
You know how when you travel you end up with a pocket full of coins you can't do anything with. The exchange bureaus won't accept them, and of course you don't feel as though you can throw them away (they're money after all). In writing this, I've realised I could probably give them to the poor and needy, though you don't often see too many of them at the airport when you're leaving. So I've found myself with a suitcase weighed down with half a dozen varieties of coins from countries which don't … [Read more...]
“Do you understand what she just said?”, the kind middle-aged woman asked me on the metro this afternoon. “Not a word”, I told her. She knew I didn't speak French, because just moments earlier she'd asked me if I knew what was going on. She told me there'd been an accident on the metro and that we would all need to be patient. By the time she told me what was going on half the passengers had already left the train. I'm guessing it was a suicide or something like that, since the train … [Read more...]
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