On to Cairo

After we left Paris we had what would have to be my most memorable aeroplane flight ever with Egypt Air on the way to Cairo. When we turned up at the check in a good 3 hours early we were greeted with absolute chaos. There were people milling around the place with massive amounts of luggage, I'm talking bikes, prams, about 10 suitcases per 4 person family, kids running everywhere, it was insane. We were pretty disappointed looking at this line thinking we were going to be standing there for the next 3 hours, but luckily there seemed to also be a line for young couples with normal amounts of luggage, you know 2 bags total. It seemed to be up to the security guard's discretion as to who he would let into this super-speedy line, but after a little bit of pleading eyes he relented and let us in. So we thought we were doing quite well, but when we see on our boarding passes that boarding began in 45 minutes we were fairly sure that there was no way even half the people still in the line would make it.

Egypt Air had certainly gone for the budget route with their flight experience, either that or the French decided to reserve all the nice boarding gates for Air France, because once through security at our gate there were no toilets let alone any food outlets, slightly disappointing. Anyway boarding started on time and there seemed to be a good crowd of people also waiting to board so there was some hope that maybe we would get off on time. No such luck though as we then waited on the tarmac for an hour past our depature time as people slowly trickled on. The flight itself was completely crazy, I think that was the first flight I have ever been on where the number of children far outnumbered the adults. It felt like you were sitting in the middle of a child-care centre with kids running up and down the aisles, kicking chairs, constantly pressing the bell for the flight attendent (just to hear the noise) and screaming. It certainly was an experience and really set the scene for Egypt.

Once we finally arrived in Cairo the plane seemed to park somewhere off in the middle of the tarmac for some reason and there was then another mad scramble as everyone tried to get on the first bus to the terminal.

I'm just glad we went there with a tour company as the whole airport experience might have been too intense for me to handle by myself at midnight. Our tour guide meet us behind customs and got us the visas which was also kind of weird as we had only just meet this guy who immediately demands our passports and then disappears over the other side of the room whilst we are distracted with filling out forms. Luckily he returns with out passports and our fancy visas and we then join the passport control lines. These were some cool lines they all seemed to move very slowly and we were constantly being told to change lines by various security people so eventually it looked like all the foreigners got sorted to the back of all the lines. When we get to the front of the line you have to hand your passport over and it then disappears into the back of the room where someone else does a secondary check. The first guy has by this stage moved on to the next person in the line so you sort of stand around hoping that your passport reappears.

All in all it was a real introduction to Egypt, the end is the same as every other country, ie you get through fine with all luggage and passport intact, it's just that the means are certainly different.

The drive back from the airport was also an experience, no one can ever complain about bad driving or traffic after having driven in Cairo. But actually I think the drivers were all really good, for what they were doing. We had a three lane highway but most of the time there were four or five cars abreast, the lane markings meant nothing and everyone was going about 20 km/hr over the speed limit. Add to that the people who just seemed to wander along the roadside I think everyone was doing remarkably well. A few white-knuckle moments but we made it to the hotel, phew, that was an adventure and we hadn't even seen anything yet!

The Wrap-Up: Paris

Before I left Paris after the finish of my job over there I had a little bit of a European adventure with my boyfriend. It was good timing in the end as it gave me a chance to go back over the tourist sites I had seen a year ago, one last tour of Paris before I left. Though I have to say the French really pulled it out for us, the one day I really didn't want a train strike was the day my boyfriend arrived, as he flew in at 5:55am. But of course this is Paris and so yes there was a train strike and yes it was only on the RER B line, the line needed to get out to the airport. Thankfully they did still have a few trains running from Gare du Nord out to the airport, about 4 an hour, so much less frequently than normal. This meant I just had to somehow get to Gare du Nord by about 5:15am to catch the train out to the airport in time to catch the people coming off the plane. Unfortunately the metro didn't start running until 5:30am, so I had to find another means of public transport.

Thankfully Paris has these night buses which run all night and seem to just follow the main train/metro lines. So I caught one of those at 4:30 am and managed to get to the airport gate about 5 minutes before my boyfriend arrived, perfect timing in the end, it just involved a rather early start. It was fun to catch the night bus, I was a little worried as I had heard stories of the night buses in Sydney where the people are behaving like animals, but this was lovely, true I did see a guy peeing in the street, but that was it, on a Saturday night too, unbelievable.

We then did the proper tour of Paris, I think I have had enough visitors that I've got a pretty good walking tour down pat now. Heading through the Jardin Luxumbourg , past the French Institute towards Notre Dame and the Louvre. The one thing my boyfriend wanted to see in Paris was this plaque on the Ile de la Cite commemorating the spot where Jacques de Molay was burned to death. This guy was the last Grand Master of the Templars and he was burned on that spot on the 18th of March 1314. The story goes that as he was burning he cursed the King of France, Philip the Fair, and the pope at the time, Clement V and then both those guys were dead within the year. Oooooh, coincidence? I think not.

I mentioned Philip the Fair and Clement V when I wrote about Avignon, as this period was when the Popes were tied to the French kingdom and had to do what the king wanted. So when Philip wanted to get his hands on the Templar's wealth, who were basically the bankers for the rich at that time, he thought the best way to do it was to arrest most of the knights on charges of heresy and that sort of thing and execute their leader, that way no one could complain when he grabbed all their cash. As Pope Clement V was beholden to Philip it was pretty easy to get a conviction for heresy. I can't really blame old Jacques for the curse really, having to pay the price for his king's greed.

After old Jaques it was onto Sainte Chapelle, my favourite church, and for once there was hardly any line, even though this was in peak tourist time. So we got to see the lovely stained glass windows again. As we were heading back to the Latin Quarter for some dinner after that we managed to run into a massive gay and lesbian mardi gras. That was a bit of fun, so we watched that for a while, now having never been to the one in Sydney yet I can't really compare the two, but I think Sydney's would have been more organized with more impressive floats, but this one was still pretty good. There was word that the transport workers were going to join in the march as well, but I didn't see them, I don't think French people are as accepting of strikes as they once were and so perhaps it's good that the transport people didn't show up. I don't think they would have really fit in anyway.

The next day it was onto the Louvre where we got to see all the famous pieces, I really do love the Mesopotamian section, though that doesn't seem to be nearly as popular as the big painting section. After that it was onto the Arc de Triomphe and then Les Invalides where we got to see Nappy's tomb again. That place really is an impressive resting spot.


I had to get this photo taken, it's me with a painting of Pont du Gard in the Louvre. There were a whole series of them of the ancient Roman ruins in Nimes, I guess it used to be a popular subject for artists.


I really wanted to get up the Notre Dame towers one last time as well, as I think the view from up there is one of the better ones in Paris. My guide books said the towers opened at 9:30am but I think the church workers had got a bit slacker since that section was written as the sign outside said they opened at 10am. In the end they really opened at about 10:20am, but I got to have one last look around inside before getting in the interminable line about 20 minutes to 10. I think with Notre Dame you just have to accept the fact that no matter how early you get there, you will always have to wait for about an hour. There was already a decent queue forming by the time we joined the back and then we had already been waiting for about 40 minutes by the time they slowly started letting in the first few people. Even though we were probably only 30 people from the front it still took at least another 20-30 minutes before we got through the gate. Still I think it was worth it, and it is perhaps less discouraging if you get there early as even though you have to wait for ages, at least you can actually see the entrance, as opposed to those people who get there a bit later and are already miles down the block.

Then it was off to Sacre Couer where for once I didn't get bothered by the string guys who were staking out all the entrances, I don't know, perhaps I was starting to look like a local. There was a really militant church attendant inside the church, which I kind of like as it stops people make a massive racket and taking pictures of everything. I was watching the guy and he was doing a very good job of also making sure everyone took off their hats as they came inside. A very different feel to the inside of Notre Dame where they actually have vendors inside selling souvenirs, now I'm not too sure, but didn't Jesus take a kind of dim view of that sort of behaviour?


Here we have Notre Dame at sunset and the obligatory gargoyle shot and also a pseudo-arty shot of Dave in Montmarte, but then I suppose we are in the arty area of Paris, aren't we meant to take these sorts of photos?



There was a wine tasting event that evening so we headed out to the Republique area, making a stop to rest by the canal before the tasting started. This is something that I think is quite typically Paris, there is a canal in the north east of the city, which goes underground for a while and then eventually joins up with the Seine, but out in the Republique you can actually see the water. There are trees growing alongside and it is quite peaceful out there and the Parisians love to come out on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and drink some beers while sitting on the concrete beside the stagnant water of the canal, I find it slightly strange, but they seem to enjoy themselves.

We were sitting up the end where the canal starts to head under the city where there is a lock to lower the boats underground. Whilst we were sitting there a tourist boat actually headed through the lock, full of tourists, and headed into the pitch blackness of the canal under the ground. Now I'm one who quite enjoys little boat trips but I think a pitch-black ride underneath a city is not one I would really enjoy. The wine tasting was as good as ever by the way.

We had planned to go to the Musee d'Orsay on the next day, but the tickets I had ordered on the 17th of June still hadn't arrived by the 1st of July. Pretty impressive really, it takes more than 13 days for a letter to travel about 10 kms in Paris, not bad La Poste. So instead we headed off to the zoo and the Jardin desPlantes, though it was a stinking hot day and we spent most of the time there just hugging the shade. Our choice of viewing animals became more a question of which ones had the coolest enclosures (temperature-wise).

We then headed out to the Eiffel Tower to see the symbol of Paris. After climbing up and down I wanted to go to the Trocadero to get the best viewing angle of the tower and as you walk through the Trocadero gardens there is a big fountain/pond area running the length of the avenue. This seems to turn into an unofficial bathing area when the temperature starts to rise as there were heaps of people frolicking around, but then when you get closer it turns out the water is green with algae, which put paid to my thought of sticking my head in. My feet did enjoy the cold though, I just wasn't too keen on catching some terrible middle-ear infection.

On our last day in Paris we headed out to the Museum of the Middle Ages were I got to see the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries again which I just love. This time round I got a free audio-guide too which was a bonus as you learn heaps more about the history of the pieces that way. And as this museum is really about history it's kind of important too. Apparently a lot of the pieces there are from Notre Dame which the peasants really took a disliking to during the revolution and tried to destroy most of the facade. The church became a bit of a symbol of the French royalty during the revolution and I suppose when you consider that a couple of the Louis king's got themselves sainted you can see how the church and the monarchy became intertwined. I'm not sure what miracles these kings performed in order to get themselves that sainthood, perhaps it was something to do with squeezing ever increasing amounts from the peasantry without them complaining earlier. When you see some of the castles they built I would say that's a bit of a miracle.

Then that was it, my stay in Paris and the Cite Universitaire came to a finish, I packed up the rest of my stuff, threw out 6 massive bags of rubbish and then it was off to Charles de Gaulle airport for our plane to Egypt. Thankfully there was no train strike that day.

Hi Guys!!

I'm back, well it's been a long month and a bit, but a lot sure has happened in that time. There was the end of my job in Paris, a European adventure and 3 job interviews. But now I have a little time to update everyone. I was thinking I'm going to have to change the name of my blog now that I'm back in Australia, but "Taking on the Aussies" doesn't really have the same ring to it. Maybe I can try and throw in a few insults towards the Europeans every now and again to justify the name.

The job interviews were a bit of fun, that was the first time I've been interviewed for a job since I was a checkout-chick at Woolies and Big W. Lets just say the process was a little different this time round. I'm not overly confident I will get the job, in fact not very confident at all, as the last interviewer didn't seem particularly enthusiastic as to my application. I get the feeling they had already made the decision and it wasn't me, oh well I'll just have to try again somewhere else. I did get to do the freaky psychometric testing though, which apparently a lot of big companies use to weed out the crazies and the liars.

They test your numerical, verbal and abstract reasoning as well as a massive personality questionnaire. I even got the added bonus of a salesman questionnaire. I think really though, the reasoning tests are really testing your ability to go out and by a book on this stuff and study up. The maths is not difficult, percentages anyone, it is more the fact that there is quite a short time limit placed. It was strange doing these tests though as every time I've done an exam you have a fairly good idea as to how you went, you did all the questions you could, you know where you were unsure and where you couldn't do anything. But because these were quite easy it all really came down to how well you read the question, and it is quite possible to walk out thinking you had done great when in actual fact you had barely passed as you had read everything wrong. I get to read my report in a week or so though, so I'm looking forward to that.

The personality questionnaire was also really boring, I was at least hoping for some interesting questions like "Do you ever feel like screaming when in a quiet place?" or "When standing on the top of a tall cliff do you ever feel like throwing yourself off?". Those would have been fun to answer. Instead there were a total of about 15 questions and these were asked about 200 times in various guises. And they were all like "Are you ambitious?", "Are you confident?", "Do you look towards the future?", Boooring! So I just answered honestly and moved on, it was funny seeing the rest of the group, all straight out of uni, and you could see them pondering over each question, thinking "which one would they most like me to pick?".

But I think the salesman questionnaire had to take the cake, it was all about whether you could ever be in sales, and your views on salespeople. There were these questions like "Would you sell a product to your grandparents even if you didn't believe the product was very good", that kind of thing, so that was pretty easy to answer, but I don't think they are ever going to get me to sell stuff, thank god! I was filling it out thinking, what sort of job have I applied for?

But enough about that, I can give you another taste of summer in Europe, even though I am now in winter in Australia, as I went on one last trip to England before the European adventure.

I visited Hever castle whilst I was over there (the first photo), this was the childhood home of Anne Boleyn, but after she married Henry VIII and subsequently died, it passed into his hands and he gave it to another one of his wives, Anne of Cleves, after he divorced her. It was later (very much later) bought by the Astor family (of the hotel fame) and they actually used it as a residence, so there are the renovated parts where the rooms have modern wallpaper and beds and then the original parts which have been restored. It is now owned by the Broadland Properties group (how romantic) who use it as a conference centre, though the castle is still open to the public. They also have on display here a rare portrait of Catherine Howard, and thus have portraits of all 6 of King Henry VIII's wives, which is not a very common thing to have in a single collection.

Though the underground art-historian rumour about this painting is that Hever castle probably paid a lot more for it than what it is actually worth because a well-known BBC art-historian guy (Starkey) did this big piece on this lost Catherine Howard portrait just a few weeks before it re-appeared and was bought by Hever. So the rumour is (I think) that Starkey knew who had the portrait and wanted to push the price up for them (knowing that Hever would want to complete their collection) and so did the TV piece on it. Ohhh, these underhanded dealings in the art-historian world, how juicy!.

Anyway on to some pictures, it really was a lovely place, with fantastic grounds, complete with a massive lake (second photo), Italian gardens (to display the Astor's Italian sculptures), a yew maze, a water maze (not particularly impressive, or difficult and is the photo to the left), topiary and flowers all over the place. I think the most impressive thing about it though was that it really did look and feel like a proper castle, with the proper battlements and moat and everything. And the gardens were just what you expect it England, lovely and green, manicured and lots of flowers.

Unfortunately you weren't able to take photos inside the castle, but what do you expect from a group called Broadland Properties. They did have one other impressive thing, apart from the complete portrait collection of King Henry VIII's wives and that was a personal lock of King Henry VIII. When he would go travelling around the country, and he did spend some time at Hever castle before Anne lost her head, he would take his own locks with him. These would be placed on the doors and that way he could be sure of security, as only his personal locksmith had the keys to them, so I guess he only had to keep that guy happy, rather than the whole country.

Versailles

A few weekends ago I headed back to Versailles and stood in the massive line again for what seemed like hours. Seriously anyone thinking of going to Versailles, buy your tickets before you get there, whether that is online, through the train company or a tourist bureau because it's not worth it to stand in the massive queue to get in. I thought it would be better this time as I went real early, one of the first trains to get out there, but nope just as bad.

This first photo is of the Flora fountain, she's there sitting on a whole bunch of flowers, I hope there aren't any roses in that bouquet as that could be a little uncomfortable.

It was pretty funny when we got to the train station at Versailles as there were a lot of tourists all getting off at this stop, and of course being tourists they don't really understand how the French train tickets work when you exit the train station. It's pretty simple really the tickets go in one end, and then the gate opens, but it takes them each a little time to work out where the ticket goes and if it has to go a particular way (it doesn't). So we are all trapped waiting whilst the tourists very slowly trickle through the few turnstiles. Perhaps the tourist bureau of Versailles could look at improving the access there as it was a serious crush.

The other thing they really need to look at is their joke of a ticket machine. When you want to go back to Paris the ticket machines, in a fit of absolute brilliance by the designer, only allow you to buy one ticket at a time, so if you are there with a group you have to very slowly buy each ticket one by one. What can add to the sheer enjoyment of this task is if the ticket machine also doesn't accept cash and so you have to go through the added bonus of using your bank card for each 4 euro ticket, which adds about a minutes to each transaction time.

This second photo is the glory of Versailles, looking down to the grand canal which is 1.5km long and was built so the King could have boating parties.

This time I got to visit the gardens, which I think really are the highlight of Versailles, I mean the Hall of Mirrors is good and all, but the gardens are definitely better. A weird thing they had done between my visits to the chateau is they had drastically reduced the audio guide time for each room. It was really bizarre as now the guide stopped almost in mid-sentence and a lot of the interesting information was excluded. I don't know why they did this, whether it was to get people moving through faster or to encourage people to go on a tour, because the audio guide was definitely better the first time I visited.

This photo is the gardener's house, it was well isolated from the royal residences, which is probably just how the gardener liked it, and certainly had some of the best grounds of any building. As you would expect I suppose.

So onto the gardens. They are pretty cool with their massive hedges and fountains and things, though I was a little surprised at the lack of flowers they had growing. I would have expected acres and acres of them but instead it was all gravel paths and massive hedges. What was kind of cool were the 'groves' which were basically overgrown scrub/forests. I can imagine people got up to a lot of naughtiness in those groves back in the King's day, and probably still to this day, which perhaps was the idea behind their design.

The fountains were impressive and there were an awful lot of them, I guess the only bad thing about them is when I visited they had some sort of music exposition, which basically means they turn the fountains on for a few hours during the day along with classical music. Nice idea and all, the only problem was the sheer volume at which they were blasting the music, you turn anything loud enough and it just becomes noise, I think I'm turning into an old person. Apart from that, seeing the fountains going was pretty cool as you get more of an idea of what it was like when old Louis was wandering around. When the fountains were off you felt more like a servant during the periods when the king was away from home, no luxuries for you then!

I think the best thing about the gardens was the Marie Antoinette part, definitely visit this section if you are up to the 2km hike to get there after strolling through the massive main gardens of Versailles. This section is also quite large, encompassing a little make-believe village the queen had built where she could come to escape from the rigours of palace life, poor dear, and play dress-ups as milkmaids and the like. Marie Antoinette's section certainly felt a bit more natural, though I imagine an awful lot of planning goes into making something look "natural". It was funny seeing this queen's vision of how the peasants lived as she really didn't have any idea how the vast majority of people struggled, hence the revolution I suppose. In fact she would milk hand-picked docile cows, but her milk pail was made of porcelain and was painted to make it look like wood, ahh rich people and the funny things they do.

One thing I found funny in this section is that they had all these different parts to the gardens and they each had names. So they had a French garden which was all manicured hedges and flowers planted in rows, looking like a typical English garden. But then they also had a section called an English garden but all it turned out to be was a field of waist-high weeds. I don't know if that was a subtle dig at the English or whether the French really believe that's how English gardens look. The guys at work didn't seem to be at all surprised when I described it to them, so perhaps they think the English are incompetent gardeners.





Marie Antoinette's billiard room in her little pretend village. Nice setting though.

Last Days

So these are my last days in Paris, man how the time flies, I've already been here for a year and now it's time to leave. I'm heading off to Egypt on the 2nd of July and then spending a few days in Italy before flying back to Australia and into the real world, ie finding a job and all that jazz. I finish my job on Friday and I'll try not to get too self-indulgent here but I guess a bit of reminiscing is in order.

I have enjoyed this year and I feel I have been incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to live in a pretty cool city somewhere completely different for a year. I guess what I'll miss most over here is the little weekend jaunts I've been able to do. The ability to just on a weekend go somewhere with a completely different culture is fantastic and one of the best things about Europe. I love the attitude that the French have to life also, they understand that weekends are important and that you aren't your job, which I really appreciate, being the lazy slacker that I am. I love the food too, especially the bread, wine and cheese (the classics I suppose).

I think I've learnt a new-found appreciation for immigrants or visitors, that it is difficult when you move to a new country and that any friendly gesture on the part of the locals is very much appreciated. I definitely have a greater tolerance for people how can't speak English too, after spending a year as a non-functioning illiterate I can understand how hard it can be to learn another language and how isolating that can be. And just because someone can't speak English doesn't mean they are a moron or are willfully ignorant.

Though I will miss Paris I'm looking forward to touching down in Sydney airport. I guess I'm looking forward to being back in a country where I speak the language and understand the pop culture and just "get it" because that's certainly been one of the hardest things over here, constantly feeling like an outsider. I'll see how this blog pans out, but I'll have to keep it going for at least a little while so you can all see my adventures in Egypt and Italy as well as the pain of getting a new job. That's another thing I'm looking forward to, I've learnt a lot this year, and funnily enough most of it hasn't been to do with physics, and I'm certainly looking forward to finding a job that isn't in academia. I'll let you know how that works out. I'll have to change the name of my blog though as I won't really be taking on the French anymore. Hmmm, I'll have to think about that one.

Fete de la Musique

Saturday was the summer solstice over here in the Northern Hemisphere, ie the longest day of the year, and they have a pretty cool way of celebrating it here in Paris, with a day and night of free music throughout the city. On this day any group can come out and perform anywhere, and it seems without any permit or permission or anything. They obviously have more organised events as well, though they are generally classical music as that needs a bit more organisation than a thrash-metal band. The main stuff seems to kick off in the afternoon and then carry on through the evening well into the night, the metro runs much later than normal, in fact it may even go all night, so you don't have to worry about getting home. It is just a really awesome idea and just wandering the streets I got to see so many different bands out. There was first the choral music in the French senate, which is the big building in the Luxembourg gardens, then brass bands, barber shop quartets, heavy metal, 40-year old's pub music and just general cover bands.

I spent most of the evening listening to one band in the Latin quarter and it was a slightly strange experience, they spent most of the night playing cover songs of American/English music and it really felt like you were in an Aussie pub, except that they spoke French after every song. So they were playing things like Hotel California, Stairway to Heaven, Yellow, etc and the French people were all sitting there listening to it, seemed to be getting into it, but then later in the night they started playing French songs and then the audience just went off, they all got up and started dancing away and singing along and it makes me wonder why they played all the English songs first, especially as they didn't seem to know them nearly as well as the French stuff.

All in all it was a really good night, it's just a shame that they could never do this same thing in Australia. Over here it was a real family event and while there was alcohol being sold on the streets, most people weren't drinking and those that were just seemed to get to the happy dancing stage rather than the aggressive punch-you-in-the-face stage. I'm sure there must have been a few fights later in the night though but it just didn't seem to have the same violent vibe that you can sometimes get at these sort of events in Australia. I have the feeling that if they opened the whole of Sydney up to an all-out drinking and music festival it would fairly quickly degenerate into a city-wide riot. Just look what happens on New Year's Eve and that's in the controlled sections, in Paris I don't think I even saw one policeman out on the streets. I don't know why we anglophones have such a strange relationship with alcohol, why is that we aren't capable (as a society) of just having a few friendly drinks without it turning messy? But I suppose if the Australian government knew the answer to that they would be implementing those policies rather than just raising the tax on pre-mixed drinks.

Bits and Pieces

So my year here is nearly up, my job finishes on the 27th of June, well actually my contract expires on Monday the 30th of June but I was planning to take that day off. I mean what are they going to do, fire me :). So I'm slowly gathering up my various goods and chattels and deciding what stuff I want to keep and what I'll chuck out. I've got two boxes from La Poste which cost 40 euros each. I'm assuming that 40 euros includes the postage as whilst they are nice boxes and a very fetching orange, I don't think cardboard could ever be worth that much. This means I have 14 kg available to send stuff home, which is actually quite a lot of weight, the problem is the boxes aren't that big and my stuff is kind of bulky. I need one of those vacuum bags you see on late night TV where you vacuum seal your clothes and chuck them in the attic, and are much smaller than if you hadn't spent the $29.95 on what is essentially a plastic bag.

That's my work building to the left, taken when we got that snow in springtime. Just thought I would give you a photo to break up the writing.

The other thing I'm trying to do at the moment is buy some Italian train tickets. I've already bought my tickets from Rome to Florence, but I also wanted tickets from Florence to Milan. For some reason every time I try to buy that ticket my payment is always denied. I've tried with both my French and Australian credit cards and it's the same deal every time. In fact after I used my Australian credit card my bank wanted me to get in contact with them. So I ring them up on what is meant to be their international reverse charges number, only to be told by the operator that the number is blocked to reverse charges, scummy banks. Luckily I was at work and they use that VOIP-thing so apparently it is free to call international numbers, or so everyone at work tells me. But I really wanted to charge my bank with a massive reverse charge call cost, damn them! So anyway the security issue they wanted to talk to me about was the transaction I had tried to make with trenitalia (the Italian train company). Apparently they had had security issues in the past with this company about false credit card transactions. Made me feel real secure, but I told them that the transaction was real and they wrote a note saying I wanted to buy Trenitalia tickets. Which of course makes absolutely no difference as the transaction was still denied the next time I tried. Oh by the way if anyone out there is with Commonwealth bank and needs to contact them from overseas, the number to call, which apparently doesn't have a reverse charge block on is: 612 8835 2397. At least that's what the lady on the phone told me.

I have to say I haven't had this treatment from my French bank. They just deny my payment and don't really care if the transaction was legitimate or not. But please Trenitalia get your act together! Another thing they should fix on their online ticketing service is that there is no real way to choose your seats. You can ask to be placed near a certain seat, but if there are 2 people travelling together you would think the reservation would put you together, but it seems to be kind of arbitrary. Unless on Italian trains, seats 54 and 57 are next to each other, they must have a unique numbering system in Italy. I've booked a lot of train tickets using the French online service, which I have to say is fantastic, seriously cannot fault it. And there it is very easy to pick your seats, and if you don't like the ones you've been given you don't have to start the whole process again, but simply choose from a drop down menu. But then the good thing about Italian train travel is that the price is always the same, even if you buy it 2 months or 20 minutes in advance, I'm just hoping there are still seats available on the train I want, when I get to Rome and have access to a Trenitalia ticket machine.