Lautrec, Part II: Welcome to the Country.

The closest town to Chateau Brametourte was Lautrec, which was an hour walk away. One weekend Tom, Danel and I decided to venture out in search of some bread and a self-guided tour of the area.

It was really windy.

When we got there, we climbed a big hill to see the famous Moulin (windmill)!

The view from the top. Look at those clouds looming.

Lautrec is pretty old. Look at those medieval walls.

I don't know where ANY of those places are. Welcome to the middle of nowhere, kids.

View of Lautrec behind me when the wind isn't actively attacking my face, for once.

It translates to "one of the most beautiful villages in France" or something like that. I was excited. I think we walked 309438490 kilometers that day.

Town. No...really. The main shopping strip left a bit to be desired if you wanted variety and even less if you wanted your variety to be open, but it was pretty!

On the way home, there was some weird sun/stormy cloud combination happening.

The road leading from the Chateau. Small.

I braved the hour walk into town by myself my last day to get wine for the people who offered to drive me to the train station and cigarettes for Liz. On my way home I saw the BIGGEST CATERPILLAR EVER! But it really turned out to be many caterpillars traveling in a row...like ducks! Did you know that caterpillars do that? Me either. I definitely spent at least 5 minutes staring at these caterpillars like a freak and took about 10 pictures. Anyone watching probably just assumed I was observing the pavement for an inordinate amount of time and must have thought I had at least one screw loose. Oh well. Nature is CRAZY.

Lautrec, Part I: How I Came to Live in A Chateau

Welcome to Chateau Brametourte. For my second HelpX job as a helper, I ended up in Lautrec, a beautiful small village in the south of France, about an hour from Toulouse. If the weather was right, you could see the Pyrenees from their property (though if you could see them it meant it would rain in a couple days!), but we'll get to that later. It was a pretty laid back week and a half as the two owners left for England and Singapore the day after I got there, and the nearest hint of civilization was an hours walk away, but life doesn't always have to be 24/7 go-go-go, does it? My tasks were mostly cleaning, vacuuming, dusting, mopping, putting things in their rightful places, some weeding, sifting dirt, raking leaves and more tidying of the property. Most of the time it was just me and the volunteer coordinator, Liz, who was from Brighton, but for the first week there were two other helpers from South Africa named Tom and Danel and they were awesome!:

Danel and Tom!

A closer look at the Chateau where I lived while I worked there, it apparently dates back to the 12oos, whoa.

The view from their yard, this picture doesn't really do it justice.

A short walk from their property and you get here, where they grow most of their vegetables. You can even see it in the picture above! On a couple occasions we got to pull leeks right out of the ground for dinner and it was pretty neat. I should mention the weather was absolutely fabulous, most of the time all I needed to wear outside was a sweatshirt! Good bye, winter! And good riddance.

So the chateau dates to the 1200s, but this fountain, which, you guessed it, is a giant stone vagina, apparently dates back to the times before Christ to pagan times. That's BC, folks. It sort of astounded me to be standing in front of something so old in it's natural habitat, that is, not in a museum.


The really old pagan vagina rock was enclosed in here, below that little dark square where the water/well was. Apparently people used to go on pilgrimages here in the past, crazy.

The courtyard of the Chateau, where lots of tidying was done.

Another part of the property where some tomatoes and peppers were grown. My job here was to pull out the old, dead plants and turn over the soil.

The Renaissance Room, which we also spent lots of time tidying. They were doing some work, so a lot of my tasks were just cleaning up everything and making it presentable again. They want to rent this room out for meetings and such.

I think this room was called the Salle de Sejour. It was very pretty and bright, but there were a LOT of really expensive antiques, so mostly I didn't trust myself in there lest I broke something.

And what is a castle without a set of spiral stone stairs?

That's all I have of the property, but tune in next time for pictures of the surrounding area and Lautrec itself!

Je suis allé à Paris pour une journée

So here's the thing. I was supposed to go to Paris for a weekend to stay with two couchsurfers, but when I got to Frankfurt to change trains every single one going to Paris was booked until the next day, thus I ended up in Berlin instead. However, as my next HelpX was in southern France and I didn't want to be on the train for 16 hours, it made sense to stay the night so I posted on couchsurfing the night before I was to be in Paris and scored a place to sleep. You see, couchsurfing has an "emergency" forum for each major city where you post "omgzzzz I'm going to be here tomorrow and I have nowhere to sleeeeep!!!" and then mostly creepy people answer and some not creepy people as well. Luckily, I found the latter when Alix offered to host me for one night (on a Monday, too!). It was the first time I was actually hosted by anyone, and it was a great experience!

Alix lives in Montmartre, which is a cool little area that is basically a giant hill, so I got a lot of exercise lugging my suitcase that day. Right down the road from her flat is Sacré-Coeur, pictured above.

You can even see the Eiffel Tower from the hill!

Apparently these Space Invaders are all over Paris and they get points based on how big they are and where they're located. Pretty neat!

I've been to Paris once before two years ago, but it was with my parents and maybe one of the more stressful times of my life. Needless to say, we didn't go to Moulin Rouge, which is the red light district of Paris. Now I've seen it!

Alix cooked us an amazing dinner of Ratatouille with mashed potatoes, red wine and a pear pie for dessert. Mmmmmm. Best host ever.

The next morning before I caught my train to Toulouse, we literally walked across the entirety of Paris. No joke, we walked the equivalent of 15 metro stops or something. It was good though as I was only there about 24 hours. In any case, Paris wins for coolest metro entrance decorations.

Louvre Pyramid. I forgot to increase the shutter speed on my camera, also. It was very sunny that day, but not THAT sunny. Oops.

Paris really reminds me of Prague. I heard someone say that Prague is the Paris of Central Europe in terms of big, romantic cities. I agree.

And that, my friends, was my brief foray back to Paris! I'm sad I don't have any pictures of Alix, but it was a mad rush my last day as I almost missed my train (again). My last hour was spent rushing on the metro, running up steps and trying not to keel over due to the ridiculous weight of my suitcase as we attempted to get from Paris Montparnasse, to Montmartre and across to Paris Austeritz in one hour. Somehow, we made it!

Schluchtenscheisseren (February 7-12th)

After less than two hours of sleep, I was definitely not up to anything crazy for my first night in Prague. I talked to Andrea and Viktor for a bit and then headed to Shakespeare to catch up with the rest of my friends. I finally tried the hot pear juice, which I’d meant to do my entire 5 months in Prague, met New Nicole and somehow managed to stay up until midnight or so. The next day was my birthday, so I slept in and then met up with more friends for Mexican food and margaritas at Cantina in Mala Strana. I’ve been craving Mexican food, so it was definitely nice. After dinner, a lot of people went home because they had work the next day, so Miriam, Sara, Josh and I hit up Bukowski’s. Viktor gave me a couple free drinks for my birthday which was awesome and we chilled for a bit. On the way home, we bumped into another group of people, one whose birthday was ALSO that day (go figure), who let us into Blind Eye, which was open illegally for some reason.

Birthday drink!

After only two nights back in Prague, it was back on the train to Vienna this time to see Lizbee. My first night I met her awesome friends and got treated to delicious homemade curry. It was cool to see her and crazy to be around someone from Tyler again. The next day we had a wander around Vienna, which is very pretty and looks similar to Prague, ate amazing falafel where Lizbee, Molly, Kayleigh and I talked about sex for at least an hour and a half. Then Lizbee and I got some BonBons and were off to the Wien Museum to see an exhibit called “Madness and Modernity” and wander around the rest of the exhibits until we both reached the point of sensory overload. Next was Naschmarkt, which was basically my version of heaven. Tons of different types of hummus, olives, vegetables, falafel, bread, dried fruits, spices and candies going on for a long block between metro stations. Freaking amazing. I procured a vegetable that looked like a spiky alien, apparently called a Romanesca, that we cooked for dinner with rice (it was good!).

Lizbee's flatmate's cat, Hecate. It was the weirdest/cutest cat ever.

Cathedral? Or something. Pretty!

The mystery vegetable that is a Romanesca

My last day I wandered around by myself because Lizbee was sick, bought pens, ate vegan “Chicken Cordon Bleu” and had coffee at a little vegetarian restaurant and went back to Naschmarkt to buy more snacks and spices for the train ride the next day. At night we went to this amazing Nepalese place called Yak & Yeti that had all-you-could-eat dumplings for 12 euro and it was also mind-blowingly good. We sat in this cool room in the back where you had to take your shoes off and sit on the floor on all these rugs and pillows. Mmmmm.

All you can eat dumplings. Best everrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Myself and a sick Lizbee

Berlin, Germany: Part II (February 1st-7th)

Well, you saw the places I visited, now for what I actually did! I wasn’t even supposed to go to Berlin, but instead, to Stuttgart to visit Amy at her flat. Last minute change in plans and I ended up there for a week! I checked into the Raise a Little Smile hostel in Friedrichshain for the first 4 nights. With less than 18 beds at the time, it was sort of like hanging out at a friend’s house, which ended up being awesome. For too much of the time, I admit, I sat in the kitchen eating instant tomato soup (my new favorite variety of travel food) and sat on the internet. It was okay though, because I had a lot of planning to do for the section of my trip in Spain, hostels to book, trains to figure out, etc.

I came to Berlin alone, so my first night was a bit lonely and I was afraid the rest of my week would me more of the same. I was definitely wrong. By the end of my week, all of my 10 euros of credit on my phone was gone! My first night I got very lost trying to find a vegan fast food restaurant called Yoyo’s food world in Friedrichshain, but ended up getting lost for at least 30 minutes and taking the tram illegally. Tuesday morning I meant to catch the Alternative Berlin tour, but ended up missing it, so I wandered around by myself for awhile instead and hit up this massive second-hand shop called Humana where I got a pair of jeans for 8 euro. Then it got too cold and started snowing (the theme of my life lately). At night I went out for delicious Mexican food with Gray, Esther and Linus. Gray, from England and Esther from Germany own the hostel and Linus works there. I think that night we played a rousing game of Dutch Blitz, which I pretty much can never get enough of.

Wednesday I finally made it to the Alternative Berlin tour, which was amazing (you can read my last post for more on it). At night I met up with a guy from Berlin from couchsurfing named Patryk, his friend and another girl named Sarah from Malaysia whose currently living in Moscow. He took us to a Volksküchen, translated “People’s Kitchen”, where I got a three course vegan meal for 2.50 euro. Basically, the night before, they go to the grocery store and boy whatever’s cheapest and then whip up a meal. Everyone eats the same thing, but you get appetizer, meal and dessert for super cheap. There’s a website at http://stressfaktor.squat.net/vokue.php, where you can search for Volksküchen based on what day it is in Berlin. The night we went I had some type of broccoli cream soup, potatoes with beans and veggies and apple-almond something delicious. It was awesome.

Patryk's friend, Patryk and Sarah at the Volksküche

Afterwards the guy who took us to dinner wanted to go home, so Sarah and I wandered over to a pace called Winerei, where a couchsurfing meet-up was taking place. This was also a really cool concept. You go pay 2 euro and get a glass. After that you drink as much wine as you want from all the bottles on the table. At the end you pay as much as you think it was worth, or as much as you have, and give back the glass. Thus, I had about 5 glasses of wine for 4 euro. Win.

Sarah and I

Couchsurfers at Winerei meetup

Thursday I went on a mission to buy jeans since my others that I wore all the time developed a giant hole in the crotch. This mission I succeeded, 49 euro light and a couple hours later, although the blue dye in them is still turning me blue now. That morning I had talked to Linus about this Anti-Pub crawl that goes to some weird bars in Berlin so after a delicious dinner with everyone from the hostel me and two American girls from the hostel met up with Linus and another Australian guy from the hostel named Gavin at the first pub, Yesterday Bar, around 9:30pm.

There was a good variety of places. The first was 60s, 70s and 80s themed. The next was a goth club that used to be owned by Rammstein where Marilyn Manson apparently frequents in Berlin, an place called the King Kong Club, which was cool, an absinth bar (yes, I got to light it on fire and everything!) a place called Dr. Pong’s where the entire room plays ping-pong with each other while walking around the table and last, an indie-electro club called Magnet, that was super fun. By the end of the night, around 3-4am or so, Linus, Gavin and I were the only ones left we could find, so we went home together, trying not to die on the ice and passed the fuck out.

Linus , Geraldine and Gavin

There were the stamps for the pub crawl, obnoxiously large, but sort of hilarious.

Thursday Amy arrived in Berlin to move into her new flat, so I checked out of the hostel and headed over. I was a jerk and missed most of the moving, however. We went out with two of her friends from Stuttgart for delicious Vietnamese food and then to a really cool super queer bar called Silver Future in Neukölln, the area of Berlin where Amy lives.

My last full day I met up with Sarah again to go to the medical museum and see weird shit. Then we tried to go to an Irish bar to see a rugby game with some other people from couchsurfing, but it was too full so we ended up just wandering around Tacheles again and going to a bar/café called Zapata. We met up with the other couchsurfers after the game and all went for dinner together in Friedrichshain—to a place that had like 800 types of burgers, fries and sauces (and vegan ones!). It was sort of like Local Burger, for all of my readers from Northampton. After dinner I went up to their flat with Sarah for some tea and biscuits, then caught the U-Bahn back to Amy’s to go with them to sushi and head out for the night.

At the burger place for dinner

First Amy, her friends and I went out to a bar for a couple beers and then headed to this party at a club. It was a big lesbian night at this club, in a warehouse, called Female Attacken and it was amazing. It’s also where I met Marlen, which is the reason I ended up in Berlin again a week later, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We danced until 7:30am, tried to go to another club that was just closing and then got some drunk munchies as the sun came up. By the time Amy and I got back to hers it was completely bright out and I had to get up in an hour and a half to catch a 5+ hour train back to Prague. I was definitely tired the next day, but it was worth it.

Amy and Susii

Me and Marlen