STOP PRESS

I have a semi definite date of arrival in Australia. 17 June, for 2 weeks.

24 April

Last weekend I went for a brief visit to the Netherlands, to Amsterdam and Eindhoven.

Because of my frantic work schedule the week before (as well as some work/social engagements, I didn't leave for the Netherlands until Saturday morning, at an ungodly hour. My plane left at 6.30am and since it was an international flight, you can just picture at what time I had to be at the airport!.

I arrived in Amsterdam at about 8.30am and had a bit of a wander before everything opened. I tried some stuckenbroojt (I think that spelling is correct) which was very yummy. It was one of my goals to get to the flower markets, so I headed that way. As I was standing there, I heard a familiar accent. I started talking to the retired couple and they said that they were leaving town that day, and were kind enough to give me their museum pass. I contemplated a museum visit, but couldn't decide which one to go on. I had bought my train ticket to get to Eindhoven but didn't know what time the trains were, so went back to the station to find out.

Then I walked to the canal nearest the station and caught a canal boat for a one hour tour (it was free with the museum pass too). The trip was fun, but I concluded by the end of it that there wasn't much to Amsterdam really and that I probably wouldn't bother visiting for any real length of time again.

I arrived in Eindhoven and caught a taxi to the museum. The man at the desk pointed me towards the prehistoric village. There I met up with my new friends: Carin Gorrie Tom Alain Rudy and our guide Mirella. Everyone was looking vey relaxed, and rather different... all in costumes! I had known before coming that I was going to be staying the night in the village, but I hadn't realised quite how much we were going to be getting into the spirit of things.

I headed to the change room to find something to wear. Unfortunately, as I have known for years, early period clothing I look rather like a cushion with a string tied around it. However, the shoes I had to wear were really interesting. They were very stiff when I first put them on, and I had the sinking feeling that I was in for some blisters, but in actual fact they warmed up and became quite flexible and comfortable.

The first (and most important) thing to do for the afternoon was to prepare dinner. It was important to get the fire on, and the grains soaking for our pottage. Mirella coaxed us away from the cool beers and charmed the men in to chopping up wood, while the ladies chopped up much smaller things; the vegetables. Dinner ended up being three things: pottage, soup and chicken legs (boiled first in the soup and then barbequeued). We were joined by a talented musician, who, much to my surprise, was singing songs in English! A whole heap of irish folk songs. With his Dutch accent, some of the English was a bit hard to understand, but in many ways the accent suited the music, and ended up sounding very much like he had a very strong Irish accent. If you are wandering the streets of Eindhoven and see a young bearded muso playing Irish folk songs, throw him some change!

After some wine and some chatting we headed to bed. We knew that with the morning would come the sounds of roosters crowing and wanted to get a relatively early night. Bed was another thing that I hadn't anticipated from the "accommodation in a prehistoric village". We were sleeping in the sheep croft. The others decided to sleep in the big box of straw. I opted for the pallets: woven willow base with a mattress stuffed with straw. It was pretty hard and lumpy, but I had a heap of sheepskins to add, and in the end it made quite a comfy nest. Unfortunately I was ill prepared for the conditions, so didn't have anything to sleep under, so more skins and my costume made for an interestingly textured blanket. It was ok, as long as I didn't roll over or move, because if I did, I bared myself to the cold.

As predicted, we were woken in the morning. Not by a rooster though.. but a chicken that had come into the hut and laid her egg in the rafters. The crowing of a happy hen was not a welcome sound after a rough night's sleep, but we staggered out into the sun to have breakfast; lovely whole grain bread, cheese and jam. The activity for the morning was making brooms. Heading off into the thicket to pick up bundles of sticks was fun, apart from my first encounter with stinging nettle. The costume I had only went to my mid calf, so the bottom of my leg was stung and burned for about 6 hours. Still... all part of the experience!

I made two brooms; one full sized and one baby one which I gave to Mirella to use as a pot scrubber. I decided against taking my broom home with me at the end of the day; I couldn't imagine easyjet being happy with trying to fit in a large broom. Then we ground flour so that we could make bread for lunch. It was fun getting floury, and I sang a song for my friends as we kneaded away. The bread was made into little pockets with cheese and herbs inside. Very tasty, and all the better for being made ourselves.

I felt almost as though I was at a Rowany festival and it made me feel all misty and homesick. It was a bit awkward being in a group where everyone else was speaking Dutch most of the time, but they did make an effort to talk in English for me, and to translate the jokes flying back and forth. I suspect if we had been a larger group, with more English speakers, they would have spoken English all the time. I was most impressed by how fluent everyone was in English, though they all claimed to be very poor.

Sadly the time flew by and it was time to go. I felt SO relaxed after the weekend and was very sorry to have to go.

17 April

Nothing very exciting this weekend. I was going to go to Barcelona for the weekend, but the airfare cost too much. However, next weekend I am going to Amsterdam, to then drive to a place called Eindhoven.

I have put together a screensaver of the photos I took at the Medieval Music Exhibition. I warn you, it's big! 7.7MB.

13 April

	Paris was great. Friday night I caught the train in to Paris. The trip was uneventful; the guy across from me spoke English and was at least friendly, even if he did go on a bit. I made my way to the metro and caught a train to the station near the hotel. I walked to the hotel (Hotel Wallace) where they couldn't find me on the register. I got a room though, but the bed was pretty saggy, and the curtain was on the ground. I had a bath but then couldn't get the bath plug out. I ended up switching rooms. The hotel was kind of quaint though, with a nice glass topped courtyard where I was able to sit and have breakfast. I don't know that I would highly recommend it, but hey, it was cheap.
	On Friday morning I headed out to the youth hostel. I was annoyed to find that, having called before hand to check that they would be open, I couldn't go to my room because the rooms were closed. I put my stuff in one of the lockers and headed out to the Eiffel tower. The crowds around the tower were pretty bad, so I decided not to queue to go up the tower and contented myself with a pic of me standing in front of it. My stay in the hotel had given me a voucher for a free 1 hour cruise, so I waited for a bit and then did that. Passing under all the bridges of the Seine, I got a great view of many of the sights of the city. I went back to the youth hostel and met my roomies; a nice pair of girls, one from Canada and one from Germany.
	I decided that I couldn't stay in, and headed out again. I went to St Lazare, and discovered a heap of cinemas so went and saw "Immortal". It was subtitled in French, and was actually pretty ordinary. On Saturday after breakfast I headed to the shops. I decided I would spend a few hours in the morning looking in the shops, then go to the Cluny. I spent most of the morning in the Gallery Lafayette, which was spectacular. No clothes for me, but all sorts of little goodies around the place. I didn't spend a lot, but enough to get a nice free bag. Then I headed to the Thermes de Cluny; the museum of the middle ages. But… I got a little distracted before I got there, but the area that the museum is in… it seems to be the student quarter, and there were all these really cool bookshops. Lucky for me that most of them were French, but I still spent a while going through the English Science Fiction section of a bookshop. Wow… a whole section on SF in English!
	Then off to the musee. What can I say beyond wow? I know… The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. THE Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. The REAL things. So many cool tapestries, so much groovy stuff! I spent hours taking photos of fabrics and tapestries and boy did my legs ache by the end of it. I also spent 187€ in the gift shop, although believe me I restrained myself! For dinner I wandered around the quarter; I ended up having Moroccan for dinner…mmm. Sunday morning I headed straight out go to the museum of musical instruments.
	Again I say WOW. In a case of perfect timing I discovered that they had a current exhibition of music in the middle ages. This was displayed by gorgeous illuminated manuscripts and tapestries, accompanied by glorious music. One of the tapestries was so very fine that I thought it was a painting. It was only when I got up close to it that I realised it was tiny stitches. I spent hours and hours in there and filled up my camera with photos. Unfortunately the visit the day before had used up almost one entire 128mg memory card, so I had to shrink down some photos, and take smaller shots to fit things in. At the end I couldn't resist the catalogue, although expensive - it even came with a CD of the music, which was great.
	I caught the metro and got off at the Louvre, but was actually looking for the museum of the decorative arts. Unfortunately it was just about to close when I arrived, so I resigned myself to having to go there on my next trip. I wandered around the outside of the louvre, and discovered a bus that does a wander around the centre of Paris on Sundays. I caught that to Gare de Lyon, and then back again, to the Arc de Triomphe. See.. I did do proper sightseeing. I then caught the train part of the way home and got off at Place de Clichy. There I stumbled across a chinese restaurant. It was completely empty, but the food was great. The fresh spring roll I had was huge and tasty, and the main dish was very good. They seemed somewhat surprised that I used chopsticks and asked for a bowl to eat out of rather than a plate.
	Monday was a bit of a write off as my train trip home was quite early in the afternoon. Still, I squeezed in a visit to the site of the Bastille before hopping on the train back to Geneva. Strangely enough I am exhausted. So, I have so many photos... what shall I put up? I think I am going to have to make more screensavers.

7 April

Well. I didn't get to meet Kofi. BUT I did get to sit on the podium behind him, so close I could have reached over and touched him. I even have pictures to prove it! Well, sort of. I have the pictures to prove that Kofi spoke, and that I was on the podium. (I'm in the red jacket) Unfortunately someone got in the way of the shot that would have shown that we were both there.

What's more.. we had 2 minutes silence in commemoration of the genocide at Rwanda 10 years ago, and MY watch was used to keep the time. Ok, so it isn't the greatest claim to fame you have ever heard, but hey you gotta take what you can get! Hopefully one of the other interns managed to get some better photos.

6 April

Well... you are about to see my most exciting entry ever.

Tomorrow I MAY get to meet Kofi. Yes, THE Kofi. He is coming to address the Commission, and since I work as assistant to the Chair I have a pretty reasonable chance of meeting him. How cool is that?!!!!

So, of course the most important thing in my life at the moment is... trying to figure out what I am going to wear.

Of course the joy just gets better as this weekend I am going to Paris for Easter. I bought my ticket today - cost me a bit extra because I had to pay 1st class to get a non-smoking seat. What can I say... it's all good.

AMy friend came over for dinner last night; we used to work together at UNEP, and gave me a very sweet bouquet: a very Easterish bunch of flowers. I can't quite imagine finding anything like this in Australia, so here is a photo.