Clara's Travel Tales: The November Edition

This month's edition isn't very cheery, but the world seems to be going to hell in a hand-basket, so I have no choice but to be real and write about current affairs.

So three Fridays ago, my sister was supposed to go to Paris to give a talk at a conference as part of her PhD work, but she decided at the last minute to go on the Saturday because for some weird reason, she didn't feel like staying for two nights. Thank God, because the Paris attacks happened that same Friday and she was luckily still in England and therefore protected from the danger. Not knowing that she'd changed her plans, I woke up Saturday morning at 5am for work and saw the tweets about attacks on Paris. You can imagine how scared and worried I was when I got to work and and got more information from the news. I immediately started calling my sister and my parents repeatedly, then not getting through to either party, called T and told him to keep trying. I only calmed down when he told me he'd spoken to my sister and that she was only leaving for Paris that morning. 

One week later, in this climate of fear and uncertainty, I took the very early 6.25am train to Cologne to see the parents-in-law as planned. However, having left the house at 6am without checking news, I was completely unaware of the fact that Brussels had been effectively shut down because of serious threats of terrorist attacks. I arrived in Cologne as planned and spent the day having fun and hanging out with J without realising that my phone (which wasn't online) was going off with messages and calls from my family and friends. Everyone was worried about me especially because I wasn't responding, and because no one knew where I was (I had forgotten to tell my family I was travelling). In the end I went home to T's parents who told me they'd also been worried about me and that they'd even wondered if I'd be able to come after all. I had a lovely time as usual, spending the weekend alternating between sleeping, eating good food and (window)shopping. I also got my first advent's calendar, chose my own Christmas present and got to see the first snow of the season. After such a wonderful weekend, on Monday, it was time to decide if and when I'd be going back to Brussels. 

My mum wanted me to stay until Brussels was safe, and so did T's parents who even offered to buy me a new ticket. I was tempted too, but I knew I'd have to go back to Brussels soon, especially since I was already scheduled to fly on the Friday to Prague for T's birthday. The Belgian authorities didn't make the decision easy either, because they kept giving updates that contained no new information. In the end I stayed glued to the TV, watching until the last minute possible, trying to get to some sort of decision. Around 4pm, they gave an update which stated that the city would remain at high alert for another week, and seeing that I couldn't stay in Germany for that long, I decided to take the plunge and go back home. At Euskirchen a man got on the train, left his bag on one of the seats and walked away for about 5minutes, during which time all manner of thoughts had gone through my head! Then once in Cologne, the Thalys (normally almost always late) arrives 15mins early, everyone gets on and we leave on time! Apart from being the only girl in my entire carriage, the journey itself was uneventful journey until we got to the eerily empty Brussels Midi station. No metros and none of my buses were running, all the taxis had been taken, and they were heavily armed police everywhere. I even saw an army tank on the streets of Brussels!!! In the end I walked the 20mins home with my many bags, all the while bitterly cursing the terrorists for making my life stressful.

The eerily empty Gare du Midi

Once home, the alert level remained at the highest level of 4 for a few more days with disruptions to public transport, and schools/universities/some businesses closed until Thursday when they finally brought it down to a 3. The next day when I got to the smaller, usually-very-busy-on-Fridays airport, it was empty. Now I'm not sure if this was linked to the threats or not, but I personally found it weird. In Prague we were received by (friendly) police officers who checked our passports. It made me wonder if the internal borders were slowly being brought back into the Schengen area...? Hopefully not! And this weekend, I found out that my friends who were supposed to visit this week from Paris have decided to cancel their plans because of the attacks and threats. It made me really sad because of course this means I have to wait a while longer before seeing my friends. It also makes me very angry, because apart from killing people and sowing fear and mistrust among them, the terrorists also seem to be winning by limiting our freedom and taking away our civil liberties.

Anyways I think I'll stop here before I start ranting. Here are a few pictures to lighten the mood, they were all taken during this month's travels...

 

The lovely J!

 Watching snow fall from the comfort of a warm room

A weekend of good food; celebrating the boy's birthday in Prague

 The best Mexican food I've ever had

This Italian restaurant was pretty good too

The Good Old Days...

Hi everyone! Wie geht's? So, a brief sortie from my German bunker to talk about today's topic.

I have a rare day off on this wonderfully sunny Monday, so I decided (as you do), to waste some time on Facebook. And luckily too, because I saw that I had been tagged in a conversation about our old secondary school days. And my God, was it a (bad)trip down memory lane! 

Ok, for those who may not know, I went to a Unity school in Nigeria. They are the equivalent of the British Grammar school, or the French's Grandes écoles, but at secondary level. You usually have to take an entrance and score above certain cut-off marks in order to make the list. You were then "randomly" allocated a place in one of the Unity schools anywhere in the country. These schools were heavily subsidised, with respect to the quality of education they provided, because the idea was to train a selection of "gifted" children, while at the same time strengthening each child's Nigerian identity (they were established after the horrible civil war of the 60's). All the ethnic groups were mixed, and as you could be sent anywhere in the country, many of the students were boarders, as many lived far away (mine was about 6hours away for instance). We had three terms, with holidays and mid-term breaks, as well as monthly visiting days, but you effectively spent a huge chunk of your life at school (from about 11-17). So with that quick explanation out of the way, today's Facebook conversation was about SOME of the scary things that happened to us. I'm just going to put up a few snapshots of the comments, keep in mind that they were actually a lot of replies and almost everyone experienced something strange. Anyways, here goes...

"Great" memories of exciting times indeed. Can you imagine this stuff happening anywhere else? A rampaging (or several) paedophile(s), snakes, owls, Bush babies (Galapos), not to mention the evil senior/older students and teachers in a school of about 2000young girls (no parents!!!). I still wonder how we survived, and who chose the idiots that were our caretakers?! Still I guess that's why we are all so independent, adventurous and fearless today. I mean when you experience all these things as a kid, it becomes hard for anything else on earth to faze you. So guys, especially the Nigerians in the house, any "strange" or usual boarding house/school experiences you care to share with us? Please go ahead!

Clara's Travel Tales: Why I am always Poor! :(

We got paid about a week ago, and doing my budget/finances today made me realise I'm already quite broke even though it's barely the end of the first week. Yet I am not a big spender, as is obvious from my bank statements, where the biggest expenditure by far is from travelling.

I mean I'm off to Prague again in one week, and then two weeks after that, off to Köln for a few days, so that I can polish my German skills right before my exam. And of course I haven't seen a few dear friends (Engefreunde as the MIL told me yesterday), in a long time and I miss them all very much. I would like to see everyone, but realistically know it's impossible because my middle name is Ajala, and sadly not Bill Gates.

So, I decided to do a list based on how long it's been since I saw each loved one, and even with all that careful prioritisation, I still ended up with this urgent "to-travel" list! It's beginning to look like Budapest(Hungary) and Belgrade(Serbia) in September, as I want to go before it gets colder so that I can enjoy myself and possibly go to the beach (haven't caught even a glimpse of the sea this year). I'm also hoping it'll motivate me to work hard over the next few weeks as I prepare for my German exams. What this means is that I'll be travelling on the day after I get back from Germany, right after the exam, in fact I think I'm going to have to go to the exam-centre with my luggage!

Paris and Sweden also need to be planned at some point, and naturally Prague remains the regular "home away from home" for now. England will be for Christmas, and Nigeria hopefully early next year, and then of course the US ati be be lo, after that...let's just hope I don't bankrupt myself soon :( 

So, are you about the ajala life? If not, what is your particular brand of "money-waster" or "hobby"? Please share and help make a girl feel better about her vices!

P.S. I'm supposed to be doing a practice essay for my exam, but then procrastination (abi na inspiration sef) struck, and I decided to do a quick blogpost instead. Shakes head in German...

P.P.S. Since I haven't done much travelling this month (apart from Prague), and being really busy at the moment with revision (only 19days left!!!), I have decided to make this my 15-for-15 entry for August. Stay tuned for September's exciting posts...will be visiting Köln/Louvain-la-Neuve/Budapest/Belgrade, all in 12days!

Clara's Travel Tales: The London Edition (Part 2)

The Euroshuttle, a "train" for vehicles. It carries cars/buses/motorcycles 

the same way normal trains carry people!

After a great weekend with my friends, I was dreading the long journey back to Brussels, but was as usual kind of looking forward to being either on the ferry or going through the Eurotunnel. I actually prefer the ferry as it means you get to stretch your legs and enjoy a "boat" ride, but I also don't mind the shuttle because I'm always amazed at how such a structure/engineering feat came to be. Anyway I was happy to be going back home and was looking forward to a long but uneventful journey. Alas this was not to be so.

First of all, my ticket told me that my journey was supposed to start at 8.30, so imagine my surprise when I arrived (thankfully) 35minutes early and was told I had just a few minutes to spare before my bus left! Apparently they'd made a mistake and the bus was actually scheduled to leave at 8, so I had to hurry up and get registered/passport-checked, thanks to the UK not being a Schengen country. I made it by the skin of my teeth, and got on the bus, only for the driver to tell me off for being a latecomer. I was so pissed, I tell you! By this time, all the "good" seats had of course been taken, and I had to sit next to a girl in full Burka. Naturally, I had nothing against her, but I really didn't want to sit next to her because I knew I'd have to eat later, and it being Ramadan, I wanted to avoid being evil by eating next to a fasting person. In the end though I had no choice, and it was fine because she turned out to be lovely. 

Anyway almost as soon as we boarded the bus, we realised that we had a CRAZY co-passenger! As in the guy was completely LOCO. He started by singing loudly, and when one unfortunate girl decided to ask him to please keep it down, he went on a rant about being a British citizen and having as many rights as the next person. He said he'd been born in England, and that therefore no one could shut him up, in spite of his being black. He then claimed he had 1kg of cocaine, heroine and other raw materials for making new substances on him. From there, he moved on to talking about how everyone was against him just because he's a black guy who is expected to use/sell drugs and rape women. T happened to call me during one of his rants and heard some stuff, as well as the other passengers laughing nervously and I think he was a bit worried, the poor thing. 

We were N, originally scheduled to leave at 11.20 :(

Well after 2 hours on the road, we arrived at the boarding point for the shuttle only to be told that they were serious delays, and that no one had any idea when normal service would resume! In the meantime, we went through passport control, and of course our crazy friend continued his tirade the whole time. At one point, they called the police who spoke to him but sadly let him loose. We then waited for 2 another hours, during which we were thankfully free to wander round the small shopping centre and weren't stuck on the bus with the crazy guy, and during which I made friends, and ended up chatting with a lovely old lady and her husband who are horse-breeders. Sha, after all that time, they managed to sort out the problem and we were free to leave. Imagine our disgust when we get back on the bus to find our guy just as obnoxious as ever. He basically took up where he left, but added childish jokes, terrible rap, farting and burping to the mix! He even got to the point of saying he had some Semtex and was planning to blowup England as a revenge against Holland for Nelson Mandela (no, it makes no sense to me either). Anyway he got told off for the umpteenth time by the driver who warned him that he could kick him off the bus. That worked for a while, but he soon went back to his objectionable ways and continued for about 6hours, all the way to Brussels (because of course we ran into huge traffic jams). The whole time, I just kept wishing he'd told the bomb story while the immigration staff we on the bus, but I guess even obnoxious idiots have a sense of self-preservation. 

I was so happy to arrive in Brussels, but felt really sorry the the other passengers who were stuck with him for another couple of hours all the way to Amsterdam!