I Am A Contikian - Part One

Hostel of the Sun, Naples, 2.29pm

I think the prospect of writing this blog has been scaring me, hence delaying it even more. I am here now though and I will do my best to condense a very full two weeks into bite sized pieces. Just to set the scene though, I am currently in Naples, home of the Margherita pizza and crime! This place is a ghetto slum hole and unlike anything I've seen before. I have never been quite as paranoid as I am whenever I have to go to the train station here, which unfortunately has been multiple times. My hostel is super though and has bucketloads of DVDs so idling away the late afternoons/evenings in front of the box is fine.

Due to Contiki Funtimes, I haven't had a chance to tell you all about one of the best experiences of my trip. I got to hang around in the Tuileries in Paris outside the Christian Dior tent leading up to the start of his fashion show! I had a subscription to Vogue for YEARS and still consider Paris to be the most fashionable city in the world and spent a considerable amount of time traipsing its most chic streets, soaking up the Louboutin-laden atmosphere. So to hang around in my filthy sneakers and ski jacket and watch the Beautiful People in the most amazing shoes I have ever seen in my life, was pretty awesome! I also got to see the Bond girl from 'Casino Royale' doing some press action.

After Paris (love it!), I headed back to Madrid to join my Contiki tour. I got to share a room for two weeks with Reiko, Japanese girl, who was fun and had lived in Adelaide for a year in high school. (Yes it's possible to live in Adelaide and still be a fun person.) I missed the initial meeting and dinner, which everyone told me was a good thing and they wished they'd missed them too. So the first time I really got to meet people was the second morning when we all headed to the Royal Palace for a guided tour. Pretty mixed group, pre-dominantly Canadian, they actually beat the Aussies for once. Also a couple of Yanks, Singaporeans, Japanese and one lonely Pom. Did I say lonely? I meant lovely! (He owes me beer in London.)

We had a free afternoon in Madrid so I whacked in another art gallery before heading for the famed Parque del Buen Retiro. It's where all of Madrid goes on Sunday afternoon and now, from first hand experience, I can tell you that's true! The parque was just beautiful, spring flowers just starting to perk up, it was a warm day with no chilly breeze and the vibe was so relaxed and happy. The first time I went to Madrid I enjoyed it, but didn't 'get it'. After four hours lying in the sun under cherry blossoms, reading, dozing and listening to music and getting a tiny sunburn, I 'got it'!

Then we moved on to Barcelona! YAY! Barcelona has now become one of my Things That Just Make Me Happy (the other two being snow and gin and tonics). While everybody else tried to madly cram in all the best bits in one day, I very happily advised them all (smug knowitall) then walked into town, did some shopping, visited the inside of Casa Batllo, went to La Boqueria for ten kilos of fruit, relaxed in the sun in Parc de la Ciutadella (where ANTM filmed an ad) and generally enjoyed myself.

We battled on to France the next day, arriving in Avignon for a late afternoon walking tour. Most of my fellow Contikians will only remember the super-dodgy vibe of Avignon because everybody kept staring at us when we were walking around. However there were about 45 of us rampaging down the streets to try and get into a cathedral before it closed, I would've have given us grotty looks too! Plus, I've now seen True Dodgy in Naples, and Avignon was a picnic in comparison!

The next morning we got to stop in Aix-en-Provence for a couple of hours, would've like a whole day. It was gorgeous, so French, markets and squares and fountains and cafes. I meandered through the markets with two other girls, then we stopped for a coffee and to soak up the atmosphere, before I bought four macaroons, two chocolate and two almond. I will never eat another macaroon again, unless they're from that same stand in the Aix market. They were OUTSTANDING.

That afternoon we arrived in Nice - filthy! It should have been a sparkling sunny city by the sea, but no, rubbish on the streets and graffiti are way more appealing. Not to mention the pebble beach! PAH! I scoffed. We had a brief amount of time to doll ourselves up before we headed to Monaco for dinner with the Prince. Well, down the road anyway. We stopped to take photos of the views along the Cote d'Azur and at a perfumerie. This is where I need to be honest and say that the Cote d'Azur never held much appeal for me, I'm not a flashy beach person and I haven't got significant supplies of wealth to show off, I'll stick to Paris with the galleries and crepes. But WOW! WOW! Beautiful! Amazing! Stunning! Our tour guide, Amedeo, kept saying to us 'Guys, this is my dream, my DREAM!' and I have to say I could totally see myself on a yacht in the Mediterranean!

Dinner in Monaco was fun, it was an optional so we all paid extra if we wanted to do it and therefore wine was included in the price. So you can just imagine the volume going up and 40 of us falling out into the quiet, moneyed streets of Monaco and trailing back to our pink bus! Next stop was the Monte Carlo Casino. I am not a casino person and felt no desire to pay to get into somewhere that then expected you to spend even more while you were in there. Instead I wandered around the absolutely perfect gardens and fountains, feeling spectacularly safe since my every move and word was no doubt being recorded. I managed to find an empty Coke can on a fence and took a photo because it was the ONLY thing out of place. I'm surprised I wasn't thrown out of the country and my camera confiscated, quite frankly!

Our next day was a free one in Nice, so Dana, the original New Yorker who puts my cynicism to shame, and I did a few things in Nice then went to Cannes on the train for lunch. Cannes is beautiful too, they have a permanent red carpet, more boats than you can poke a stick at and the designer fashions to go with it. Again, me and my filthy sneakers felt like we were lowering the tone.

Now this night in Nice wasn't particularly memorable except that I did one thing which was fairly out of character and I feel like you all need to know the truth. I danced on a table at a bar. I feel so much better now that I've got that off my chest! Honestly, it got to a point of the night when it was get on the tables or get out and by far the easier option was to just get up there and shake it. So I did. Quite fun. Heh!

Am splitting this in two because it's a bit excessive for even my consumption....