Evfimia, tidy

Drove across the island to Evfimia, with Wayne and Sheila. Pretty bay-side town with Narnian lamps and sparkling water. Does all Mediterranean water sparkle so in the sunshine? It is a pretty as a box of jewels. Lovely palm trees and fluffy clouds. I bought some trinkets for my niece and nephew and got chatting to the shop owner, who it turns out is from South Africa, and had travelled all over the place, settling for a while in Kefalonia. We share experiences of Namibia and Jo'burg, as well as Thailand and the Middle East. He asks me how I have visited so many places when I am so young. I correct him and his eyes boggle as he laughingly tells me he thought I was 19! Hmmm. Perhaps I am aging backwards?

Sheila and Wayne bossed one another as we drove east across the island and I felt as happy as a small child on an outing with her parents. They told me about their sons and nagged at me for travelling alone, but in an affectionate way. They told me I must be a worry to my parents - probably true! I had never before thought how afraid my parents must have been when at the age of 23 I set off for a desert in Africa and was out of contact for a whole month. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but now I think about how they must have worried. How cruel I was! That protective, all-consuming love for someone seems so alien to a 23 year old. I had nothing on my mind but escape and adventure, the same as now I suppose...

I love Sheila and Wayne's boisterous nature and how they nag and bully one another in a uniquely loving way. I love how they think everything is "tidy" and how they call one another "man" all the time. And how they think me so reckless. Funny to think I am always labelled the responsible one in my family and yet they see me as the crazy, wild one. How my sister would laugh.





Last night had meal in Lassi with the new bride and groom and friends, and then drinks until 3am with Wayne and Sheila. Welsh tales about mines and the Valleys which all got confused in my head with the lager and wine. Strange dreams of gnomes and underground treasure. Too much pop.

The controversy of being an (almost) 30 year old single woman

Without intending to get out my feminist soapbox again, I can't help but dwell on why society is so disapproving of single people, in particular single women. In my travels so far I have been confronted by predatory men who assume a certain thing from my state as a woman travelling alone; people expressing shock that I am single, and bewilderment at the way I am travelling ("Why would you get trains when you can fly direct?"). Sometimes I feel like I am some strange and exotic creature just for the reason that I like travelling alone and having as much as an adventure en route as possible, i.e. travelling overland through Europe - much more rewarding and exciting than jumping on a dull and environment destroying flight. Surely this isn't so abnormal?

Why do so many disapprove of single women? Is it all really down to that communist idea of Engels', that the family is a means of control? Or is it a left-over of a patriarchal and misogynist society in which women existed solely as chattels? Or is it because ultimately most people seek solace in sharing their life with someone, because it is that much easier to be supported and give support? Certainly society is not set up for singletons - if I ever thought otherwise, just trying to buy a flat is reminding me how much easier life is as part of a couple (Stephanos would find it easier running his business and caring for his mother with a partner to support him). Yet I am sick of having to make a constant defense about being a single woman who is almost 30. When I was younger, I used to get the comment, "Well there's plenty of time for that later", but now I can see the panic in the eye, as the words hover on the tip of their tongue, "But you don't have much time left...". For what? Using my looks to ensnare a man? Procreate? What if I don't buy into the idea that women can only attract a man whilst young and comely? What if I don't want to bear babies?

At the wedding nearly every person was in a couple. Most remarked on my strangeness for being single. This was the only time I felt lonely and odd, but I suppose that's to be expected if a whole host of people tell you so. I tried to explain how I relish the freedom, the ability to be myself. I was mostly met with blank stares. The amount of times someone said to me, "Why are you single? I can't imagine you would have any trouble getting a man"! The cheek! As though the only possible reason for being 29 and single is the fact that I cannot get a man to love me. It's amazing that people are bold enough to reveal how shallow and narrow their minds are. And yet they are kind people, most of them, they just cannot understand why I wish to be different. Sheila and Wayne, my apartment friends cannot hide their amazement at my travelling alone. Wayne said to me one night, "Little daughter," - which he calls me, rather to my delight - "I wouldn't let my little daughter do what you are doing. If I had a little daughter like you I'd never let her out of my sight." This lovely man wanting to keep a woman under control. Interesting. He wanted to protect me of course, yet he only felt like that about me as a woman - his sons he felt differently about.

And yet am I not used to this, the background I come from? When most are married and have at least one child by 30? My lack of convention has always been a rod to my back - is it some extended rebellion? But then why should I feel pressure to bow down to convention, just to make other people comfortable? I keep wondering if men are brought up from birth to be more assertive and more ready to shape things to their own sensibilities and if women are brought up to be more subservient? It appears to me men are so much better at nurturing their ego than women are. Do all women really want to be mothers and wives, or is it conditioning? Am I really the odd one out, or as a friend says, more brave (but what is bravery)? I suppose everyone must compromise in a relationship, men as well as women and I know some men who have given up their dreams to support their partners. However I do think it is fair to say men can be more 'eccentric' or act in a less conventional way and be accepted, whereas women are less able to step outside of their given roles. I wouldn't have encountered all this noise about being single and travelling alone had I been a man, I am sure of it.

I suppose ultimately I just don't want to be defined by anyone, I don't want to be put in a box and labelled. I am sure this applies to men too, and they can chafe as much against expectations as women. But are they better at casting them off? Or am I falling into the trap now of making everything gender distinct - perhaps it all comes down to individual character...

The Greek Wedding!

So finally arrived the day of the wedding, the very reason I have taken this mad train trip across Europe. My oldest friend married her lovely finance in Lassi surrounded by friends and family, with me joining the troupe of bridesmaids. It was beautiful, the bride and groom shone with happiness. The day passed in a whirl of laughter and emotion. I recall a beautiful outdoor 'aisle' strewn with rose petals, a balcony where the exchanged vows float down to the sea. Two turquoise pools by the bar area, misleadingly flat in appearance, glowing as night fell. A storm starting far out at sea, the lightening strikes lighting up the water. It was magical.

A balcony of one's own

My entire paradise is defined by one tiny patch of man-made shelf. It is my apartment balcony, in which I happily centre my whole Kefalonian life around. Imagine living somewhere you could wake each morning, open shutters onto a balcony and eat your breakfast overlooking the sea. In summer it seems calm and benevolent, a pale shimmering blue on the horizon. In winter I imagine it to be powerful and raging, a dark dangerous blue black. Stephanos says they sometimes hate it here, the unwavering sunshine. It reminds me of Kenny saying the exact same thing in Israel. I love the heat, the feel of it soaking into my skin as though I am a sponge which has been left in the cold and rain for months on end. Yet I can see the British seasons are a unique and wonderful thing, which I would miss if I were exiled from them. The red-gold of autumn and the new shoots of life in the spring after the dread and drear months of January and February. I imagine also it is the necessity of change; I know all too well the stagnation of routine, the monotony of the same thing day after day. I crave change so I imagine after a year of constant sunshine maybe I would say the same as Stephanos. I could never grow tired of living by the sea though and getting to spend so much of my day outside.

I start each day on this balcony and I come to love it like it's my own. A space where I am private yet can see outside, to the sea, to the olive groves and bougainvillea. I have my own tiny world from which I watch others' comings and goings; the Swiss She-Ra who lives across from the Studios and happily joins the men in their brick-walling labours. I can see her organising them all and hefting boulders around as though they weigh nothing. She is tanned like a nut and her body looks strong and taunt. She has a shock of blonde hair. I think at first that she is in her forties and am all amazement at her fitness levels. Later at an evening meal at the bar, I meet her, and discover she is in her seventies. She tells me that she goes wind surfing when she has a break from building the wall. We are all of us stunned into laughter and awe at her unconventional lifestyle. The Greeks think she is insane. I rather admire her eccentricity. Then there is Stephanos' family, his brother's children who live across from the apartments. His granddaughter has all the adults wrapped around her small chubby sweet clasping fingers. She runs rings around her mother who yells at her to no avail. This small child is a force of nature. There is also Pari, the apartment dog who barks at every disturbance. I ponder the potential reward and discord of a family business where every family connection is so strong and so embedded in the business of the apartments. Do the brothers ever fall out? Does the business element clash with the emotional aspect of the family?

I could be so happy in this small apartment, my every day defined by balcony sunshine and writing. A 'lady writer', a modern-day Nancy Mitford. If only I had her wealth...

Kefalonia: the island of cicadas and sparrows

How amazing it is sleeping in a real bed again. After 3 days of sleeping rough on seats and sleeper bunks it is an incredible luxury to be in a bed which doesn't rock or tilt! I arrived in Svoronata at midnight the closure of Tuesday and the beginning of Wednesday. One of half of the brother-owners, George, had rather kindly waited up for me to arrive and let me into my apartment. Svoronata is like a tiny populace dropped in the middle of shrubby nothingness, or at least that's how it seems after a drive from one end of the island to another (and a shocking taxi rate of €40 for a 40-minute journey - I later learn this is standard island practice. With the terrible exchange rate of present this is almost £40.). The black roads twisted and turned as the taxi turner took corners at about 60mph.




My apartment is perfect. It is quite spacious with a pine effect. There are two twin beds, a wardrobe, a small dining table, dressing table and a kitchenette, and compact bathroom. And a balcony which overlooks the sea, joy of joys. It instantly feels like home. When I awoke at 10.30 I went for walk around the apartments and then a search for the beach which turned out to be in vain - it is too far to walk and as I later find out, it is behind the airport. Everywhere seems empty and quiet, endless olive trees and yellow sun-dried scrubby grass. As I walk down a hill towards the sea a large Greek man stops by me on his moped, asking if I want a life somewhere. I love motorcycles and am thrown back in time to Thailand when one of the local villagers gave me a lift to shops on the back of his moped, a terrifying and thrilling helmet-less journey. However I have no idea who this man is and decline his invitation. He idles along beside me for a while, inviting me for a drink on the way back from my walk. He tells me he owns a large studio and would love to show it to me. I humour him but wish him to be gone and have no intention of joining him for a drink. Perhaps he means no harm but it isn't a risk I'm about to take.

On my return I retired to the pool and met Stephanos, the other brother-owner, and two guests called Sheila and Wayne. They are a Welsh couple, "from the Valleys" as they tell any bemused Greek who crosses their path. They assign themselves as my surrogate parents, horrified when I tell them I am travelling alone (although this later turns to admiration as they brag about my bravery to other guests). They are beyond kind and very funny. They are both as feisty as they come, bossing each other continually and always telling a story over a drink. Stephanos made me tzaziki and (English, i.e. hot) tea and chatted about his life. He is a gentle, quiet man, funny and kind with a melancholic streak I recognise. He has a lovely nature, bantering with Sheila and Wayne (who stay at the studios regularly) and being flirtatiously solicitous to me. He keeps making mention of his divorce and his desire for a woman to look after him! Yet it isn't unwelcome this kind of attention because it is sweet and unforced, and there is always a twinkle in his eye and a real layer of kindness. He seems underscored with exhaustion, telling me about his recent trials; the recession hitting his apartment business, his very ill mother and the difficulty of bringing up his two daughters alone.

A small Greek boy plays by the pool with his Papakis, screeching at the chill of the water and running up to me every so often to chatter in Greek to me. His parents eat at the poolside restaurant and speak rapid Greek to Stephanos. The boy's mother is young and small, with long straightened and lightened hair and pretty but pinched features. She looks harassed and fed up yet beams at me when she sees me talking to her son. The boy's father is huge and tanned with jet black hair and a ready smile. He gets in and out of the pool with his son and elicits small screams of joy as he throws his son up into the air and splashes him down into the water. As I eat his father whispers something to him and the boy shyly comes up to me and gives me a kiss on the cheek! Only 3 years old and already a charmer.

The port city of Patras

I originally plan to spend a night in Patras and take the first ferry to Sami (Kefalonia) on Wednesday morning, however when I arrive I learn that there are no morning ferries during off-peak season. This wouldn't matter were I on a lazy tour of Europe, however I have a Greek wedding to get to! There is a ferry sailing this Tuesday evening at 8pm and so I decide to get on that, arriving into Sami at midnight and hoping I can get a taxi to the other side of the island, Svoronata, where I am booked to stay. Patras sounds quite interesting according to the Rough Guide and the tourist information sheet I collected at the ferry port. It is the 3rd largest urban centre in Greece and although characterised by its busy port (and all the things that go with a port city) it also played an important role in history during the Roman period and it was European Capital of Culture in 2006. Patras has a large student population and is viewed as a major scientific centre with a field of excellence in technological education. It is exceedingly pretty by the port which seems to stretch on for miles, with the main road running alongside it. As I am beginning to find in Italy and Greece, the Mediterraneans are not very up on their signage. It's quite difficult working out where I am supposed to go in order to (a) find a ticket for the next leg of my journey (I cannot use Interail on this ferry trip unlike the Bari to Patras journey) and (b) where my ferry sails from. Well I I have 8 hours to fill, and I have two main priorities: food and drink.

I find a pretty roadside cafe and order tzaziki, baked feta and lager. It is truly the best thing I have ever tasted. I sit in the cafe for hours alternating between lager and coffee (my poor nervous system) and think how wonderful it is to have a whole afternoon to do whatsoever you please. It is lazily glorious. I get to thinking about my solitary nature and how happy I am to be alone, watching other people interact. I used to wonder if this was normal - why was I not more like my sociable brother and sister who never miss an opportunity to make friends? I always seem the one destined to choose a corner and watch things unfold. It sounds vaguely ominous and probably springs from a childhood shyness, yet I am not shy any longer and I just enjoy being by myself. I love travelling on my own because it feels like I really see a place when I am alone, not being sucked into someone else's observations, or caught up in discussions about things totally separate to the environment, or the dreaded compromise. It seems also that I relax completely when I am alone, I don't have to be a certain way, I can just be me. I love the total anonymity. So I sit leisurely in the sun, thinking and dreaming, adoring being able to do exactly what I want.

One of the negative things about travelling alone as a woman is the inescapable male attention. Sometimes I feel like I am an affront to my sex for not craving male attention. I suppose a part of me has always longed to be invisible. But although I do dislike attention, in this case it is the vulnerability which I hate, when men will size me up like a piece of meat at a market stall. In western Europe it is far worse than in the UK where men need five pints before braving a chat-up line. Here it seems it is part of a male's national duty to leer and proposition every lone female. I am pretty certain I don't invite it; I never wear clothes that show off flesh and I deliberately maintain an air of reserve when solo travelling. Within though, I boil with rage at the arrogance, the assumption that I am interested, no, flattered, at their obvious stares. Their collective ego is amazing. One of the things I enjoy about travelling is meeting people and finding common ground within apparent cultural differences; I have journeyed to Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia and most people are so curious and friendly. Yet there is such a difference between a curious exchange and the predatory interest of certain men. It is quite obvious that to them a woman travelling alone can only mean one thing. It is mostly inconvenient but it can be frightening when it seems to slip into outright misogyny. I have had a close call once with some nasty Venetian men who wouldn't take no for an answer and stalked me and my female friend back to our apartment; it was only the presence of a large porter which shook them off. I wonder at the situation if it were in reverse - women as the predators, men as the prey. Firstly I cannot imagine many women actually forcing their attention on men in such a way - the blatant stares, the leering, sneering look on their faces - and secondly I cannot imagine men ever being vulnerable to it. Their physical strength surely means they could never feel vulnerable to unwanted attention. I wonder how different I would be if I were a man.

Later as the sun sets, I make my way down to the harbour. I have found the right spot and have a ticket and all I need to do is let the ferry pull up and claim me. It is beautiful here by the grey-blue sea and rugged green hills. As the sky changes from different shades of blue to flame orange and reds, I begin to notice that the port is not just a place for travellers to arrive and depart. It is also a thriving part of the community: everyone comes to commune with the water of an evening. Teenagers hang out here by the water's edge, families stroll around and older men in stiffly pressed shirts and smart trousers take their evening constitutional around the dock. The only demographic missing are the older women - are they all at home making dinner? I love the contrast of the formally dressed old men and the shabby casual clothing of the youngsters. The pull of the sea is irresistible, everyone who comes to the water edge seems to silently pay tribute to this mighty element, much like the faithful in church. The balmy weather slowly turns cooler, but I can still feel where the heat has soaked into my skin. I feel incredibly light of heart.

An aircraft seat on a ferry: Italy to Greece

I arrive into Bari in the middle of Monday afternoon, awash with sleepy sunshine. The journey from Bologna to Bari was a dreamscape of sea and sun and I stagger off the train feeling slightly drugged. At some point in the journey I had been joined by a member of the fisherfolk, or at least that's how she appeared to me in my sleepy state. Despite the warmth to my poor island soul, she was wrapped in a salmon coloured knitted jumper (mine had been cast-off long ago) and caramel trousers with sturdy walking shoes. She had incredible wrinkled brown nut skin and long hair which was knotted up securely on her head. She was as reticent as I, hiding herself within a book. Yet as we disembark we assess one another and offer a mutual smile of the fellow traveller.

After all that sea I had half expected to disembark on the very edge of the coast, yet Bari is a large city, with the Stazione Centrale about 2km from the port where I am to catch an overnight ferry to Patras, Greece. A very kind station guard (the first and only one to have these characteristics) interprets my fumbled Italian and directs me to the bus which will transport me to Bari Old Town and the port. My Rough Guide is also quite helpful and I read that I must buy a ticket prior to boarding. I take myself to the ticket office. After my pleasant experience with the Bari Centrale guard I bring out my rough and ready Italian to the bus ticket seller, who looks at me with total disgust. In response he rattles off very fast and fluent Italian and I stand before him, utterly humbled. I have no idea what he is saying. Not until I admit, in English, that I did not understand does he condescendingly tell me how much the ticket is, in English. I am utterly rebuked and at this realisation he offers his first smile. It is not a kind one.

On the bus an American backpacker tells me I must stamp my ticket in the small machines especially designed for this purpose. He tells me that if I do not I will be fined regardless of whether I have a ticket - the act of stamping validates it. I appreciate his help and yet find myself irritated when he sits next to me and after enquiring where I am going, begins to tell me how I should go about doing it. The assumption being that as I do not know about the ticket validation, well what can I possibly know? I do my best to shake him when I leave the bus but regret my English snobbery when I realise I have no idea how to get to the actual ferry. The port seems to be designed solely for car users and when I try and walk by the road I get yelled at by a security guard. I rather hope the American didn't witness that.

The actual crossing is incredibly smooth. The water is so calm that at times it feels like we are not even moving. My bed for the night is an 'aircraft' seat which is the cheapest passage on the ferry to Greece. I soon learn why. The seats are in one lounge, row after row of red reclining seats, dominated by large television screens, which I later learn do not ever switch off (the cult of the TV holds strong throughout my entire trip, with me as the hateful non-worshipper). Fortunately, bearing in in mind that I am not travelling in peak season, the seats are not full or at least not everyone who has booked a seat sleeps on it and so I manage to claim a whole row for myself which meant I could stretch out all night. It is another fractured night of sleep. Once again I praise the foresight of taking earplugs to drown out a loud Greek family who felt the need to conduct a conversation of shouts all night long, despite sitting next to one another, and a puppy which whines and barks continuously. I have repetitive dreams that someone is trying to steal my bag from underneath my head and wake up constantly in a panic. Stupid girl. I am not yet in laid-back traveller mode. Although paranoia is not necessarily a bad thing as I wake up at one point convinced a weirdo is stroking my leg. I find there is indeed a strange man sat by me staring at my leg. I glare at him until he moves away, although the next day I am not sure if he was real or a dream.

The next day dawns bright and clear and we dock at Patras at midday. It looks as though there are a thousand diamonds sparking in the sea.

A train through the sea: Bologna to Bari

I arrive at Bologna at 6.30am Monday morning, feeling as though it had been the longest night with the littlest sleep. Yet a small smug part of me is entirely aware of my friends and family getting up to go to work soon and I would far rather be tired in Italy, than going into the office. I find a small cafe, one of the few places open, and manage to stumble over a few Italian words to buy a breakfast pastry. Then I find my platform and the only place I can to sit: a freezing stone slab. Not for the first time I am glad I took a huge oversized knitted jumper with me as it feels like I am wrapped up in a duvet. I try to get stuck into Phillip's Prague again, but the writing is quite stylised and there is some barrier which prevents me from really getting involved in the story. My train finally chugs in, a battered, graffiti strewn metal beast. Inside it is comfortable and clean, although the toilets are blocked. The seats are like airline seats and I am happy to discover my seat reservation holds true and I am by a window!

The journey to Bari is magical. The train leaves a bit late at 9.20am (scheduled departure was 8.55) and arrives in Bari early afternoon. It is a journey characterised by sun and sea as the train follows the coastal track all the way to the bottom of Italy. I can't fight the sleep on this journey (maybe Dad had a point after all...) and yet every so often I wake from a dream to see the sea sparkling next to my window and golden sand. Just like the journey in the anime film 'Spirited Away' when the girl takes a train through the sea - I always wanted to get on that train.

No sleep on the sleeper: Paris to Bologna

From Paris-Bercy I caught a sleeper train to Bologna, an interesting experience. It is the first time I have travelled overland and it was a strange and wonderful experience, quite like no other way of travelling.



The train left Paris at 18.52 bound for Bologna, a trip which would take all night, arriving early morning. There was a beautiful sunset as I left Paris, a burnished red sky which makes me feel meditative. I travel economy, in a 6-berth couchette (compartment) although perhaps thankfully, only 4 of us were travelling that trip. The couchettes are remarkably compact, the beds pulling out and ladders strapped to the outside of the couchette for those sleeping up top. It would be tight indeed for 6 but with 4 of us, we leave out the middle bunks giving us a bit of extra room. Still there is no need for bunks until much later and in the meantime we sat on the lower seats (which later ingeniously become the bottom bunks) and ate our small picnic dinners. We all seem to have baguettes, which is very French of us.

The train guard interrupted our small meals to check our tickets. He was a stern man, shooting sharp Italian words like bullets. I have started to define a theory in which the position of train guard attracts the most unfriendly and rude people across the world. This Italian man declined to even crack a smile at his native folk, let alone me as a foreigner who could speak only poor Italian. He became quite aggressive when I went to fill out my Interail pass incorrectly, shouting at me and then throwing it back at me. The fact that no-one batted an eye at this behaviour assured me it was entirely normal. Well Italians are always said to have passionate natures, and us English are laughed at in Europe for being so polite and formal. My companions did away with all that, being very friendly and curious. They were a mixture of French and Italian, 3 women and one man, a fairly spread age range from a young French woman in her early 20s, a mid-twenties Italian man, myself as a late-20s English woman and a mid-30s Italian woman. I am left wondering again if it is a particularly English characteristic to be reserved; certainly the Italian are very talkative and keen to help. They also seem to worry less about their possessions, leaving their baggage without a second glance, with only the Italian woman keeping a small bag strapped across her. I feel ridiculously paranoid about my passport and money and check them constantly, irritating myself immensely for not being able to relax more. We all eventually settled into a multi-lingual discussion about where we were travelling to, mainly led and translated by the Italian man who understood Italian, French and English. Once again I felt an embarrassment I relied so heavily on my English, speaking only a small amount of Italian and understanding only a tiny amount of French (where did all those French lessons disappear to?). Still I was not alone in my embarrassment at least; the Italian woman only understood a little English and French and the French woman also could speak little English. As with most people I have met in foreign countries, despite a lack of common language, we muddled through with help from the Italian man and a lot of laughter.

The French woman was travelling to her parents in Italy. She was a pretty, slight girl, wearing beautiful red ballet slippers with a purple bow and lilac lace socks; Parisian glamour which outshone the rest of us. The Italian woman was travelling to friends. She had black hair and olive skin and was very kind, helping other passengers. I liked her despite our language barrier; she and I both formed a bond when being quizzed by the Italian man as to why we weren't yet married! He was certainly interesting. He was travelling back to university where he was studying a post-graduate degree. Very confident like most Italian men, very religious and forthright in his desire to get married and have children. He was shocked when he discovered my age and single state, and the Italian woman laughed my my reaction to this, expressing in Italian and English that he had said the same to her! All expressed amazement at my travel itinerary - travelling to Kefalonia and then back via Hungary. I am reminded of earlier impressions that women travel solo rarely in Europe, or at least western Europe.

After a while I wish to distance myself from the persistent chatter of the Italian man, as friendly and kind as he seemed. The Italian woman has already retired to the upper bunk and I decided she had the right idea, so I claimed the other top bunk and read my book (Prague by Arthur Phillips, a story about a group of people who aim to travel to Prague but end up in Budapest. Strangely I never finish this book, very unusual for me). Later I revised this rash top-bunk decision. My dad always used to say he thought someone should make a bed rock in the motion of a moving train which would cure any insomnia. Well Dad, I thought that night, you are so far wrong in that! It was undeniably hypnotic at times but then a sudden shift would seemingly throw me across the bunk and I would wake up in a panic. The amount of times I started awake that night, terrified I would end up thrown onto the floor with a violent tilt of the train! I felt I was engaged in an endless battle to stay fast against the wall of the couchette, yet constantly the train would attempt to lurch me onto the very edge of my bed (which had no safety guard). At 3am I got to wondering in that insomniac way if there was something of the feng shui in this; perhaps we (or, I) would sleep much more comfortably if we were facing the direction of the journey, i.e. our heads facing towards where we were travelling, rather than our sides. The noise of the train was also unexpected. I was glad I had brought my ear-plugs as the screech of the brakes and rattling of the windows chased my glamorous notions of (economy) sleeper trains from my head. Yet there was a romance about the journey I didn't expect, one which grew with each journey across Europe that I made.

Le Eurostar

Left the plush airport style St Pancras at 1pm bound for Paris (Nord). My eyes were pinned to the rolling fields, excitedly waiting for the countryside to magically become French, until I realised all I would see for a good while was the English countryside I have seen a 100 times before. Next to me is sat a young French man; estimate he is in his 30s, with a stereotypical laid-back grace and dark good looks. Whilst talking stereotypes I will raise another: an appreciation of women bordering on lechery. The fellow sat next to me happily conforms to this, eyeing up every female on the train and attempting to engage in some flirtatious eye contact with me. I amuse myself awhile by flicking my hair off my face in what could be construed as needing to clear my face from obstruction, or to my French companion, a coquettish gesture of appeal.

I feel desperate to arrive in France. There seem to be a lot of black tunnels and, growing bored with Le Frenchman's accidental nudges of my arm and thigh and also the dull English fields, I close my eyes for a while. In Grandma's tradition I end up snoozing and when I wake up, look out the window and see... more dull fields. It is still cloudy. With a shock I spy buildings distinctly not English. We are in France! When did we pass through the Channel Tunnel?! One of those many black tunnels? Strange but none of them seemed grand enough to be the Channel Tunnel! How incredible to think I have travelled to another country without even noticing the boundary. The countryside is almost identical to England's.

I love the buildings on the Continent. Is it just because they are different to those I know so well? There seems to be an elegant dishevelment to European buildings. The thin windows and greenery embellishing all buildings, the foreignness of the place. Does glamour go hand in hand with alien? The definition of 'exotic' is, according to Collins, 'originating in a foreign country, not native' and 'having a strange or bizarre allure'. So the very strangeness of something becomes attractive. As I prepare to disembark, I spy my French friend who has made contact with a red-headed woman, who was sitting in front of me. Were they always together, or has he bonded over the journey? Could that have been me had I put aside my English snobbery and need for anonymity? I wonder, but not sadly, as I am enjoying slipping into invisible traveller mode and am not ready to interact yet.

I navigate the RER and Metro from Nord to de Bercy. It's not dissimilar to the London tube - you work out where your destination is on the map, note the final destination on that route and then determine if you need the lettered RER or the numbered Metro. It's surprisingly simple and well-organised and - excitement! - the tube trains come double-decker size with seats top and bottom. Brilliant. However it is too busy for me to take top deck. Variety of Parisian underground users, loud kids with luscious dark hair, punks and goths, commuters and people going about their everyday lives. There are a lot of African people and I wonder about their lives - it is well-known how Paris has treated immigrants since the 1990s and most North and West Africans are only allowed to settle in Paris through family reunification. Apparently French censuses are forbidden to ask questions regarding ethnicity or religion, and therefore it is difficult to know the ethnic composition of the metropolitan area of Paris. Furthermore Paris is the most visited city in the world, according to Wikipedia! Bercy is smaller than I expected, as the station which traditionally transported people and their cars overnight. A large fresco dominates one side of the station which depicts city scenes from Italy, done in a Renaissance style. There are characters in heavily draped head coverings and strong features,yet there are also modern figures with rucksacks. Does this show the timeless wonder of travel?

It is 17.30 by now and I have time to kill until my sleeper train to Bologna at 18.52. I entertain myself by taking part in that time-honoured tradition of people-watching. It's interesting. I see a double for Bardot with a tiny dog on a diamante lead, although it is more unusual for someone not to have a dog than to have one here. Like many places I've visited, there aren't many single female travellers. Most women travel with boyfriends/husbands most of which at Bercy appear to be bossy and childish. The women all seem to be constructed with a natural ability to coddle and flatter their preening and spoilt men. I am alive with curiosity although how much do I really see? My own prejudices and assumptions? I am definitely living up to the stereotype of the reserved and aloof English person, still not wanting to break my spell and communicate with anyone. I can almost pretend I am a ghost or a spy, reading landscapes and actions covertly.