Paris Day 5 - Plastic Men and Eclairs

I find that with every trip there is something that sticks with me.  Usually this is something that I see repeatedly, everywhere I go.  For Paris, it shall be these two humanlike gurning simudolls with soulless eyes.  I do not know what they are (perhaps advertising an umbrella company) or why they are plastered all over the city.  From their pose, I would assume that they are a comedy double act.  But why would they be advertising a single website.  Yes, I could go to this website and find out, but where would be the fun in that?  Either way, I hate their stupid plastic faces.

Most of my time has been spent wandering the city, eating food and drinking coffee.  The same as I did in my first few days here and just about exactly what I wanted to do.  So, I am happy.  I have also been doing a little more sightseeing.

Look, the lovely Eiffel Tower and some clouds!  But I unfortunately kept running into this.

Other tourists!!  So I gave up that sight seeing crap pretty quickly.

Although I did go on a movie tour of the city.  First off I picked my favourite of all the French films, Amelie.

This is the cafe she worked in.  Nice you may think, but it was surprisingly naff in the real life.  I have been told that they have some memorabilia in the toilets.  I didn't make it that far in so I shall likely revisit.  Hopefully when it's less packed.

This is the doorway from Last Tango in Paris.  Hidden under a bridge, sat there being all underwhelming and equally naff.  So, not to much of a successful movie tour.  I just don't think anything can compare to the Ghostbusters tour of New York.  I mean, what could?

Although I did find myself near this bookshop (as featured in Midnight in Paris) but then tourists.

So, I gave up and ate a chocolate eclair instead.  This was the correct course of action.

Otherwise, I marveled at how close the metro stops are here.

Those lights in the tunnel down there.  That's the next stop.  Why would you build then so close?

Then I spent some time sat in the park.

I watched the back of this guys head.  He watched the back of the statues head.  Job done.

Is this a command?  Should we Puzzle Michele Wilson?

Paris Day 2 - Drawn Boobs and Over-excitement

Day one of any trip is always a bit rough.  You have to deal with that whole "journey to the place you are going" thing, airports, lugging luggage around, finding out where the feck you are going and not knowing the customs and ways of the place you have arrived in (like having a bag in a supermarket is a crime in Paris).  Plus, there are burger twats to deal with.

But, on day two of the trip you can relax, you don't need to be anywhere or carry anything and the arseholes of the first day turn out to be aberrations.  You find yourself liking more and finding all the things that you like within a city.

For Paris, the first one I noticed is the metro stop announcements.  There's a little man having a little conversation with himself at every stop.  He first asks 'Republique??', with a very inquisitive tone and a shoulder shrug, he's just not sure where he is!  Then he answers himself with a firm 'Republique!' and a stern nod of the head, yes, he is definitely at that stop!  Perfectly mirror the conversation that goes on in every tourists head.

I also love these seats I found in a metro station.

They're very gripping and feel like you're getting a nice postieroir hug, like an egg in a spoon, it just fits perfectly.  Although there is a bump at the front (henceforth known as the Todger Botherer) and, as a male of the species, you have to sit down very carefully or be very confident in the placement of your Gentlemans Excuse Me.

After the fun metro experiences, I did a little sight seeing.

Look, it's a statue, that's the sight seeing done for the day.

I mostly spent the day wandering around aimlessly, stopping in coffee shops and grazing my way around Paris, stopping off for little nibbles of food whenever possible.  This is exactly what I needed.

I did find an organic massage place though.

Well, I'm at least assuming Bio means the same here as it does in Germany.  Does that mean that the masseurs have had stringent testing to make sure no pesticides were used in their growth?  If one of them has a headache and has to take a paracetamol, does that mean they cannot work that day?

I did very briefly contemplate a massage.  I mean, I am here to relax after all and what better way than a professional massage?  But then, I don't believe this was a regular massage place.  The three little drawings in the corner gave it away.

"Just boobs.  That's all I want to draw.  I do not care about faces, bodies or any limbs, just boobs!!!".  I quickly moved on.

I ended up by a canal at some point and found a boat going through a lock.  Now, this is not an amazing event in and of itself, but there are those times when your tourist brain goes into autopilot and I found myself taking a picture (along with the other 20 tourists on the bridge).  It's a boat going under a bridge, nothing exciting, not really worthy of a photo.  Look.

I mean, it's nice enough, hardly amazing though.  But, when I got home, I was having a look at the picture and became nosy about the types of people who were on this boat.  So I zoomed in.

Just some regular folks, all enjoying a boat ride down the canal.  Wait, what's that couple in the middle there doing.

That guy seems rather excited.

"BEST FUCKING THING EVER TO HAPPEN IN MY LIFE EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

His wife seems a little less impressed, so I can only assume he's a bit mental.  I've never seen anybody that excited to pass under a bridge on a boat.

Now, as this is my blog, it would not be complete without a picture of some food.  Therefore, here is a pancake sandwich.

Yes, that is as good as it sounds.

Plus, here's be a coffee that I drunk.

I know you were all wondering if I'd drunk any coffee all day.

Paris Day 1 - Lost Luggage and Zip Ties

I am a fan of a late take off.  The days of me saving €20 and flying at 6.50am are just plain gone.  I'm far too old and cranky for such nonsense.  So I booked my flight to Paris with Air France.  A real, proper, honest airline and flew at 12.50pm.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  First I had to go to that den of misery that is the airport. Although on this occasion, it was fortunately Tegel.  Which, for you non Berliners, means that I have to travel less, a whole hour less in fact.  So, when I arrived, I was all bright, breezy and happy.  Smiling away, wandering around the terminal to find myself an empty gate and sit as far away from all other humans as I could.

As you can see, I didn't get so far.  What you cannot see, or rather smell, is that the entire terminal had an aroma like a bad combination of sweaty arse and bad feet (having now typed that, I don't know of a good combination, so I'm not sure why I specified it was bad).  But, I was only sat there for a painful 45 minutes, during which time my brain adjusted to filter out my perception of the smell, but my nose still complained and stung with each intake of breath.  I'll make it up to my nose.

Boarding was bland as boardings always are.  I was put next to the worlds most fidgety row partner (he was literally in constant movement for the whole flight, even if it was just a finger jiggling away).  It wasn't long before I noticed that the seat was a little odd though.  For one, it had this thing.

I'm sure smoking on planes has been banned for a very long time now (even in France).  How old is this plane I'm flying in?  Is it in it's 30's?  That surely is too old for a plane.  Plus, look at this marvel.

My first thought was, Oh my!  Is that a cup holder!  The amount of times I've had to get up with a full cup of coffee and needed to simultaneously juggle the cup whilst trying to close the tray and then squeeze myself out of the way.  This is amazing!  Why doesn't every flight have this?

Then I noticed it was square.  I've never seen a square cup on a flight.  I mean, you could put a round cup in there, but it's not going to be super stable.  This is a flight after all, unstable is what they do.  

Although, maybe it's to hold an additional ash tray for when you've filled up the arm one.

But, after all this nonsensical thought, I arrived in Paris (please say all mentions of Paris in this blog with a full on French Pareeeee).

This giant ball of fire in sky surprised the tits out of me.  It was supposed to be all rainy and crap here.

After some baggage shenanigans (they routed the entire planes Paris baggage to the 'connecting flights' section, whether people were connecting or not, resulting in one and a half hours of lost baggage crap) I was on my way to the city.

I arrived, found my AirBnB apartment and discovered it has this rather nice windy staircase.

After some relaxation, I ventured out for a wander and every French person who got within 2 meters of me shouted at me for not speaking French.  Well, maybe not literally, that is at least that's how it felt though.  The stereotype that French people are twats if you ask them if they speak English is a true one (or if you ask them if they speak German too).  Even if you make as much of an effort in French as you can.

But, fuck it, I went and bought a burger.

To be honest, it was overpriced and shit.  But they can't be all winners.

I stumbled out of the burger place with disgust and carried on looking around my neighbourhood.  Lots of pretty European buildings, nice bars and cafes and such.  Nothing worth mentioning in detail.  I ended up going shopping for a few supplies for the apartment though.  I walked into the local grocery store and I was immediately accosted by a burly doorman upon trying to enter.  It seems I had committed the ultimate crime of having a bag.  How terrible of me.  He was stood there, menacingly, with lots of tiny little white zip ties, attaching them to the zips of everyone who came in, lest they slip a gruyere into their bag and try to steal it.

A silly solution if you ask me.

Ongoing Adventures with George

I realised it's been quite some time since I updated people on my life with George (my little box of living yeast that I feed and keep happy) so here, is a little mini update for those of you desperate to know (yes, there are plenty of you out there, I know).  I've made quite a few loaves over the past months, some good, some not so good (a recent experimentation with a corn free teff and chestnut flour loaf was rather odd and dense).  But, I have more or less perfected getting it right, well, at least initially :

A nice white bread, a good thick crunchy crust and a nice pleasing flavour (as George gets older, he's mellowed out a little and isn't so instant that you HAVE to taste his sourness in every bite).  Happiness indeed.  The trick in getting the bread to be airy and light is whisking, as it's gluten free bread you can't knead it like you would a normal bread, so you have to find another way to get the air into it.  So, as the mix is generally wetter than your usual dough, a whisk does the job perfectly.  Alas the only downside I haven't figured out yet (and to be fair to myself, I haven't tried) is shelf life. The bread is great, but it only stays that way for a couple of days, after which it becomes a rather dry crumbling affair.  It can be saved with a little grilling though, so it's close enough for me for the time being, and is certainly a gazillion times better than anything you can buy in a supermarket here.

Long Live George!

Dickheads on a Train

Having lived in Berlin for almost 3 years now, I often forget what life was like back in the UK.  The simple day to day things that are just a touch different over here, like the ability to buy cured meat within 5 minutes of walk of wherever you are or, somewhat more importantly, the fact that people treat each other like human beings.  As in, people will generally try to help you rather than thinking 'who the fuck is this freak talking to me in public'.

Yesterday though, I was reminded of something a little darker, something I've not experienced in around 3 years.  On the way to Alexa, I was stood, patiently waiting for the U2 to make its way south, when a large group of dickwads got on the train, not unheard of event here, there are plenty of idiots around and they do like to gather together to be idiotic.  Although this time I noticed things were a little different when two of said nob-rashes tried to squeeze into the same seat, generally pushing/knocking over the irate passengers who were previously sat peacefully.  Some people got up and moved to another part of the train and the two morons, now sat in vacated seats, decided to start talking LOUDLY in english to whoever had been unwise enough to stay, mostly hassling a poor girl with leery comments.  At this point, a few more of the gobshites joined in, generally hassling all the girls there and being rather annoying.  Now, this is fairly normal behaviour, if it's 2am in a club.  At 7pm on a busy train, not so much.

During all this the train hadn't moved, it seems that a couple of them were/had been fighting on the platform and the police had turned up, this led to lots of 'just fucking leaving it man' and 'it's not worth it' shite with friends holding back their moronic mates from going to, presumably, fight with the police.  Eventually the police asked them all to get off the train, which they surprisingly just did, and we went on our way.  Hopefully the group are now locked up in some dank police basement until their flight home.

It was all a little shocking, I had simply forgotten that people acted in such a way, I've become so used to German dipshits and morons, who are, frankly, a better class of idiot.  For example, on the walk home from the train station, I passed a group of German fuckwits walking down the street, not that different looking from the train group, being loud and drunk, but not hassling anyone, not getting in anybodies way, just being a bit 'normal loud' drunk.  Then, in the spatkauf next to my building, there was a gang of about 15 or 20 mentally challenged youths, drinking cheap beer, being loud, but still leaving enough of the pavement for people to walk past and, amazingly, not shouting at or hassling anybody that walked by.

It's not that people don't act like dickheads here, it just that it happens so infrequently.  The last time I witnessed anything remotely the same was around a year and a half ago, when some steroid moron with a small penis and a bulldog started shouting at a woman because she wouldn't let his dog hump hers or some such nonsense.

There are many things here in Germany that can be irritating (like the fact most things are stuck in 1980), but the things that they do better here more than make up for it.

PS.  See if you can guess which country the train morons were from.  I'll give you a clue, the first letter starts with a U and the last with a K!

Further Experimentation with George

A few months ago, whilst tinkering in my kitchen, I created a life form.  I mixed together some sludgy goo and purple cabbage leaves and created George.  He's required lots of attention, twice daily stirs and, due to his ravenous appetite, needs feeding quite often.  But he has been quite helpful, I have been slowly working my way through various combinations of flours, gums, oils, acids and dairy products to mix with him, all in the hope of producing a gluten free loaf I can be happy with.

Alas, I am a perfectionist, so this may be a long journey.

So far, the bread has mostly been either too rubbery, had a weird taste, or in the case of one loaf, been too fizzy (don't ask me what magic went on to make that happen).  Here are a few selections of my trials in order.

Got the air and yeast mixture right, just about everything else was meh.

Somehow, this one tasted gamey, I can't think of another word to describe it.  Just a general oddness to it.

The best innards so far, but an odd gooey crust that required a great deal of chew.

The best crust, nice and crispy and thick, but the most oddly flavoured innards, didn't quite taste like anything I've eaten before.  Plus, it had a rather sticky texture.

A good combination was had here, the crust was good and thick, the innards tasted good, but all in all it was just a little too crumbly.  It simply couldn't handle being a sandwich, and that's no loaf for me.  The main culprit seemed to of been the rice flour, it is just not great for bread (or at least the type's you can buy here).

Then, after some fudging (and adding some egg, plus greatly increasing oil+acid mix, plus a lot more xantham gum and a little hint of rice flour) I got this.

Which was actually pretty good.  Its about the same consistency on the inside as 'normal' british white bread, basically what I'm aiming for, and it holds together nicely for sandwiches.  It has a pretty good flavour, not too sour and not too strong. The crust is there, not too chewy, but alas it is just too thin and nobly.


So, now I'm at the stage where I've almost got it, I'm just about there.  The downside is that when I started all this, I was really missing bread, I yearned for a good sandwich.  Now, however, I've had enough bread to last a lifetime and am getting rather sick of it.  Oh, sweet irony.

Helsinki Face Stuffing

***WARNING - This blog post will contain lots of discussion of, and photos of, FOOD.  If you do not like this, then why are you reading my blog?  This is what I do bitch.***

A couple of months ago, whilst researching gluten free goodies around the world, I noticed that a lot of people were commenting on how 'absolutely freaking super amazing' Finland is for such things.  This planted some little seeds in my mind, a seed for travel and a seed to go forth and stuff my face with as much gluten free food as I could possibly imagine.  So, a couple of weeks ago, I found myself at Tegel airport, waiting to board an Air Berlin flight bound for Helsinki.

I count the airport as part of the trip, it's where I start and therefore it is where my food experience begins, and, with it being still in Berlin offers a little context to why I was travelling.  This is the only thing in the whole of Tegel that I could eat (minus burger king fries).

Basically some badly grilled chicken, around 5 GIANT bell peppers and some smatterings of green things (plus a decidedly average cup o tea).  'Fresh & Healthy' it was not, 'Overpriced & Blandly Wank' it was.

A little later that day (alas for you travel bugs, I'll only be including the food elements of this trip), after arrival in Helsinki and a little pottering around in the decidedly peach coloured Hilton, I ended up at a Kotipizza, ordered, and received this.

You may be thinking, "damn, I wish there was better lighting, the photo makes that pizza looks like a scabby wound".  Well, it wasn't the lighting unfortunately, or the photography.  It was a little odd as a pizza, lacking in flavour and had an overall cheap-ness to it (if you're wondering, that's chicken, pineapple, two types of cheese - one being blue, all on a bed of orange goo).  It wasn't the best pizza I've ever had, and possibly not the worst.  But, I guess, at the end of the day, it was a pizza (a rationale you will be seeing often).

The downside though, was that although it was gluten free, I had quite a reaction to it and was ill for around 2 days, making the rest of the trip quite a struggle.  Yay Koti!

Fortunately the next day it was breakfast at the Peach Hilton, and I'd been assured that they could provide me with gluten free goodies.  Although when I was actually there and after a little perusal of the buffet, I couldn't find any.  A little poke of a nearby staff member and they brought these over to me on a plate (which resulted in every other diner shooting daggers at me, because, WTF! WHY was I being hand served something at a buffet when they, the most important people, were not!!).

They were pretty good.  Quite pleasant to eat, all nice and microwave warmed.

Burger Time

Another of the big pulls of Finland was that their McDonalds and, local chain, Hesburger offered gluten free buns with their shitty fast food meals, woo!  Now, it's not that I particularliy miss eating crappy fast food.  I don't.  One of the advantages of eating gluten free is that I'm about 130% more healthy in my dietary choices.  But, I've not had a burger burger in years, so the novelty factor and the sheer joy at being able to be one of the masses was too much to resist.

First I tried ol' Maccy D's.

I'm not sure why I chose the quarter pounder with cheese and not a big mac.  I'll have to live with that decision for some time.  But, it was a burger, in an actual bun.  Look!

It almost looks real!  Alas, eating it was a combination of remembering how crappy McDonalds is combined with the realisation that the bun was made out of a substance akin to polystyrene.  It compressed, but as it did, only got harder and required a shark like jaw to bite through it.

All in all.  It was awesome doing the "I'm Eating a MotherFucking Burger" thing.  But the burger itself was a little lacking.

Next up, was Hesburger, a chain I've never been to before, but at the end of the day is McDonalds with different menus (albeit a better name He's a Burger!).

After some waiting (it seems it takes 10 minutes to cook a fresh burger in a fast food joint), I was presented with this.

Yes, it does look better.  It has VEGETABLES! OMG!

To be fair, it was better than the Maccy's Turd Sandwich, but, the bread was still made from plastic and rather tough.  Still, it was an enjoyable experience for the most part, if I ignored the taste.

Cakes and Sweeties
You can get gluten free cakes here in Berlin, thankfully, but nowhere near in the numbers that you can in Helsinki.  It seemed like most cafe's had one or two gluten-less cakes, joy!

They were all most pleasant really.  Not much to add, no hilarious quips or anything.

 NOMS

NOMS 

Then I went to here.

And bought this.

I hear you thinking, 'that looks good', and it does.  Alas it didn't have much substance or flavour too it, although there was enough cream in it to kill a small family.

They did, AMAZINGLY, have gluten free treats in the airport.

Other bits n bobs
The rest of the culinary experience wasn't too amazing.  I went to a Spanish place that seemed to offer a lot of gluten free choices, but, it wasn't too good, I was presented with these as Patatas Bravas.

For some reason, I was expecting something other than frozen chips with mayo n ketchup splurged on them, that's positive thinking for ya.

I did get to eat some bambi though, and rather delicious it was indeed (any dish with combines berries and meat is a good dish in my books)

Finally, there was the gluten free bakery I'd been longing to go to (which, after booking the tickets, discovered that in my 3 day journey, it was only open for 1 single hour before I had to leave).

To be honest, I'd expected something of New Yorkian standards, in that they cooked everything themselves, but it was more a stall that sold gluten free products produced by other people/large bakery companies.  Just take a look at the ingredient list on these meat pasties.

Mmmmm, I always love my food with 11 E numbers.  Still, they were quite tasty.

The award for best named place goes to this one.

Alas, I did not have the balls to eat some Beefy Queen.