A bit unlucky...

After running around for ages and having all sorts of fun, it's pretty logical to assume that eventually something unlucky would happen, which it did about a month ago in Paris...

There's not much to the story really... Lany and I were getting off a tube train near Sacre Coeur when we walked past/through a rough circle of young dudes. As I walked past the first one (he was at the rear of the circle/group) he stepped across and elbowed me in the chest, not hard, but just being a fool.. I stopped and looked back and he apologised really sarcastically but as Lany and I turned to keep moving on, his mate came in and gave me a big shove, yelling stuff like "you got a problem?" and junk.

So at that point Lany and I started shouting back and the 'pushy' guy and I basically squared up. About this time all the other mates saw something was about to start and circled around behind us. Figuring it wasn't a good position to be in, we ignored the guy telling at us and pushed past some of the guys towards the exit, but as I turned to go one of the the ones behind me tried to king hit me in the back of the head. I just felt a thud at the time but I was ok and we left quickly. As I said, there wasn't much to it and it probably was over in under 8 seconds....

On the way up the stairs (amongst 10-15 other slightly panicked French people) a woman who worked for the Metro company grabbed us and told us to follow her, she took us straight to security got the attendant to call security etc. Within about two minutes security were running around the station trying to nab the guys, but they'd stayed on the platform and got back on the next train. Suddenly about 10 guys security guys were jumping turnstyles and running, and within about 10 minutes we heard that they'd nabbed the whole group a station or two down as they tried to exit - good work by the Paris security/police!

Some medical guys came to the station to check me out as my ear had been split open and I was bleeding pretty badly. I started to lose my vision for a while (black spots and brights spots) but it all came good after a few minutes. Still, they insisted I go to the hospital for checks which unfortunately took hours (as hospitals do). I got whacked around 9:30pm and we didn't leave the hospital until about 3:30am (d'oh!). The slack/crap doctor at the hospital barely checked anything over and wrote a certificate thing to say I'd been assaulted etc.

So after sitting around for ages getting checked out, Lany and I still had to go back to the police station to make statements. Surprisingly the arrested guys were saying they weren't there, even after being ID'd at the scene by the woman who helped us. As a result Lany and I had to do a police lineup thing (a new experience for me). We picked out all the dudes we remembered and they all got shuffled off (we didn't pick out the cop hidden in the line, so we passed the test) but then it took ages to take the statements and sign stuff and go through all the process. In the end seven group members were identified between the other witness, Lany and myself. I don't think we got home until about 7am or something that morning.

After getting a tiny bit of sleep, we had to get up in the late morning to book an appointment for a second medical exam. Fortunately this was pretty easy to do and we didn't have to wait too long when we were there. Both the doctors and the cops commented that I was really lucky to escape serious injury (they didn't believe that I didn't fall down when I was hit) and it may have all come down to the fact that I was turning away from the guy as he swung. Around 6pm that day we were back in the police station submitting the final documentation. In France they could only hold people for 24 hours, or 48 hours on special request to a judge, which is why Lany and I had to get everything done so quickly. The arrested dudes still were saying they weren't there, so the cops were keen to hold on to them.

At one point they were saying that they might ask Lany and I to sit in a room in front of the guys to try and force them to confess. If they still lied there, it would look even worse for them. We weren't thrilled about the idea but as they were due to get out at 10pm that night, we didn't have much time to dwell on it, and sure, we wanted them to get busted. Fortunately after submitting all our paperwork the judge decided the 'confrontation' (as they call it) wouldn't improve anything and they'd just go straight to court the next day - no going home for them!. We got home at about 9 that night but didn't really do much.. just sat around feeling wired etc.

The cops had suggested that we could go to the hearing in the morning to try and put pressure on the judge to have a harsh verdict, but on good advice from my uncle we decided not to do that. Standing up in court and identifying people when you've already got statements, eye witnesses etc (unfortunately, no direct CCTV footage as the station is under refurbishment) is probably making more of a target of yourself than you need to be. So anyway, we sat it out and
other than having to write and fax some document allowing my lawyer to represent me etc the day was pretty low-key. To try and lift our spirits, we went to see the modern art collection at the Georges Pompidou gallery/center.

Later in the evening we got a call from the courts telling us the verdict, and we couldn't believe it. The guy who originally elbowed me was a minor, so he got nothing, but the one who pushed me and the one who hit me got three and four months in jail (respectively). I really didn't expect that they'd get more than a slap-on-the-wrist, but hell, it looks like the French don't mess around. Aside from the 'aggression' (frenchy term) being completely unprovoked (on my part), apparently any transgression in the Metro system is taken a serious offence
as it's a protected or secure (or something) zone. So if anyone is ever in trouble in Paris, head for a Metro station and there will be a stack of security personnel there as well as panic buttons on the walls and stuff. And if you're going to do something bad in Paris, don't do it in the stations! :)

So that's it! A long, crap two days for me with all the medical and police stuff, but in the end it got a swift result (can't complain!!). I took a couple of pics of my head but they didn't really work well, just slightly uglier than normal :)

I'm in Germany this week and the weather is pretty atrocious, so hopefully I'll have more time to catch up on the blog.

Go the Aussies in the World Cup!!!

Anka

Suh-WEET!!!! HSMP goodness

Gday everyone,

I know the blog is stupidly far behind, but I thought I'd just drop a quick post to let you know that I've received my approval for a Highly Skilled Migrant Visa in the UK!!! Hurrah!!! This means that I'm not able to spend another two years in the country and can start my own business, be properly resident for things like buying land, credit cards etc...

So in short, two more years of massively stupidly long blog posts for you all!!!

Anka

Lisbon

I've always been interested in heading to Portugal as I heard it's really nice, and luckily the Lisbon office came up for migration a few months ago. I was originally scheduled to go somewhere else for the whole time, but one of the guys was nice enough to swap with me for the second week so everyone got a chance to go.. yay!

After the depressingly cold summer going on in Northern Europe, the warm weather of Lisbon was a godsend. It wasn't really hot mind you, just nice high 20's and sunny. I suspect in a 'normal' year, things would get pretty hot. I arrived quite early on the first day so I took the opportunity to take a jog around the city. Oh, we did get stiffed with the hotel though... despite advertising it being 5 star with gym and pool, both the gym and pool were under renovations and were unusable - pah!

As I started my jog the first thing that I realised was that the Metro station entrances look a lot like Paris. I later found out that For Lisbon has a reputation for being a smaller version of Paris - apparently some hangover of a king/ruler who loved the city so much he got stuff designed in a similar style. Along the way I found a big island/roundabout thing with this statue on it - some old ruler is buried there. But this statue almost bisects a big straight garden area and another road which runs down to the old town and the water. Lisbon-ites say this stretch of park/street (the street has loads of shops) is modeled on the Champs Elysees, and are also quick to point out that it's longer than the one in Paris, so it must be better. Still, the park is quite impressive not only for the size and the fountain at the top, but also the view.

After checking out the park I looped across town (Lisbon is pretty hilly actually with most things on a fairly steep downward slant to the water) to a massive Roman Aqueduct. In ages past it really was built by the Romans and supplied the city with water, but I think it suffered damage in World War 2 and had to be partially rebuilt. I don't know if it's used today but you can walk across it. A lot of the houses in hills of Lisbon reminded me of the white houses in Southern Spain and even Athens.... but in the city proper the buildings look more like big older houses that were split into apartments (although they are kept in their 'original' condition).

This beings me to another point about Lisbon in that there are hallmarks that it was once a great city everywhere, but now it seems things are getting quite run-down. Through discussions with locals (like the IT guys) and the tour I did (report later), I learnt that at one stage Portugal and Spain were basically running the Mediterranean and any ocean nearby, and also most of Europe and Africa. They actually made an agreement to split the world in half when it was conquered rather than waste time fighting each other. As a result lots of the buildings in Lisbon have elaborated mosaic'd (if that's a word??) or decorated frontage, but they're in bad need of repair nowdays and look quite rundown in some areas. Around the old town the buildings are still kept in good condition, so it's great to walk around there and imagine the way the city would have been in the past.

But back to the first jog around - there are a number of different architectural styles in the areas outside the old town, some of which even seemed almost Gaudi-esque (see Barcelona blog for info on Gaudi) to me.

Unfortunately work sapped quite a lot of time from the days leading up to and over the weekend itself. This meant that I didn't really get a chance to see much of the city until late Saturday night. I even had to find a tree in the park with a horizontal branch just to get some exercise, it did fine though. On Saturday night my workmate was feeling ill and didn't want to go out, so I just took a stroll around town to see things by night and it was well worth it. The city is very pretty by night (particularly Old Town) but I didn't really find much in the way of big night-life (loud music), only smaller bars/cafes where people were hanging out. The tower in the middle of Old-Town (it's actually an elevator between two levels of a steep cliff) looked cool, as did the main square with one of the royal Palaces and main City Gate. A cool ice sculpture was also on display, no idea why it was there though....

With Sunday off and good weather, Pete and I decided to head to the beach. A 20 minute cab ride out of town took us to one of the best local beaches, and it was pretty decent. There's no waves of course, but at least there's decent sand, cafes, outdoor sports equipment (even a pull-up bar) and sure, plenty of chicks... ;) We ended up spending most of the day there just getting a tan and grabbing a late lunch.

Monday, as usual, was crap user-support. We didn't get out until quite late.. Rather than head back to London (or Paris, wherever 'home' is), I managed to get the company to let me stay in Lisbon until Wednesday, so I had Tuesday to look around still.

Accordingly on Tuesday I jumped on a tour bus for a 5ish hour tour of the city. A lot of the attractions are pretty spread out, so you probably couldn't walk to them all (unless you were a hell of a hiker). Our first big sight was a suspension bridge which is modelled after the Golden gate Bridge in San Francisco, but the Lisbon one is smaller. This links the main part of the city to the other side of the river where a giant Jesus statue (similar to the one in Brasil) stands looking over the city.

Once we had crossed back over the bridge (we just went across to the see the statue) we headed along the shoreline to a couple of monuments. One is a big monument to the seafaring people who had helped make Portugal great (the members of some initial voyage) and the other is a small tower, the Tower of Bethlehem. Both were cool, but won't exactly blow your socks off. After that we went to the huge old Monastery of St Jerome (I think) which houses the cities biggest/older cathedral. That was more impressive.

Nearby was a another Palace type building with funny uniform guards (which everyone has to take a picture of) which we passed on the way to the Coach Museum. This museum has coaches basically from the beginnings of coach making, and some are pretty spectacular. I have seen modern coaches before, but the simple engineering principles which made the older ones are very impressive, and the fact things like leather were strong enough to support the whole upper section of the coach (where people sat) caught my attention. There were also plenty of super-ornate ones (the restored one was one of over a hundred identical coaches that took place in some celebration. So even though it sounded quite lame, the museum was kinda cool. (not sure if I'd I put it on a 'must do' of Lisbon though).

The tour went through a shop where you could taste famous Portugese port - I hate port so it was crap ;). The final part of the tour was a quick stroll through to oldest parts of the 'Old Town'. It's pretty cool with lots of little cafes and bars around the close and windy streets. Being a big town, touring in a bus is annoying, but it's just practical if you want to see everything quickly. I had time that afternoon to stroll around a little before heading back to the hotel and packing etc for the flight the next day.

Oh, Portuguese food is good (I just remembered). I hate eating in hotels now so I always head out to find little places to get local type food, and there was no shortage of that in Lisbon. There's lots of meat and fish and even vegetables on offer! A lot of places weren't expensive either, so go nuts when you are there. A couple of the weird things I ate were chorizo on a bed of grilled pineapple and a fish (sole or something) with fried banana... different, but really really nice!

So yeah, that was Lisbon. A top place to visit and with a few suprises. Cheap too, so worth the look in. From what I heard though, the other areas of Portugal on the western coastline are awesome, so maybe Lisbon is a good starting point before heading over to the coast for a beach vacation.

I know the blog is waaay behind, so hopefully I'll get stuff up soon.