All cigarettes and (no) alcohol

They certainly flew their flag with pride

North Africa was the next stamp on my well exercised passport. To be precise: Tunisia. First African and first Muslim country in my vast territory.. Muslim country the week before Christmas, my ideal! Tunisia is 98% Muslim and a very homogenised country when it comes to race but I think in Tunis, especially, they exercise their faith like Christianity is in the States where Easter is barely recognised!

Of course my naivety gets the better of me each time and the rabbit in headlights mode kicks in …..this time I forgot I don’t speak Arabic or French. All those years ago I managed to book a gite for my French GCSE but, again, when the immigration person asked, en Francais, my name, I crumbled. Such a loser.

We have all been brought up not to get into cars with strange men but guess which fool did? I got into a car which was not taxi marked sans meter aussi et charged 6 times more than it should have been. He asked for one more dinah for the toll and then he high fived me for my appalling French. Certainly didn’t blow it up with him. Cheeky bugger.

The work aspect was very successful but my time there wasn’t. I was harassed off the locals, had two very intrusive massages (did I not learn from the first one and the second one she gave me a groin strain and I actually heard something pop), fell off a curb, twisted my ankle and wiping out, whilst checking out a blonde and I don’t even like blondes as a rule and this was in front of my customer, got a virus on my lap top, and then scored slides down the microscope whilst the pathologist smoked cigarettes and force fed me some home made chicken dish….home cooked food off customers is my biggest fear. Every GLP rule was broken in that one lab…..buerre dans la frigo, eating lunch in the lab, drinking the water supply and of course smoking. Of course smoking because as much as the multiple posted no smoking signs seemed to be ignored by everyone everywhere.



Hard day in the office



It was all very flat roof and satellite dishes where I was but Tunis proper was nice. You could have been in Europe with the wide boulevards and the café culture (and I did pass the Tour Eiffel. No, I really did and it wasn’t the hookah playing tricks) and at one point I thought it was akin to Saint Louis and West Palm Beach. (WPB made me want to cry too) I went into the medina but was warned not to turn left or right, take photographs or go further than 20 meters. I actually listened to what I was told and the constant hammering of the brass trinkets was enough for anybody not to want to venture more than 10 metres. You will just have to believe me that the colours were wonderful and the things to buy were great as my photos don’t do most things justice but they certainly didn’t here.



Fish and chips....Tunisian style.



Again, I was shown great hospitality and the kindness was overwhelming. I was invited to a customer’s house for dinner and as mentioned, home cooked food by customers isn’t on my to do list but I couldn’t turn them down and say I was too busy playing Scrabble or Lexulous on Facebook. That invitation caused anxiety for two days but I am so pleased I went as it was a delicious feast of true Tunisian food. Tunisian food is wonderful. For my first three meals I ate fish and chips and kebabs…..who said I wasn’t Geordie. Harrisa paste, olives and fennel. Hmmm, yes please I thought I was being tough whilst I pretended that I wasn’t burning my mouth off.

I really thought my days were numbered during my time there. My second cab ride was an experience that I didn’t think I was going to be able to write home about. As much as I may not be able to drive, I have had a lot of experience of being a passenger in countries where it’s not permitted to follow the rules of the road and stay in lane. Well this cab driver didn’t want to go against the grain so when he was honked at several times because he was cutting up a car he decided he would stop in the middle of a crossroads, in a huge rainstorm and take on two men who were half his age and twice his size. So I thought once they had killed the little old but aggressive man that they would then have to kill me as I would be the number one witness to their crime. So, what was a girl to do apart from shout at the top of her lungs “ARRET” in the back of the cab. The driver got back in like nothing had happened. C’est la vie, I suppose! The last parting shot was when my cases were hijacked by a professional porter who walked me to the wrong airline counter and he still expected a tip. Cheeky bugger.

Clearly the worst photos I have taken but I was trying to be discrete so I didn't get mugged.

I may not be the most slick and I am certainly not the most savvy person whilst on the road but I wouldn’t swap these experiences for anything

2010 has been a very interesting year. I have experienced monsoon season in Mumbai, a drought in Vellore, slept on a leopard print mattress in Siberia, went sight seeing when it was minus 25 deg C in Moscow, ate cheese sandwiches for 12 meals in Nussloch, was served a leg of veal in Belgrade and tasted communism in a glass in Prague. I am so lucky to get to see the places I do and to experience everyday life of these cities. I am finishing the year with one last trip…….in the words of Frank Sinatra…..Chicago Chicago. My kind of town.

Fur coat and thermal knickers.

I was so apprehensive about going to Russia and I had every right to feel that way. What an imposing country! I have never felt so overwhelmed so much so that I nearly cried when the person at immigration asked my name when entering the country.

So, my driver, Samson, picked me up after he took 2.5 hours to get to the airport to drop me of at a hotel that you can see from the door of the airport. He got me back as he made me climb over a fence with my luggage and when he left me sitting in the car for 30 minutes to do his weekly shopping. I flew into Moscow to fly to bleeding Omsk the next day. I had seen Omsk airport on a programme about mail order brides and I felt so lucky that it was night when I landed as the show didn’t do it any favours. It’s always my biggest fear that somebody will make off with my collection of cardigans in my suitcase but the airports in Russia check your luggage tag before you leave baggage claim. I was so impressed!

It caused a lot of merriment to a few people that I was going to Siberia in December but I can say that I managed the cold better than those back at home. Ordinarily, I like to see a city that I go to but I don’t think I missed out on seeing this one.The word hotel is being used in the loosest sense of the word. It was part of the hospital with disposable bed sheets and I was trying to ignore the leopard print mattress or the fact they tried to make me share a room with the distributor or the fact there were no amenities (iron, hairdryer,, towels and clock) but I do have to say that it had better placed sockets than any other place I have stayed in. I tried to ignore getting served meat filled crepes and tea from a woman at midnight donning a dressing gown with wolves on. The next morning I was greeted with two giant meatballs on a bed of mash for breakfast and I think it was a bit of a Georgy Girl moment when the same crepes reappeared on the table. Thankfully, I am little Karl Pilkington like and I pack crisps and choc on all my trips on the off chance the local cuisine and I don’t get on. Describing Omsk as provincial could be a slight understatement…….akin to Dubuque and we know how I feel to about that city. The only English words the people could say was “ Paulina” and cheers. ….4 litres of the evil stuff was consumed and the table just kept toasting to me so I had to have a sip each time. Let’s jut say vodka and Lemsip are not a good combo for anyone never mind this Chinese livered being! Well of course, the Russian folk songs broke out. It was a true Russian experience. Very surreal. Luckily, it was getting towards 10 pm and we had to call it a night before they closed the underground tunnel that lead back to the “hotel” as at 10 o’clock they let the wild dogs sleep in the tunnel. We had an early flight to catch in the morning. Brrrr, I did experience Siberia proper in the morning. Minus 27 deg C. I thought I was seeing things when I saw fur clad men on ice clad ponies riding around the airport and there must have been some type of re-enactment going on because men with swords and costumes could get through security but men with keys in their pockets couldn’t.

So the only day I don’t have anything scheduled just so happens to be coldest December 1st in Moscow since 1931. I was a little fearful of heading into the city on my own but I was so pleased I did. I hate being cold and I can’t even ride the el in Chicago. Well, I donned the thermals and rode the Metro where all the signs are in Cyrillic. I was so chuffed with myself. I think this could be my biggest achievement to date. The Metro stations are so ornate and well maintained. No graffiti or litter. I didn’t get much further than Red Square but I think I could be forgiven when it was so cold. There was such a serene atmosphere when you walked across it even though there was an ice rink plonked in the middle of it. St Basil’s Cathedral took my breath away. What a building!

I took so many photographs of it that my camera froze over and the condensation from my cheek on the screen froze straight away. I thought I was taking pictures of the Bolshoy Theatre but upon retrospective consulation of my map, it wasn’t! My map reading skills are a lot to be desired. Every shopper out there needs to experience GUM. What a place. They are opening a Leica camera shop there because it’s Puitin’s camera of choice. Shame it’s so far removed from our branch of the company. We know I go around with a scowl on my face for most part but I was quite the ray of sunshine in comparison to the locals. Nobody looks you in the eye.and people seem so sad. They probably aren’t but I think it’s more acceptable to be seen as dower and humble whilst fur clad donning, LV, Chanel and Gucci and sporting Prada shades. So I was in Moscow when Russia were awarded the 2018 Word Cup……I thought this would be a huge deal…..nope, no mention of it. No celebration, no nothing but at least unlike a lot of my fellow country men they weren’t smug and in my face that they white washed England! I met a nice Russian couple at the airport who were travelling onto Newcastle from Moscow and they agreed that nobody smiles and that football isn’t so popular in their country.

Ordinarily I like to sample the local cuisine but after the dinner in Omsk, it was OK not to. I didn’t complain when I was taken out for sushi, Italian and German fare (Pushkin, the poet use to hang out in this building where the German Restaurant was) So many things have mystified me during my time there, like women wearing stilettos when it’s icy, why don’t drinks in outdoor vending machines freeze in the ridiculous sub zero temperatures, the constant 80s music on the radio stations and the sex stores on the road side but I will be glad to say that I survived Siberia and Moscow albeit with very little grace.

Doubters 0 – 1 Pauline.

Sorry for the out of focus pictures but it was too cold to take my gloves off.

You can't judge a book by it's cover.......

When I knew you didn’t need a business visa to enter the country then it went straight to number one! So it was to Belgrade I went. The only things I knew about Serbia is that there was a lot of civil unrest in the not so distant past and it’s Eastern Europe.  We can say we don’t but it’s human nature to prejudge and my mind was made up on Belgrade by the people boarding the plane!!! JAT airlines, on the basis of the food, would not be airline of choice but the leg room was amazing and maybe that’s to accommodate the giants of Serbia.I thought, here we go again but I was proved wrong. I fell in love with Belgrade for the hotel alone! The room was amaze (isn’t that on trend word? Well it is according to Grazia, my favourite travelling companion. The bathroom was so clean and I didn’t feel the need to give it the once over with an antiseptic wipe. I even walked around sans slippers and went bare foot. The hairdryer did annoy me somewhat because it switched on when you lifted the hose to your head but standing at 5 ft 2” this wasn’t happening for me. Buggeration. The lab facility was like nothing I have ever seen and the fact you could eat in it was a double bonus! The only thing I could have asked for was uglier people as every other woman looked like a supermodel. People in Serbia are so genuinely kind and it’s very humbling. The pathologist went out for a stroll in the rain to get this princess a carton of apple juice The people, the fashions and the lifestyle could have eluded you to thinking you were in western Europe but the signs in Cyrillic gave it away.

I was introduced to the world of veal. Bloody delicious. Ethically, not so much but when there is a leg of veal on the table, and you don’t get to eat lunch till 530pm, what you going to do? I was promised dinner in a famous typical Serbian restaurant where grilled meat is very popular. The waiter served me the traditional fare and dished me up a hamburger patty and fries.
Belgrade is a wonderful city, so European chic and they are trying to do something about the bleeding smoking. The people are kind and so hospitable and I can say that it boasts the most beautiful men. I would encourage anybody to visit.

My life in hotels and food during my stay in Belgrade.