so melanie really wanted to go to Loire Valley. like, really hard core wanted to go and see the chateus out there. i was indifferent /not really wanting to go, but figured i'd rather stay with the group. we had to take a train out to Tours and get picked up by a tour there. everyone else had bough eurorail passes and i had not. since a lot of my plans were so up in the air up until a week ago, it was hard to buy a whole lot ahead of time. anyway, so they paid 6 euro to reserve seats on the train and i went to buy a ticket and they hit me like 90 euros. holy crap. it was early in the morning so while i really should have been like, have fun guys i'll see you tonight, i dished out over $100 right there for a day trip. hooooly crap.
so we get there. it's cold. a little rainy. middle of nowhere (turns out we got out one stop early) and call this tour company that's supposed to pick us up. this was something melanie had planned so the rest of us were kind of like sitting ducks while we waited for a grey van to come get us and let her handle it. the chateus were cool. i can't remember the names of them, but i can tell you that they were french. i mean, they were pretty... but each one cost another 7 euros and then we had to pay like 20 or 30something euros to the driver... all in all, way too pricy a day. so we trained back. lindsey and melanie were cold and wanted to go back to the hotel. rosie and i really wanted to go see the basilisque de sacre ceure or however you spell that so we split up. rosie and i headed over to that area and had a delicious meal in a random cafe that we picked as we were walking around and then picked random things on the menu. we got a frenchy hamburger and a leg of chicken. and french fries! it was a pretty french meal, if i do say so myself. we walked up the 5 hundred million steps to the top of the hill that the basilisque is on. we thought we might die. but all of a sudden we turned a corner and there it was. it was magnificent.
i dont know why this place doesnt get more hype. we literally stopped in our tracks when we beheld this gigantic, beautiful building. it was too late to go inside (it was almost 11pm at this point) but we walked around it and took pictures and were just generally awe struck. amazing. a perfect end to the night.
Thursday, 29 May 2008
an american in paris
ok paris was... cool. it was unbelievably close to what i've seen in movies and pictures. how often does that happen? so i believe i left off when we had finally arrived at our amazingly 2-star hotel in the Bastille area of Paris. luckily, this place had an elevator! (the previous hostel did not). granted, my suitcase (who has now been nicknamed 'squirt'... i'll explain after Paris) isn't that big and I can handle stairs alright. everyone else, however, has a little trouble. they're all smaller than me and have bigger suitcases! that just doesn't make sense.
anyway, one by one we went up (did i mention it was a teeny tiny elevator?) and found melanie bored and worried in the room. rosie and i were starving. we went out exploring around our hotel (granted it was like midnight at this point) and found a cafe that melanie had eaten lunch at (and had a bad experience with uncooked salmon... the french don't seem to like to cook their meat.) and settled in for a ridiculously expensive/yummy salad. this is when we had our first try at the sign language we would continue to use for the next 4 days or so. it went alright... melanie's really the best and worst at it. when she mimed a hairdryer i thought they were going to take away her wine.
the next morning we woke up at about 9:30 and ran downstairs for breakfast (which ends at 10) and had some croissants, coffee and orange juice. this meal didn't change for the next 4 days. granted, i'm not complaining :)
we decided to do all the ultra paris stuff the first day. we took the metro/train hybrid system out to the eiffel tower. i must say, after things in london not meeting my expectations, paris blew me away. the tower is freaking HUGE! i read that they were going to tear it down but then found out it was good for satellites or antennaes or something haha. we took pictures with it at every possible angle and decided to put off going up since it was sunday and the lines were ridiculous. we made our way towards the arc de triumph. again, humongous! it just chills there right in the middle of a traffic circle as people drive by. could you imagine driving past that every day during your morning commute? ridiculous. we took a lot more pictures and then went to find food because it was like 3pm and we were FAMISHED. at this point we were so hungry we weren't all that discriminating and ended up in a random italian restaurant where i had some decent tortellini with a diet coke, but it was again overpriced and not all that exciting.
after lunch we walked along the super expensive street whose name escapes me. we went into the louis vitton store (i probably misspelled that. don't hate.) where i felt a little nauseous/disgusted at not only the prices but the number of people buying things! a pair of sunglasses was over 300 euro. a key chain was over 200 euro. i mean... seriously? i can think of a lot of things i'd rather have for $1000 than a purse. but i guess i'm not schooled in brand names and can't appreciate the finer things in life. oh well, i think i'll live.
we strolled through the gardens in front of the louvre. that was pretty. we passed a bunch of random monuments we previously did not know existed. for instance, in the square where marie antoinette was beheaded they have replaced the guillotine with a huge obelisk that someone important in egypt presented to some french ruler awhile ago. very random.
we walked along the Seine to the latin quarter of paris. apparently it used to have a bunch of universities taught in latin in the area. we walked up to notre dame. man. that place is pretty. it's free to go inside, but i felt so bad about it. there was a mass going on so when youw alk in they send the mass people to the middle and the tourists to walk around the outside. it just felt way to disrespectful to take pictures while these people were trying to convene with God, so don't expect any pictures. everyone else was just snapping away though! and they didn't even turn off their flashes. i mean, now that i'm writing about it i guess it doesnt seem like a big deal, but at the time it made me uncomfortable. don't get me wrong, though. the cathedral is gorgeous. my only exposure to it before was the disney movie Hunchback of Notre Dame. i mean, they are all very talented artists over at disney, but it just didn't compare tot he real thing. the ceilings are so high! and the art and thestain glass windows... sigh. it was meant to be a bible for peasants who might not be able to read, so there are frescos and stuff everywhere of important scenes from the bible. i knew most of them... though i didn't remember the relevance of a story taht involved stabbing babies with swords. anybody know that one? i'd be curious to know.
we explored the little streets and alleys in the latin quarter for awhile and decided that we wanted coffee. unfortunately, it was well after 7 and every restaurant was well into dinner. so we stopped at a little crepe place and had the most delicious crepes ever with coffee. mmmm... ours had chocolate and banana. yum yum YUM.
we wandered a bit more, found an internet cafe but then it started to rain so we headed back to the hotel. melanie and i took naps (i have some sort of coughing sickness that i'm trying to get over and she was jetlagged still) while lindsey went running (of course) and rosie just went exploring. that was pretty much it for the rest of the day, we were exhausted.
anyway, one by one we went up (did i mention it was a teeny tiny elevator?) and found melanie bored and worried in the room. rosie and i were starving. we went out exploring around our hotel (granted it was like midnight at this point) and found a cafe that melanie had eaten lunch at (and had a bad experience with uncooked salmon... the french don't seem to like to cook their meat.) and settled in for a ridiculously expensive/yummy salad. this is when we had our first try at the sign language we would continue to use for the next 4 days or so. it went alright... melanie's really the best and worst at it. when she mimed a hairdryer i thought they were going to take away her wine.
the next morning we woke up at about 9:30 and ran downstairs for breakfast (which ends at 10) and had some croissants, coffee and orange juice. this meal didn't change for the next 4 days. granted, i'm not complaining :)
we decided to do all the ultra paris stuff the first day. we took the metro/train hybrid system out to the eiffel tower. i must say, after things in london not meeting my expectations, paris blew me away. the tower is freaking HUGE! i read that they were going to tear it down but then found out it was good for satellites or antennaes or something haha. we took pictures with it at every possible angle and decided to put off going up since it was sunday and the lines were ridiculous. we made our way towards the arc de triumph. again, humongous! it just chills there right in the middle of a traffic circle as people drive by. could you imagine driving past that every day during your morning commute? ridiculous. we took a lot more pictures and then went to find food because it was like 3pm and we were FAMISHED. at this point we were so hungry we weren't all that discriminating and ended up in a random italian restaurant where i had some decent tortellini with a diet coke, but it was again overpriced and not all that exciting.
after lunch we walked along the super expensive street whose name escapes me. we went into the louis vitton store (i probably misspelled that. don't hate.) where i felt a little nauseous/disgusted at not only the prices but the number of people buying things! a pair of sunglasses was over 300 euro. a key chain was over 200 euro. i mean... seriously? i can think of a lot of things i'd rather have for $1000 than a purse. but i guess i'm not schooled in brand names and can't appreciate the finer things in life. oh well, i think i'll live.
we strolled through the gardens in front of the louvre. that was pretty. we passed a bunch of random monuments we previously did not know existed. for instance, in the square where marie antoinette was beheaded they have replaced the guillotine with a huge obelisk that someone important in egypt presented to some french ruler awhile ago. very random.
we walked along the Seine to the latin quarter of paris. apparently it used to have a bunch of universities taught in latin in the area. we walked up to notre dame. man. that place is pretty. it's free to go inside, but i felt so bad about it. there was a mass going on so when youw alk in they send the mass people to the middle and the tourists to walk around the outside. it just felt way to disrespectful to take pictures while these people were trying to convene with God, so don't expect any pictures. everyone else was just snapping away though! and they didn't even turn off their flashes. i mean, now that i'm writing about it i guess it doesnt seem like a big deal, but at the time it made me uncomfortable. don't get me wrong, though. the cathedral is gorgeous. my only exposure to it before was the disney movie Hunchback of Notre Dame. i mean, they are all very talented artists over at disney, but it just didn't compare tot he real thing. the ceilings are so high! and the art and thestain glass windows... sigh. it was meant to be a bible for peasants who might not be able to read, so there are frescos and stuff everywhere of important scenes from the bible. i knew most of them... though i didn't remember the relevance of a story taht involved stabbing babies with swords. anybody know that one? i'd be curious to know.
we explored the little streets and alleys in the latin quarter for awhile and decided that we wanted coffee. unfortunately, it was well after 7 and every restaurant was well into dinner. so we stopped at a little crepe place and had the most delicious crepes ever with coffee. mmmm... ours had chocolate and banana. yum yum YUM.
we wandered a bit more, found an internet cafe but then it started to rain so we headed back to the hotel. melanie and i took naps (i have some sort of coughing sickness that i'm trying to get over and she was jetlagged still) while lindsey went running (of course) and rosie just went exploring. that was pretty much it for the rest of the day, we were exhausted.
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
London Retrospective :)
so i'm writing from my hostel in Nice, France. due to lack of internet and the surplus of aforementioned french keyboards, i've managed to get really far behind in my blogging. i was going to do a whole reflective entry on my impressions of london but instead i'll give you this:
*it's ridiculously diverse. you think america is a melting pot, you need to come here. you never know what language the person you talk to is going to speak! in fact, there was some frusteration because the people working the front desk at our hostel were not, in fact, english so that caused some issues. i mean, of all places, you'd think english would fly in ENGLAND right? i mean wtf lol. \
*nobody wears flip flops! we felt very out of place in our rainbows... atleast we were comfortable!
*native british people are nice. they would notice the abandoned looks on our faces and recongize lost foreigners and try to help. immigrants to london, however, couldn't care less. they could be down right mean! this came up several times. coming to mind now is an asian woman that glared at us the whole bus trip from our hostel to the bus station for taking up space with our luggage...
*they have weird tastes. onion and cheese sandwich anyone?
*overall,, not too different a feel from a place like new york. except everyone has an accent and just LOOKS british. i can't put my finger on how you can distinguish someone from london, but you can. i can't tell if it's the physical features of their face or just the slightly snooty way they carry themselves... either way, you can usually tell if you're about to be confronted with an accent or not.
*oh yeah, and it must SUCK to be a british guard. our walking tour guy took us to one specifically to take pictures with him. jeez that's awful. i mean, i totally went and took a picture with the guard cuz i know a good opportunity when i see one, but seriously... what a job.
i had a whole incoherent piece of paper filled out with dumb thoughts on the UK.. it hink i spared you the really bad ones that i thought were brilliant or humorous on the bus ride from london to paris... either way, london's cool but definitely not *my* european city where i dream to live.
*it's ridiculously diverse. you think america is a melting pot, you need to come here. you never know what language the person you talk to is going to speak! in fact, there was some frusteration because the people working the front desk at our hostel were not, in fact, english so that caused some issues. i mean, of all places, you'd think english would fly in ENGLAND right? i mean wtf lol. \
*nobody wears flip flops! we felt very out of place in our rainbows... atleast we were comfortable!
*native british people are nice. they would notice the abandoned looks on our faces and recongize lost foreigners and try to help. immigrants to london, however, couldn't care less. they could be down right mean! this came up several times. coming to mind now is an asian woman that glared at us the whole bus trip from our hostel to the bus station for taking up space with our luggage...
*they have weird tastes. onion and cheese sandwich anyone?
*overall,, not too different a feel from a place like new york. except everyone has an accent and just LOOKS british. i can't put my finger on how you can distinguish someone from london, but you can. i can't tell if it's the physical features of their face or just the slightly snooty way they carry themselves... either way, you can usually tell if you're about to be confronted with an accent or not.
*oh yeah, and it must SUCK to be a british guard. our walking tour guy took us to one specifically to take pictures with him. jeez that's awful. i mean, i totally went and took a picture with the guard cuz i know a good opportunity when i see one, but seriously... what a job.
i had a whole incoherent piece of paper filled out with dumb thoughts on the UK.. it hink i spared you the really bad ones that i thought were brilliant or humorous on the bus ride from london to paris... either way, london's cool but definitely not *my* european city where i dream to live.
Tuesday, 27 May 2008
bus fiasco pt 2
okay so it looks like i left off when the nice cab driver took a fist full of coins in exchange for a ride home from the bus station. my roommates decided that in order to make the best of the evening, we must go out and find some young people in a pub. unfortunately, it was about 2am. this meant that everyone was already drunk and seeking late night munchies. besides this, we had absolutely no pounds to spend anywhere. we went back to our hostel feeling more dejected than before, determined to rise at 5:30am to get to the bus station and try to get on the 730am bus to Paris. i discovered my ipod was dead and decided it was well worth it to sit in the hall (no outlets in the room) with it while it charged for another 2 hours.
after an early early rise, we made it to the bus station, but found there was no room on it and decided to wait for the, uh, 10am. yeah. 10am. at this point i go to pull out my ipod and find only the headphones. crap. i call the hostel. yep, the ipod was found in my bed. it's about 8:30am at this point and lindsey and rosie go to find food and an internet cafe while i jump on a bus to go back and we decide to meet at 9:30.
at 10:30 i was still on the bus on my way back to the bus station. i receive an upset call from my roommates asking where i am and there had been 3 open seats on the 10am bus and it had just left. oops. long story short, we made it onto a bus an noon. we got to Paris about 11pm. in the rain. it was an interesting enough day though. Rosie sat next to a spanish guy who we've nicknamed "Wiki" partially because he knew EVERYTHING plus statistics to back it up and also because in the 11 hours, nobody thought to ask him his name. we also met an older (late 30s?) english guy who told us he thought prostitution was a good thing and told us a story about a few weeks he spent in Thailand... yeeeah.
anyway, we successfully maneuvered our luggage through the metro to the Richard Lenoire stop and found our hotel! totally lucky. so that was the end of our London leg of the trip! see next entry for my general reflections on the experience.
after an early early rise, we made it to the bus station, but found there was no room on it and decided to wait for the, uh, 10am. yeah. 10am. at this point i go to pull out my ipod and find only the headphones. crap. i call the hostel. yep, the ipod was found in my bed. it's about 8:30am at this point and lindsey and rosie go to find food and an internet cafe while i jump on a bus to go back and we decide to meet at 9:30.
at 10:30 i was still on the bus on my way back to the bus station. i receive an upset call from my roommates asking where i am and there had been 3 open seats on the 10am bus and it had just left. oops. long story short, we made it onto a bus an noon. we got to Paris about 11pm. in the rain. it was an interesting enough day though. Rosie sat next to a spanish guy who we've nicknamed "Wiki" partially because he knew EVERYTHING plus statistics to back it up and also because in the 11 hours, nobody thought to ask him his name. we also met an older (late 30s?) english guy who told us he thought prostitution was a good thing and told us a story about a few weeks he spent in Thailand... yeeeah.
anyway, we successfully maneuvered our luggage through the metro to the Richard Lenoire stop and found our hotel! totally lucky. so that was the end of our London leg of the trip! see next entry for my general reflections on the experience.
Sunday, 25 May 2008
Last day(s) in London
so this will be the first of hopefully 2 or 3 posts i complete in the half hour i have purchased in this internet cafe in paris. let me first insert a disclaimer that keyboards here are screwy. the a,q,w,m and z are in different places for one thing. don't even getme started on the punctuation keys... so just bear with me and the typos :) actually; that was ridiculously hard to write so i might not have the patience to go on for three entries lol.
so on day 2 we did all the main sites: westminster abbey, big ben, buckingham palace, etc etc. over all... and i hate to say this but i was ,uh, underwhelmed(question) (yeah, i can't find the question mark on this dumb keyboard)
i always figured everything was bigger. big ben was pretty short compared to my expectations... i even managed to convince rosie that buckingham palace was not, in fact, buckingham palace because it should be prettier. because of this, she asked someone what building it was (during the changing of the guard, mind you) and got the incredulous response back that it was indeed the palace accompanied by a look to match. well, better her than me i guess haha
i'm just gonna skip to the end now... i shall call this portion of the trip
the london bus station fiasco of 2008
so we had bus tickets for friday at 10 to go overnight to paris. we get to the hostel to pack and check our reservation to find we're supposed to be there an hour early to check in. at this point we panic (it's 8:45) and use the rest of our pounds (except 10 and change maybe) to catch a cab all the way to the Victoria Coach Station. we make it in time to stand in a super long queue (yeah i picked up a few things here). we finally get to the front to check in and the guys like uhhh this is for tomorrow night. ACK!! so we wait around in standby to see if we can get on it anyway. we couldn't. we try to get on the 11pm. no luck there either. at about 1230am we decide to go back to our hostel to sleep a bit, but couldnt find the right bus stop or an underground station. so we are freezing and tired and flag down a cab. about halfway there we realize we definitrely dont have enough money to pay and ask him to take us to an HSBC atm. the poor guy asks us how much we have and we frantically count coins and come up with about 13 or 14 pounds. ugh. the guy was super nice and took the money and dropped us at our location...
oh gosh, i'm running out of time since it takes so stupidly long to type anything on this keyboard. i will finish this exciting tale of adventure and intrigue at a later date.
so on day 2 we did all the main sites: westminster abbey, big ben, buckingham palace, etc etc. over all... and i hate to say this but i was ,uh, underwhelmed(question) (yeah, i can't find the question mark on this dumb keyboard)
i always figured everything was bigger. big ben was pretty short compared to my expectations... i even managed to convince rosie that buckingham palace was not, in fact, buckingham palace because it should be prettier. because of this, she asked someone what building it was (during the changing of the guard, mind you) and got the incredulous response back that it was indeed the palace accompanied by a look to match. well, better her than me i guess haha
i'm just gonna skip to the end now... i shall call this portion of the trip
the london bus station fiasco of 2008
so we had bus tickets for friday at 10 to go overnight to paris. we get to the hostel to pack and check our reservation to find we're supposed to be there an hour early to check in. at this point we panic (it's 8:45) and use the rest of our pounds (except 10 and change maybe) to catch a cab all the way to the Victoria Coach Station. we make it in time to stand in a super long queue (yeah i picked up a few things here). we finally get to the front to check in and the guys like uhhh this is for tomorrow night. ACK!! so we wait around in standby to see if we can get on it anyway. we couldn't. we try to get on the 11pm. no luck there either. at about 1230am we decide to go back to our hostel to sleep a bit, but couldnt find the right bus stop or an underground station. so we are freezing and tired and flag down a cab. about halfway there we realize we definitrely dont have enough money to pay and ask him to take us to an HSBC atm. the poor guy asks us how much we have and we frantically count coins and come up with about 13 or 14 pounds. ugh. the guy was super nice and took the money and dropped us at our location...
oh gosh, i'm running out of time since it takes so stupidly long to type anything on this keyboard. i will finish this exciting tale of adventure and intrigue at a later date.
Thursday, 22 May 2008
Groggy London Arrival
So we made it! there were a few bumps along the way, but we're actually in London now in an internet cafe. The trouble began on the first leg of the journey when the man at the gate at Dulles told me there were no seats for me because it'd been oversold. Luckily, a total of 18 people didn't show, giving me a seat right up front. The flight from Montreal to London was iffy. On Tuesday night, I reserved a seat in the back where nobody else was sitting yet in a (futile) attempt to nab myself a window seat with a vacant seat next to it to stretch out on. Not only did I have a seat buddy, but directly behind me was a pregnant woman with a very small boy who hasn't yet mastered the english language. he is, however, quite fluent in french and screaming. kicking, too. needless to say, i'm not feeling too well rested today.
we rolled into hethrow and took the train to Kings Cross (yes, like in Harry Potter) and lugged our suitcases up a bagillion steps (ok dad, now i'm glad to have packed so light... lindsey and rosie are struggling a bit with their suitcases.) and down the longest road ever (Kings Cross Road). we got lost because the road kept on splitting and we couldn't tell which way we wanted to go, but luckily a nice old british man asked if we needed help and got us back on track. probably the best part was when he directed us to cross the zebra (pronounced 'zeh-bra') crossing :P okay maybe i'm just easily amused.
right now we're trying to figure out how to get to paris on saturday. all trains are booked. rosie and lindsey have vouchers for tickets and they can't even get any without paying another £300 (i love that there's a £ key on this keyboard!) right now they're researching other ways to get there while i transfer money into my checking account and kick off my new blog. i'm rooting for a ferry across the channel, but we'll just have to see.
so to sum things up, i'm very very tired. we can't check into the hostel for another 2 hours and my roommates want to go on a walking tour of london at 3 and i can barely keep my head up.
i suppose that's it for now. off for some food and coffee to hopefully get me through this day. sorry for the lack of pictures, i have no way of posting them here.
we rolled into hethrow and took the train to Kings Cross (yes, like in Harry Potter) and lugged our suitcases up a bagillion steps (ok dad, now i'm glad to have packed so light... lindsey and rosie are struggling a bit with their suitcases.) and down the longest road ever (Kings Cross Road). we got lost because the road kept on splitting and we couldn't tell which way we wanted to go, but luckily a nice old british man asked if we needed help and got us back on track. probably the best part was when he directed us to cross the zebra (pronounced 'zeh-bra') crossing :P okay maybe i'm just easily amused.
right now we're trying to figure out how to get to paris on saturday. all trains are booked. rosie and lindsey have vouchers for tickets and they can't even get any without paying another £300 (i love that there's a £ key on this keyboard!) right now they're researching other ways to get there while i transfer money into my checking account and kick off my new blog. i'm rooting for a ferry across the channel, but we'll just have to see.
so to sum things up, i'm very very tired. we can't check into the hostel for another 2 hours and my roommates want to go on a walking tour of london at 3 and i can barely keep my head up.
i suppose that's it for now. off for some food and coffee to hopefully get me through this day. sorry for the lack of pictures, i have no way of posting them here.
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