From France to Belgium

The rest of the Paris time was fun, but I'm glad it's over - too many crowds, too expensive, etc. We spent our 2nd day mainly at the Louvre (a total of 6.5 hours + 2 hours the next day!). I didn't think I'd enjoy myself that much, since I'm generally not a huge fan of museums, but I had a great time at the Louvre. The art was amazing but I especially loved the architecture and decor of the palace-turned-museum. The Grande Galerie was soooo long and housed more paintings than I would've dreamed. I didn't do the popular "Da Vinci Code Tour" but I did think alot about the novel as I was touring!



The "Chalice" at the Louvre

Yesterday morning Aleesha and I decided that learning about the history of Paris might be helpful, so we met up with a free guided walking tour of the city. First of all, I would highly recommend this tour to anyone going to any major city (it's a group called NewParis/NewAmsterdam/New___ tours). I learned way more about France's history, included crazy details about the Revolution, than I ever learned in years of social studies in high school! Also, our guide was a student living in Paris and currently going to mime school - how cool is that? We were guided around Paris by a mime!

The craaaziest thing, though, was WHO we saw on the tour. Someone tapped on my shoulder and I turned around, and it was Galvin and Dave! I couldn't believe it - what are the chances that old friends of ours from 1st year at UBC would show up in the same city, on the same tour, at the same time of day?! Ridiculous. Anyways, it was really fun seeing familiar faces and catching up!

After the walking tour I hit up the Bastille and Notre Dame. Notre Dame was beautiful - so much stained glass and amazing architecture. In the evening (post-Louvre revisit), we ascended the Eiffel Tower. I've gotta say, though, it was sort of underwhelming. Way too crowded, overpriced, took way too long to get to the top, and though the view was nice, it didn't blow my mind. I guess it's just one of those must-do's.

Inside of Notre-Dame

This morning we trekked out to the Chateau de Versailles but decided (upon seeing both the line up and the admission prices) to skip the indoor tour in favour of outdoor wandering. We ended up wandering all around the land and discovering a bunch of cool sights that I bet most people don't know exist - lots of beautiful gardens and fountains, tons of farmland (horses, cows, sheep!), and pretty archways. We also somehow found our way to Marie Antoinette's estate, which was nice.

Random ad in a metro station - Inside joke for the Quebecois that are reading this!

I'll only say one more thing about Paris: I'm laying off the carbs for awhile. I haven't been eating terribly bad food or anything... but I've been eating pretty much only bread. I do love bread (as most of you know) but I think I'm actually sick of it...

So, we're now in Belgium, in a smaller (but still touristy) town called Bruges. It's such a nice change from the busy-ness of Paris! The houses are small and cute and have a ton of character, and everyone seems to cycle rather than drive around the town. I think we'll rent bikes and ride along the canal tomorrow. No plans for tonight - just relaxing and recuperating after exhausting ourselves in France.



Bruges city centre

Anyways, to sum up: Paris = great history, crazy drivers, expensive and crowded, but fun. Bruges (so far) = quaint and relaxing (except for the language barrier)

Talk soon!

Alive!

Well, 3 days in and we're still alive! We arrived in London yesterday around noon after a dreadfully long flight - Comments on my experience are as follows:

1) 11 hours is long
2) babies are annoying
3) I may never do another Sudoku puzzle again

We spent the day randomly wandering the London streets and saw the biggies (Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the London Eye), but my favourite part had to be the boardwalk. The street performers were amazing and the weather was perfect. I'm really looking forward to spending a solid 3 days there before I fly back home in August!

Oh dear...

We hopped on an overnight bus to Paris (consequently getting next to no sleep) but it was nice getting into the city early this morning. Today's been a blast so far... the Champs-Elysees were a little underwhelming I thought, but I pranced along singing the song and that made it better. We visited the Eiffel Tower but haven't gone up yet, and are planning on doing that tomorrow night once it gets all lit up in the dark. The highlight of my day was the Arc de Triomphe - we seriously stood atop, watching the insane traffic circle for about a half hour. So mesmerizing... so many cars/buses/bikes, no marked lanes or traffic lights, and somehow no one gets hurt!

View of crazy Paris traffic from atop the Arc de Triomphe!

Tonight we're planning on taking a night cruise on the Seine, and tomorrow we're hitting up the Louvre - We've just found a hostel for the next 3 days and I'm definitely looking forward to sleeping in a bed tonight (as opposed to an airplane or bus seat)!

Other comments...

My biggest beef so far has to be the pay-toilets. These things are torture to cheap people like me. Since I refuse to pay to use the restroom, I've been working myself into various states of discomfort to save 20p. Too many details? Sorry.

London pay-toilets

The Parisian metro system is amazing. You can get anywhere you want sooo easily! Take Vancouver's skytrain, make it more efficient/organized, and multiply it by about 15 lines.

Practicing my French (or trying to at least) has been fun today. I know I can do better, though. But yeah... it's fun speaking and having the locals actually understand you!

I've been taking photos like crazy but until I figure out how to upload them, use your imaginations.

I'm missing home quite a bit right now but the excitement of the rest of the trip is a good distraction. That being said, I'm also looking forward to being home!

Alright, I think that's it for now, my web time is running out. Will update in a few days!

Testing, 1, 2, 3...

Hello! After some urging from a couple friends, I've decided to make a travel blog... so, uh, welcome! Please bear with me as I try to figure out how this works; those who know me well (or even a little bit) know that I'm terrible with technology.

The past few days have been absolutely insane. Thursday and Friday saw the end of my summer job and a handful of sad goodbyes to some Quebecois friends. Friday evening I (finally) moved out of UBC rez with a ton of help from my Dad and Heather, who are both awesome. I'm now in Abbotsford and find myself totally overwhelmed by the boxes and boxes of "stuff" I moved back with me... apparently I'm a junk collector, and the 5 years I spent in rez allowed me to accumulate ALOT of junk.

Anyways, most of the stuff will be sorted through and organized when I get back. If I was normal I'd be dreading it, but because I'm mildly OCD I'm actually quite excited about the idea of cleaning up the clutter. For now though, my main focus is trip planning and making sure I have everything I'll need for the next 6 weeks.

So... what's the plan? Right now the trip looks sort of like this (obviously subject to change):

London
Paris
Brussels
Amsterdam
Berlin
Prague
Vienna, Salzburg
Venice, Rome, Cinque-Terre
Lucerne
Freiburg
Bern, Geneva
Nice, Marseille, Arles, Avignon
Barcelona, Madrid
Dublin, Belfast
London

Aleesha and I leave tomorrow (eek!) and I'm back August 5... with every intention of showing up for ultimate the next day. In the meantime, I'll try to keep this up to date, and I'll try to be entertaining too (no guarantees). Looking forward to seeing many of you either at various points along the trip, or soon after I get back!