Oh The Places We’ll Go

This is probably just going to be a quick update since we haven’t really done a whole lot since I last posted about our adventures.  Last night in London we ended up meeting some really cool people and stayed up talking with them until 2 in the morning.  We met a really nice girl from Holland who was telling us all about foreigners and Amsterdam, where to go in Holland and how exciting California seems.  We also met a guy from Australia who just got into London after bussing around the entire US for 4 months.  He did it on the GREYHOUND BUS, and I told him I’m surprised he’s still alive after that.  Haha.  Could you imagine going through the whole US on a GREYHOUND?  Sounds insanely scary and sketchy.  Don’t know if I would recommend that one, but he told us California was cool and he liked SF, so it was all good.  We also met a nice guy from Vancouver (yes, another west coaster!), whom I dazzled with my Canadian TV knowledge and my hockey knowledge.  Pretty cool.

Our day today was pretty much entirely spent on a bus.  We got to the Victoria Coach Station (they call them coaches here, not busses) and it was CHAOS because there were so many people and not enough spaces on one bus to Manchester, so they got 2 busses going.  Thomas and I sat in front and behind of each other, which was fine.  What was not fine, however, was the African man sitting next to us who was playing his radio/cellphone REALLY LOUD so the whole bus could hear it, talking on his cell phone the entire bus trip.  We both wanted to kill him by halfway through the trip.  Plus, the bus was stuffy and smelled weird, but it got us to where we needed to go so I guess it all works out in the end.  It took probably 5 hours for us to get to Manchester from London, which isn’t too bad, and after getting in we found our hostel really easily and settled in.  So far we are the lone occupants of our room so we’re crossing our fingers it stays that way!

Other than that, it’s a little gloomy and rainy outside, but everyone has been telling me I had better get used to it because that’s what Scotland is like all the time.  If I had waterproof shoes I think I’d be more excited about the rain because I don’t mind not having the sun out all the time, but since my Pumas are cloth instead of leather… they aren’t too much fun to walk around in when it’s wet outside.

The plan for tomorrow is to go to Old Trafford at 12:30 because I have our tour reservations (yes, I made sure I made reservations, haha), and we’re going to tour the stadium so Thomas’s life will be complete and he can finally get some new Manchester United gear.  I, on the other hand, will try to refrain because I will be a convert to the green and white (Celtic FC) and I need to save myself for their gear so I can wear it when Manchester United plays Celtic in October!  I can’t wait.  There isn’t much else to do in Manchester so I think we may hit up the movie theaters tomorrow to see something, and other than that just sleep in and relax.  London was a lot of walking and not much resting so it’ll be nice to sit back and enjoy the ride for the first time in a while.

Other than that, we’re just waiting to get to Scotland and see Glasgow so I can get myself situated and ready for the arrival of my friends from school and get going with orientations and everything!  Can’t wait.  Will let everyone know how Old Trafford goes.

Catherine

We are finally in an English speaking country and loving it.  No more being afraid to ask directions, no more wondering if we’re going the right way or if we’re accidentally walking to our deaths since we don’t understand the signs- we are in the English speaking world and everything is open and bright.

Maybe bright isn’t the right word, especially here in London.  It’s a little darker and gloomier than the other places we’ve been, but cool with a light breeze is a huge improvement over the weather we were dealing with in places like Rome and Venice.  We’ll take cool and dreary, just don’t make us sweat like the Italians did.  This is our last night here in London and we already have our bus tickets to go up to Manchester here.  Turns out the prices are pretty good around here on the bus.  The trains are insanely expensive, something like over 120 pounds just to go on the train up to Manchester for one person when on the National Express coach (bus), you can go with two people for around 40 pounds the same distance.

Our first real day here in London, Thursday, was spent going to all of the big museums around town.  The Brits know the perfect cost for their museums (my favorite ‘f’ word)- FREE.  Yes, free.  We made our way up to North London to see the British Museum, which has a lot of Egyptian, Japanese, various cultures art.  The coolest part of that museum is that they have the Rosetta Stone, which helped for modern day scientists to unlock the code to understanding ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.  The rest of the museum is alright, but the Rosetta Stone is insanely cool.  Nearby the British Museum is the British National Library which houses a bunch of old books and historical manuscripts, like one of Shakespeare’s First Folio’s, old Bibles, and even one of the 7 copies of the Magna Carta that are in existence.  Way cool.  There isn’t a huge museum or anything, it’s more of a library than anything else, but it’s still insanely awesome.

The other two museums we saw that day were the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery.  The National Gallery is pretty big, has a lot of different kinds of art inside of it.  Lots of Dutch Art, Medieval Art, all categorized and separated pretty well.  They have one of van Gogh’s “Sunflower” paintings inside the gallery, so that was the highlight for me.  The National Portrait Gallery, however, was my absolute favorite museum of the day.  The gallery has all different kinds of portraits inside, from one of the only known portraits of William Shakespeare, to royal portraits of Elizabeth II, to modern paintings of famous people from today.  Even one of Paul McCartney from the Beatles!  There was a lot to look at and since they were from all through history, you definitely don’t get bored looking at all of the different famous figures in British history.  After walking all through Trafalgar Square, where the National Galleries are, we headed back to the hostel and crashed.

Friday was our Abbey Road day, so Thomas and I headed up to St. John’s Wood station in North London to see the famous crosswalk where the Beatles took their Abbey Road album cover photo, and where Abbey Road Studios is (or was, we weren’t sure if it’s still there).  The actual intersection is really close to the tube station, where Grove End meets Abbey Road.  Turns out it’s a pretty busy street since there are so many cars going back and forth.  It’s nearly impossible to take a picture there!  There was a guy with some camera equipment set up taking photos of this girl walking back and forth across the crosswalk, so that made it even harder to take a proper photo.  Oh, well I got my picture.  We got a picture of the Abbey Road Studios and there is TONS of writing outside on the posts.  Lots of Beatles quotes, little drawings of John Lennon and things.  It’s all really cool.

After that we headed towards Buckingham Palace to see where the Queen lives.  Now where Abbey Road is located is a really nice ritzy neighborhood, but Buckingham Palace is where the LOADED people live.  Oh my God, the houses around there are absolutely insane.  There’s this really nice park next to the palace and the gates outside of the palace are guilded in solid gold.  Yes, solid gold.  The woman knows how to decorate in style I guess.  The Union Jack was flying, which means that the Queen isn’t in residence (probably at Windsor Castle for summer), but the Palace guards are still outside.  They’re pretty far from the gate, actually, but still cool to see them.  We walked from the Palace to Westminster Abbey and Houses of Parliament where Big Ben is!  Big Ben is insanely large, and dings really really loud, but it’s still awesome to look at.  Houses of Parliament are really nice too, the architecture is insanely intricate.  It’s pretty expensive to get INSIDE everything, 10 pounds for Parliament and 10 pounds for Westminster Abbey, so we just looked at them from outside and admired them from afar.  We walked from there to the London Eye across the river, which is a huge ferris wheel.  Cool, I guess?  There was no way we were going inside since it takes over a half hour to go 1 turn around and the line is insane, so we came back to the hostel and watched Semi-Pro with Will Ferrell before calling it a night.

Our last day here, today, was spent at the Tower of London seeing where they chopped off some heads and gawking at the Crown Jewels!  The Tower of London is a really cool place since it’s like a mini town inside the middle of the city.  They give you a map and a little tour around the place, little set-ups and messages up on the walls through these corridors so you can see what they did in the different areas of the Tower of London.  Where they prisoned people, beheaded people, where the King slept, stuff like that.  The highlight of the whole thing is the Crown Jewels, which are definitely worth seeing once in your life.  Not only are the diamonds absolutely INSANE, but even the dishware is impressive.  Solid gold plates, spoons, cups.  I mean, really.  Absolutely everything you could imagine guilded in gold.  They had videos of the Queen being crowned and coronated way way long ago, which was kind of cool.  Soon enough someone else will be coronated and hopefully I’ll get to watch it on TV along with everyone else in the world.

After the Tower of London, Thomas and I headed to the Globe Theater, which was reconstructed in 1997 off of the original layout of the Globe Theater from the 1660’s where Shakespeare’s most important and famous works were performed.  The original burned down, they rebuilt it, and then after Shakespeare died a few years later they tore the Globe Theater 2 down.  Before 1997, there wasn’t anything but a plaque in South End showing anything about Shakespeare but I guess some American came to London and after seeing that there was NOTHING honoring Shakespeare’s work, he decided to build a new Globe himself.  Pretty cool.  You get a whole history of Shakespeare’s career, different aspects of the culture and everything from back then, and then a tour of the theater itself.  Really cool tour, especially for someone like me who LOVES Shakespeare.  I looked at the list of his plays and I’ve read at least 15 of them, if not more.  Insane.

We finally did laundry here in London as well, which NEEDED to be done.  I can’t stress enough how badly we needed to do laundry here.  We haven’t done real laundry in a machine since Rome.  … That was a long long time ago, needless to say.  It was pretty cheap actually, but then again most basic things around here are.  Fish and chips?  2 pounds.  Yes, 2 pounds.  Score.  The food here in general is really good in London.  We found this pizza place with the BEST garlic dough balls in the history of the world.  They are freaking magical, I swear.  We’re going back for dinner tonight.

Manchester’s itinerary basically includes… Old Trafford.  Yes, we are going to Manchester simply to see Manchester United’s stadium.  I shall enjoy it now as I am still a Red Devils fan, but it’s moreso for Thomas than anything else.  Once I go to Scotland, I shall be a converted Celtic fan and the green and white will run through my veins.  My life’s goal right now is to get tickets to Celtic FC vs. Manchester United in Glasgow on October 21st since that’s the first leg of their Champions League matchup.  The city is going to go absolutely insane.  I can’t wait!!  Plus, World Cup qualifiers for Scotland are during the football season this season, so I will be cheering for the blue and white all the way.  Yay!

I think I forgot to mention we went up to Wembley after seeing Abbey Road, which is where the England National Football team plays.  It’s absolutely HUGE.  Oh my God, the football stadium is the biggest stadium I have ever seen in my life, and I have seen some really big ones.  Ohio State’s stadium fits over 80,000 and this thing was even bigger than that.  For reals.

I’ll get Thomas to do the next post so he can tell everyone all about Manchester United and Old Trafford.  Until then, I’m still working on uploading pictures.  Worst comes to worst, I get my computer back in like, 9 days so there will finally be pictures up by then.  Swear!

Bye!

I haven’t really had the opportunity to write a comprehensive post about Paris yet, so this may be a long one. All of the keyboards we found in Paris were set up with the French keyboard setting, which made it really insanely hard to type when you are a lightning fast typer on the normal American setup, and we just plain never had enough time to do posts since we had so much to do in Paris.

The Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower, which we both saw on Saturday after getting in on Friday night/Saturday morning, are both spectacular to see in person. The Notre Dame is in a great part of town full of historic buildings with streets lined with French flags. There are lots of cool little shops and creperies around everywhere, and you can walk in no time to the Louvre from it. The cathedral itself is really cool looking. Great gothic architecture, lots of pigeons outside and best, not a lot of tourists! Yay! Inside the cathedral there are a lot of candles around to make offerings and prayers to the different saints, and there is this really cool stained glass window inside. We were inside with enough time to see a little bit of a sermon, cool looking catholic people all decked out in the robes and everything, but the operatic hymn singing was too much for us to handle. One note about our first impressions of Paris: there are no public bathrooms ANYWHERE. Not in the stations, not on the streets (or at least none that are working or open). Very frustrating, as we discovered on multiple occasions, one being scattering around the Notre Dame area trying to find a toilet.

The Eiffel Tower is really cool both during the day and at night, when it lights up blue. You think it’s a lot closer than it is when you’re walking, but it takes FOREVER to walk to from the Louvre. Thomas and I both were like, oh it can’t be that far from here, let’s go look around and then 40 minutes later we were there. It took forever. The lines are insane to go up the Eiffel Tower, especially when we were there because the sun was just starting to set. We found a cool spot 10 minutes away by walking where there’s a long park with lots of grass to see the tower, perfect for picnicking or something, and sat down for at least an hour watching the Eiffel Tower go from daytime to nighttime and lighting up. It’s a pretty cool sight, and was really relaxing since you just get to soak in the nighttime and the atmosphere. Wow, I’m in Paris looking at the Eiffel Tower. Really really cool.

Our whole day on Sunday was spent recovering from my sickness in the morning, which kept us at our hotel longer than I think either of us anticipated, and traveling to Versailles. Now let me note this for future travelers to Versailles: DO NOT GO ON SUNDAY. The lines are absolutely insane at Versailles on Sunday. The trip there was really easy. Hop on a train headed to Versailles (one of the RER trains, regional transit), and get off at the last stop, walk for 5 minutes and you’re there. Once you get to Versailles there are tons of African men outside trying to sell you Eiffel Tower statues that light up, keychains 3 for 1 euro, all different kinds of stuff. Then you get through the golden gates and discover the line to buy tickets, and want to shoot yourself because the line is so long. Let me say that we have stood in many long lines to get into places in Europe, from Italy to Spain, but this line was by far the longest and the slowest moving. At least an hour and a half passed and we were finally with tickets in hand, headed to the royal palace and through the gates. Then, I had to go to the bathroom. Another line, at least 20 minutes waiting, and I was done with lines for the rest of my life. Too many lines, too many people. Kill me. The palace itself is fine. It looks a lot cooler on the outside than it does on the inside. The inside has a lot of old paintings and furniture including Marie Antionette’s bed, but the rooms are so ’set up’ and fake looking that it takes away from a lot of the impact the antiques should have on you. That, and there are SO MANY damn people inside to look at everything you want to scream, since no one knows how to move over or walk properly. So frustrating. We got outside to look at the gardens, but realized we didn’t have a ticket to go down to the far lawns and opted against the long ass line to buy tickets and just headed back to the train station for Paris. Versailles was a big let down, but it had to be done. After Versailles we just headed back to our hotel since it was getting late, laid down, and watched MTV Austria when all of a sudden Jackass came on MTV! For those of you who can appreciate the amazingness that is Jackass, this was quite the moment for Thomas and I. It was especially funny since the episode that was on was set in Paris, including a Metro stop bench that we had seen before. Very funny.

Monday was our Euro Disney and Louvre day, so we woke up really early to get going and beat the crowds at the Louvre. I was very disappointed since McMuffins aren’t sold until 8 in the morning, so I didn’t get breakfast. Very sad. We made it to the Louvre right as it was opening, bought our tickets with no line and no hassle and started walking around the museum headed for Mona (the Mona Lisa). Turns out I read the map wrong inside of the Louvre and we started from the complete opposite end of the museum, but it all worked out fine since we got to see all of the artifacts and art in all of the other areas before seeing the Mona Lisa. There is a LOT of stuff inside the Louvre since the building itself is massive AND there are 3 floors of things inside. It’s really clean and really well organized, since they give you a map to get around and show you where everything is. There’s Egyptian art, Mesopotamian, Islamic, Greek, Roman, French, sculptures, paintings, mosaics, everything. Even a Medieval castle wall. Yes, parts of the castle are in the Louvre. It’s pretty cool. The Mona Lisa itself is in with all of the Italian art and paintings, and is in this room with absolutely MASSIVE paintings that take up entire walls. The painting itself of the Mona Lisa is on this wall and is the only painting on the entire wall. People make it sound like it’s insanely small, but Thomas and I both thought that it was a good sized painting since it was a portrait. You can’t get very close to it since it’s blocked off, but that’s ok since you can see it pretty well. We got our picture of Mona and went on our way to the Metro since we were done, and headed for Euro Disney!

Euro Disney (otherwise known as Disneyland Paris) is located off of the RER A, at the last stop on the line. It’s insanely easy to get to from Paris and pretty cheap, since it cost a grand total of 10 euros for both Thomas and I to get there. You get off the train, head toward the Disneyland Paris sign, and boom. You’re there. Disneyland Paris is a lot like the Disneyland in Anaheim, but obviously all of the signs are in both French and English. They even have 2 parks there like the Disneyland in Paris; Disneyland and then the MGM Studios with more rides. For the most part they have all of the same rides; Indiana Jones, Space Mountain, Pirates of the Carribean, etc. The only difference really is that Indiana Jones isn’t a ride, it’s a roller coaster, and Space Mountain is also more of a roller coaster. Kind of sucks, but it’s alright. We made up for it by going on a NEW ride (one that neither of us had seen before or been on at either Disneyland or Disneyworld), and that was the Finding Nemo ride at the MGM Studios Park! It was the best ride of the day by far, even with the long line. It’s an indoor ride kind of like Space Mountain, but with a lot of the Finding Nemo stuff inside like jellyfish, the monsters with the light bulbs coming out of their heads, etc. Thomas and I think they should build it in California. We would definitely go! The funny moment of the day was my face on the on-ride picture from Space Mountain. I looked like I was being electrocuted. Thomas and I nearly peed our pants laughing so hard at the picture, I swear. Disneyland Paris closed at 11, so we left right around then and hopped on the train back to Paris and our hotel, making it back into our room about an hour or so later. Disneyland Paris was definitely worth it, but our feet hurt so badly afterwards because we had such a long day. Mine felt like they were CONVULSING they hurt so bad.

Our most frustrating day in France was going out to Caen to try and see Omaha Beach. Let me preface by saying Thomas and I went with no idea and no agenda of what to do when we got into Caen. We had directions to get to the Museum in Caen, but other than that had no clue how to get to Omaha Beach or the American Cemetary in Normandy. Turns out it’s a lot harder than we thought it would be! First off, the bus to get to the Museum never came to the spot it said it could come to. We had a limited amount of time in Caen, so Thomas and I went on a gut and took a regional train up to Bayeux, which is a lot closer to Omaha Beach. Bayeux is an insanely small town and has a lot of ads for Omaha Beach everywhere, but getting a private tour was too expensive and more than that, we didn’t have enough time to waste to go on a private tour. We walked for 20 minutes to a WWII museum to figure out how to get to Omaha Beach, got instructions for a bus, and walked back to the train station, but the bus never came at the time it said. Story of my life. We both looked at a clock, looked at each other, and caved to take the taxis that were at the train station since we were running out of time and had to see the beaches.

The taxi ride had a fixed price so it wasn’t too steep of a price.  We knew we weren’t going to come out all of this way to not see anything, so it was worth it in the long run.  Right when you get to the American Cemetary there is this great information hub with videos, interviews, information, like a miniature museum for information all about D-Day and the days leading up to that day in June.  It’s really well set up and the people who work there are super helpful.  We got a timetable for the bus and the leaving spot, so we were set for getting back!  Sweet.  The pictures are all fantastic inside of the museum, and there are all different kind of personal stories set up inside with quotes from Eisenhower and different officials and people involved with WWII.  From there you can go into the American Cemetery where there are rows upon rows of crosses each laid out with different plot letters and row numbers so you can find the exact one that you want to find.  It was really cool seeing the cemetery since you see it on so many movies and everything, being there in person makes it so much more powerful.  The cemetery is right on the cliffs looking out on to Omaha Beach, which is a really nice beach minus the fact that thousands and thousands of American soldiers were killed there.  We didn’t have enough time to go down on to the beach itself since it’s a 10 minute walk down but 20 minute walk back up, so we walked out of the cemetery and headed over to a different part of the cliff where there was a bunker!  Yes, a real bunker near this little monument.  Thomas and I walked down the steps into the bunker, and there was nothing inside but it was still really cool to be inside a bunker.  After a couple more minutes we headed to the bus stop and got on the bus.  3 euros to get back to the train station.  Geez, why couldn’t we have found the bus before!?  Haha.  We got back to the station, got to Caen on the train, and then got on our train to Paris.  Easy.

After we got into Paris we went to go and have dinner but ran into a little issue since there wasn’t a bathroom around ANYWHERE.  I literally was about to pee my pants I needed a bathroom so badly, but luckily we found a pub just in the nick of time and they let us use their bathroom.  Thank.  God.

We left Paris this morning at around 12:10 and got into London at about 1:30 local time, so 2:30 Paris time.  The train was SO fast, we didn’t even realize we were in England after going under the English Channel until we saw people driving on the wrong side of the road!  Crazy.  Our hostel is RIGHT near the London Eye, which is really cool, so we’re going to go and explore tomorrow and look around.  We’re just happy to be in a country where people speak English.  What a relief, no language lost in translation.

Overall people in France are pretty cool.  People try and make it out like they’re really mean but I think they’re more indifferent than anything else.  Waiters don’t go out of their way really to try and help you, but it’s not like they’re angry or rude or anything.  Just indifferent.  Waiters are a lot more hands off too.  They come, get your order, give you your food, and give you the check when you ask for it.  No overly happy anything, annoying chatty moments.  Just in and out, do your job, thanks for the money, now get out.  People we did talk to from France are pretty cool, not that they’re warm and sunny but if you need help they’re ready and willing if you ask.  If you TRY to speak French they seem to be a lot more willing, since you’re making the effort.  Like at Disneyland Paris I asked for my ticket entirely in French (broken, I’m sure… ‘Deux a Paris, merci’) but even then the lady was really nice and gave me the tickets no problem.  Paris is a busy busy city, and there is entirely too much to see even in the days that we were there, but what you DO get to see is pretty awesome.  Oh, and the Metro going everywhere isn’t half bad either.

We’re excited about being in London with people who speak English and will be here for 4 days, with easy internet access so most likely postings won’t be in these huge globs like they’re novels.  Nope, more easy since I can post them more often.  After London, I believe it’s on to Manchester and then Glasgow.  I have no idea when Thomas is going to be home but that’s not at least for a week and a half or so, so I’ll post when we’ve parted ways and I’m solo in Scotland.

We’re off to find food so I’ll post more later.

Bye!

Ok so here we go…..while i may not be the writer-extraordinaire that Catherine is, I’ll do my best. So to summarize the previous post, it took ALL DAY to get to Paris. We left Barcelona where we had an awesome time and took a train to Montpeiller where we waited about 4 hours until we left for Lyon.

Montpeiller was nice as it was right on the coast of France and the weather was decent. The entire 4 hours we were there was spent sitting on a bench in the train station that smelled like a huge group of homeless guys peed near our seats. Why we sat there escapes me! Not only that but this weird old French guy kept walking past us every 5 minutes or so, grunting loudly and smelling of vomit. He looked like he was having the hardest time walking around and eventually thought it would be nice to come sit right next to me while Catherine was up checking the Departure Boards. AWESOME! The real icing on my cake right there.

So we leave Montpeiller to go to Lyon and then Paris. We arrive in Paris around 12:30 and make it to the hostel around 1:00. The Metro system here is really nice since you can take it pretty much anywhere. Why would anyone own a car here? Really? You dont need one at all. You could easily live on the outskirts of Paris and take the Metro into the city any time you wanted.

So Saturday we saw the Notre Dame cathedral, and it was epic. You walk up to this thing and you just look at all the detail they put into this church and you’re in shock at how beautiful it is. You wonder how someone could think up a design like they did. Its amazing. I actually expected it to be a bit bigger just from seeing it in movies and such but it was still amazing. The inside of the cathedral was even better with all the stained glass windows and the Mass going on at the time. It was really cool.

We spent the rest of the day walking from the Notre Dame to the Louvre to take pictures, and then on to the Eiffel Tower to see it as the sun set. At night it lights up blue! We took a million pictures…..probably too many but oh well. We didnt do much else since Catherine didnt get out of bed until 1:00 since she is sick. She’s been coughing and sneezing ever since we got here. On the train ride from Lyon to Paris she slept on the seat-back tray and woke up in a pool of snot and was like “meh, screw it…..whatever.” GROSS!

Today was the Louvre Museum and it was HUGE! We walked so much it was rediculous. We saw quite a few famous works of art. We saw the Code of Hammurabi, The Dying Slave by Michelangelo, Venus de Milo, and of course the Mona Lisa. All of the art was amazing.

We are on our way to Disneyland Paris and will update when we are done!

Peace

-Thomas

We made it safely and soundly here to the city of lights, otherwise known as Paris.  After waking up extremely early and heading to our train station in Barcelona, we almost wished that we would have stayed longer in Spain because it was such a good and fun time.  Lots of life, fun, adventure, everything you could need when you just want to sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

The journey to get to Paris took absolutely FOREVER.  We had to take 4 different trains to get here since we didnt want to spend the 70 euros on a hoteltrain to get here.  From Barcelona we went to a small town in the south of France whose name escapes me at the moment, Montpiller, Lyon, and then on to Paris.  In total: 17 hours on the train.  Yes, seventeen long and horrible hours on the train to get to Paris, finally arriving at 1 in the morning to the freezing cold that has englufed Paris over the last week.

Let me also add that I am extremely sick at the moment.  Nothing close to going to the hospital or anything, but a wonderful combination of runny noses, loud sneezing, congested lungs, drowsy, headaches.  All of the wonderful things you would love to be feeling for a 17 hour journey to Paris, not to mention all along the way to all of the sights.  I’m still sick, and it sucks, but hopefully it will be gone soon so I won’t have to deal with all of the grossness that comes along with being sick.

As for Paris, it is an absolutely AMAZING city.  So much to do, so much to see, everything is a visual wonder.  After we got in late on Friday night we made our way to Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower on Saturday to check out the city.  Notre Dame is amazing, well kept up and stunning inside.  I said a curse word inside the cathedral.  Woops, it happens.  Does that mean I am going to hell?  Hmmm…

The keyboards here in France are different so it is VERY hard to type with all the keys in weird places.  Hopefully I can find one that is set up like the American ones so I can post more about what France is like!

I’ll go into details more later, promise.  Euro Disney tomorrow with the Mona Lisa, then on to Normandy and off to Jolly ol’ London. 

Until then, Au Revior!

We made it safely and soundly here to Barcelona on Tuesday morning after an eventful and interesting train ride from Milan into Spain. We left Milan after killing our 6 hours of downtime reading, playing video games, updating our journals, and making random phone calls to places in the States to people whose phone numbers we had. The train we were on was a hotel train, so we each had our own beds even though we were in separate cabins since they separate men and women (obviously) so that it makes it more comfortable and secure. I had 2 people staying with me in my cabin; a Spanish girl who didn’t speak any English, and an Italian girl with Koolaid red hair who was traveling with her balding boyfriend.

The ride itself went by pretty quickly. I read my book, wrote in my journal some more, went to the drink car with Thomas and had a Carlsburg and some Doritos (yes, I was pretty happy about that). Bedtime was a lot more interesting though. Sure, the bed was fine for what it was: a board with a mattress on it and very uncomfortable blankets. The Spaniard, however, was the loudest female snorer I have ever met in my entire life. The wax earplugs my mom gave me have come in handy with Thomas, but they literally saved my life on that damn train.

We got into Barcelona around 9 in the morning and headed towards the subway station to get to our hostel here. Getting around Barcelona, turns out, is pretty easy. They have a very extensive Metro system so you can get everywhere and anywhere just by hopping on and off. Our hostel was off of the green line, Les Corts. The hostel, the Sant Jordi Hostel, is the best one we’ve stayed in yet. The rooms are fine, but the kitchen is what puts it over the top. We’ve finally been able to have some normal food, eggs for breakfast and toast to go with it. I think we’re going to make some normal food for dinner since we haven’t had ‘normal’ food since we left the States. The people here are absolutely awesome. We’ve had a good time with Jo and Leah, two Aussies from Melbourne who are backpacking around all of Europe separately but have met up a few times in random places, obviously one of them being Barcelona.

Spain definitely has a different feel to it than Italy does. Obviously being in California and being so close to Mexico has its perks when trying to understand Spanish. There are words that I know: please, thank you, what is your name, etc. Spanish in Spain, though, is a little different than Spanish they speak in Mexico. They pronouce the ‘c’ sound a lot differently, so it sounds like they have a lisp instead of pronouncing the sound. You have to hear it- it’s pretty funny. The food is a lot scarier than Italian food. Thomas and I aren’t the most adventurous eaters in the world, so all of the seafood on the food here is a little frightening. Spanish cuisine is all about the tapas, which are little snack foods that come with all different kinds of things on them, some scary like with octopus and some with normal things. I’m not brave enough to try any of them but we saw sardines on pizza the other day. Umm… gross.

Our first day in Barcelona on Tuesday was spent figuring out the Metro and going to the Picasso Museum near the Ramblas, which is the party central street here in Barcelona. During the day, the richies go there to shop at Chanel and Louis Vuitton, and at night the young crowd comes out to play going to bar after bar until 8 in the morning. The Picasso Museum is a pretty amazing museum featuring works from all across Picasso’s art career, beginning with his early portrait work and ending with his more experimental stuff, cubism and everything that came with it. It’s pretty amazing to see the progression of how he got from one style to the next, who influenced him and why things look the way that they do. I guess Picasso would donate works to the museum throughout his career, but never lived to see it in person as he vowed he would never set foot in Spain while it was under a Facist rule.

Yesterday was a much busier day. In the morning we made it over to the Gaudi cathedral, which is a Gothic cathedral Gaudi started building in the late 1800’s and is still being worked on today, 80 years after his death. I guess they believe it won’t be finished for another 50 years, so going to see it under construction still is absolutely amazing. It takes you by surprise, the location and everything. One minute you’re in awe they have KFC in Barcelona, and the next you’re looking at this absolutely amazing cathedral in the middle of the city.

We had quite the excursion last night wandering around the streets of Barcelona. It was one of the Kiwi’s birthdays, so we went out to celebrate. The first bar we went to, Travel Bar, was a bit of a shack of a bar, very very hot and sweaty with a lot of loud Irish and American travelers screaming while watching the replays of the England v. Czech Republic friendly earlier in the night. The beer was good, but most of the beer that doesn’t come from America tends to be pretty good so I have a lot of faith in the Europeans and their beer making abilities.

The Apollo, our next and turns out last stop on the journey, was the creepiest bar I have ever seen in my life. Hilarious, but creepy. We showed up because the Australians we were hanging out with said they heard it was a good place to go, but after paying ten euros just to get in, we were literally the only people in the place. 20 minutes later, the place was packed. Weird. After many many drinks and a couple of hours of listening to bad reggae music mixed in with Spanish hip hop, Thomas was drunk enough to be ‘dancing’, which if you know Thomas… he doesn’t dance. At all. Quite funny. Our whole group was having a good time, listening to bad music and trying to do Spanish dancing without much success. One of the girls who came with us was from Argentina, so she (with the English that she did know) was trying to show us all the different dance steps. Tried, failed. I’ll get over it someday.

Walking back, needing to use a bathroom at 4 in the morning after drinking a lot of beer and taking bad shots… not fun. 40 minutes of walking through the sleepy streets of Barcelona, we finally made it back to the hostel and fell asleep with our clothes on in our bunk beds, waking up today around 2 in the afternoon. Thomas, still half drunk this morning, got up to use the bathroom after snoring insanely loudly through half of the night. Quite the night, folks… quite the night.

We leave tomorrow for Paris after an awesome time here in Spain. It has definitely been the funnest part of our trip, going out with people and having a good time. Barcelona is a fun party town with too much to do and see in the amount of time we were here.

Hopefully I can make it back with some of the Scots while I’m at school out here.

I’ll update more when we get into France…

Adios

After having to change our plans, going to Torino instead of leaving for Spain on Friday, we are back in Milan with 6 hours or so to kill before getting on an overnight train headed to Barcelona.  We haven’t done much of anything for the last few days, mostly because everything is closed around here for the Italians vacationing in much nicer places with better weather.  Torino is a nice place.  Cleaner than some of the other Italian cities we have been in, and much much greener.  The Olympics have definitely made an impression on the city.  You see advertisements for the Olympics everywhere, even two years later.  The metro is spectacularly clean.  You could probably eat off of the floors if you wanted to (which who does?), and the trains are graffiti-less, a first here in Italy.  If you’re looking for some adventure, though, Torino might not be the place to go.  Sure, the Alps are a nice setting and backdrop, but for travelers who need something to DO there isn’t much to offer. 

The highlight of our trip in Torino was our time spent at the Huntsman Pub, a little pub near the Porta Nuova train station where people speak English and follow football.  Lots and lots of football.  We had a chance to catch the Arsenal v. West Brom match on Saturday, which was a cakewalk for Arsenal since West Brom was only recently brought up to the Premier League level after being at what they call the Championship level for a while (think being a Triple-A baseball team playing against a Major League team… easy).  Yesterday was all about football.  The first match of the season for Manchester United was against Newcastle, who are a good team but not nearly as good as the big four: Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea, and Liverpool.  It should have been easy for the defending champions both of the premiership and the champions league, but no.  We must have jinxed it.  Or Ronaldo did with his bum knee, the traitor.  We drew.  First match of the season and a 1-1 draw.  Disappointment for sure, but hopefully when Ronnie’s knee is better and Hargreaves tendonitis is gone we’ll be back at full strength. 

We also got to catch some of the Juventus match versus AC Milan, in Italian and none of which we understood.  In Italian football there are four main teams: Juventus, AC Milan, Inter Milan, and Roma.  Juventus just so happens to be from Torino, so you can imagine which team all of the people in the pub were going for.  Their main guy, Del Piero, is a stud striker who has been playing for the Italian national team for what seems like forever.  The keeper for Juventus is also the keeper for the Italy national team, but he wasn’t playing yesterday. 

It’s crazy watching Italian fans watching football.  Think Boston Red Sox fans, but on crack if that’s even possible.  There are all different kinds of people who come to bars and watch the matches.  Old men, young boys, parents with their kids, grandmothers, anyone and everyone comes together to cheer for their squad.  It’s love and hate all swirled in to one.  It’s like that with any sport for any real fan, though: a constant state of agony.  You’re never completely satisfied.  Even when you’ve won, there is always something you could have done better.  Why did they pull Lincecum out in the 7th instead of letting him pitch the eighth?  Why did Lewis swing at the first pitch?  Doesn’t he know anything?  Agony.  Constant agony.

We saw two good falls, by the way, during our time in Torino.  The first, a motorcyclist trying to show off popping a wheelie going 40 down a street and having his bike slip out from under him.  He slid across the street and after a loud ‘thud’ his bike was no more.  It shouldn’t have been funny but who am I kidding- it was.  The other fall came from an elderly woman in the footballing pub, who was sloshed out of her mind and took a dive going up a step to her table.  She fell, got back up with some help, and then fell off of her chair on to the floor.  Oh, and she dropped a fry on the floor, picked it up and ate it.  Really, it happened.

We left Torino this morning after checking out of our room and watching some Olympic weight lifting.  Yes, weight lifting.  If the Italians are competing in it, they put it on TV.  We leave tonight for Barcelona around 8 and get in tomorrow morning at 9am.  A 13 or 14 hour train ride.  Oh, the joy. 

As for the experience in Italy as a whole, there’s a lot of good and a lot of bad.  There’s a big graffiti problem here.  In the big cities especially, a lot of graffiti.  As much as the cities are beautiful, all of the graffiti takes away from their overall impression on people traveling and visiting.  The food is wonderful here, let me tell you.  Pizza, spaghetti, and bread bread bread.  Sure, you get the good and the bad, but when it’s good… it’s really really good.  It sucks being a tourist, not knowing where you’re going and being in a constant state of frustration and confusion, but you find good people who remind you of home everywhere you go.  I saw a Golden State Warriors jersey while we were at the Colusseum and told the guy I liked his shirt.  Jason Richardson, an oldie but a goodie.  And the guy working the internet cafe in Florence- a Dodgers fan.  Bad decision, for sure, but still cool to talk some baseball to someone.  No one knows baseball anywhere in Italy, but they all wear Yankees hates.  Ugh.

I’m not trying to make a meaning of life out of this or anything; that’s for someone else to do.  God, J.K. Rowling, I don’t know.  What I am saying is that Italy is definitely worth a look for those people who are out there looking for a something, whatever that something is.  Romance, nature, history, food.  Something. 

I should probably go and brush up on my Spanish since I don’t think ‘Hola’ and ‘taco’ are going to cut it in Spain. 

Ciao.

Our travels have brought us to Torino, our final destination (well, stay at least) here in Italy.  We left Milan earlier today after a reasonable stay, relaxing and seeing what they had to offer.  It’s not much, let me tell you.  Milan is a big city with a lot to offer, but again a lot of things are closed because of vacationing, which I believe they call ‘ferie’ here in Italy.  Basically, everyone in Italy up and leaves to go to the coast, places like Nice and Cannes, while the rest of us travelers are stuck trying to find places like restaurants that would normally be close, but are now much further away because of the holiday.

A few observations about Milan that I didn’t have the chance to add before: there’s really not much going on in a city you hear so much about.  I mean, Milan is supposed to be the fashion capital of the world, right?  You would think it would be a more exciting place.  Another complaint: the church where the last supper is.  Sold out for 2 weeks?  They only let 25 people into the church every 15 minutes.  I’m all for crowd control, but when 2 travelers can’t come and see one of the world’s most famous paintings for two weeks because they are worried about crowd control, there is a problem.

Enough about Milan though, let’s move on to Torino.

We have been here in Torino for a couple of hours now and we already have good vibes.  Our hostel was easy to find and the people here are very nice.  We asked about restaurants since everything around here is closed, and the guy at the desk called a few to see if they were open before sending us on our way.  How nice is that?  Good vibes from Torino are also coming our way because it’s RAINING here!  Yes, raining!  After dealing with hot, hot, and more hot, rain is the perfect kind of weather for us right now.  I’m finally able to put on these things called jeans, which I haven’t been able to wear all trip, and they feel great.

As far as Turin vs. Torino, I think the Italian pronunciation of it is Torino but we Americans can’t pronounce words like that, so we call it Turin.  I think Torino sounds much better, personally, but so does Firenze (Florence), Sicilia (Sicily) and Venezia (Venice).

One thing that we are missing right now in Torino is American coverage of the Olympics.  We get the Olympics on the TV here, but it’s all in Italian, which obviously we don’t understand, and all of the athletes featured are the Italian athletes.  A lot of fencing, judo, volleyball, even ping pong.  No gymnastics, basketball, or swimming (mostly for Michael Phelps).

We were able to catch coverage of the 10000m I believe for track, which doesn’t sound like it would be that interesting but both Thomas and I were amazed by it.  Over 20 girls running for 30 minutes faster than the speed of light around a track for something like 25 times.  Nuts.  I could never do it.

I think our plan for tomorrow is to look around and check out the downtown square, hopefully see some of the stuff from the Olympics in 2006, and try to figure out a way to get to the Juventus stadium for Thomas to take pictures.  Oh, and find a restaurant to eat at since nothing is open around here!

Still working on getting pictures up.  I’ll keep everyone posted!

Ciao

We made it to Milan safely and easily after a boring and uneventful stay in Venice.  Now, let me just preface by saying, Venice isn’t all bad.  I’m sure if you stayed in the city center with someone you loved it’d be an absolute dream.  However, staying in a dump listening to romantic music in the blistering hot with your brother… doesn’t exactly sound appealing.

Our stay here in Milan has been alright.  Once again, everything is closed because of the holiday and nothing is open again until the very end of the month or the beginning of September.  The one thing we DID want to see, The Last Supper, in a church here in Milan, we couldn’t see.  Turns out the tickets to get into the church are SOLD OUT for the next two weeks straight.  Yes, two weeks.  We were amazed too.  And pissed off. 

We had quite an excursion trying to find a WC around here (bathroom), and walking to the San Siro.  San Siro, for you non-football fans, is the Holy Grail of football stadiums here in Milan.  Both Inter Milan and AC Milan play football there.  The stadium there is HUGE.  No wonder people love their football here, the stadiums are like cathedrals. 

Other than that, we went to a church here and walked around a lot.  Lots of pigeons.  Less people than in Venice.  Nice. 

We are heading to Torino tomorrow before going to Barcelona, since the train for tomorrow night was sold out (boo).  We hope Torino is nice and quiet like Florence was.  I wanna see all of the stuff ffrom the olympics.  It was there in winter 2006.

Sorry this post is so short.  The computer i’m on is very glitchy and is hard to type on.  Not a lot of time left to type! 

Finally, thanks for all of the great comments and messages.  We love reading them when we have the chance to stop in and read them.  We’re actively sending postcards so if you never gave me your address you can still email it to me at cat_brad@yahoo.com

Miss everyone and hope things are good in California (and the US in general).

Ciao.

We left Florence reluctantly yesterday after having a great time relaxing and seeing the sights around town, getting used to the laid back pace we hadn’t seen while we were in Rome.  Our entire experience there was amazing- great hostel, great people, great food… we already miss it there.  After waking up at around 7 to get our things together, we took our last stroll through Florence before arriving at the Firenze train station to board our Eurostar train to Venice.  One thing we’ve noticed about Italy are that there are McDonalds EVERYWHERE, in every train station, in every city we’ve seen so far.  It’s almost a bit sad- here we are in Italy having McDonalds McMuffins for breakfast when we should be eating Italian food for breakfast.  Italian breakfasts are coffee, though, so it’s better to have something than nothing at all.

The train ride was fine through Bologna and into Venice.  That’s when things got really interesting.  We got into the Venice San Lucia train station around 2 yesterday afternoon and after wandering around for 20 minutes confused and extremely frustrated (not to mention hot), we figured out that our hotel was on the MAINLAND in Venice and not in VENICE venice, if that makes any sense.  See, there’s a difference between Venice mainland and Venice the island of Venice, since it takes about a 10 minute regional train ride to get between the two.  To get back to the mainland, we hopped on a metro train for about €2 and finally figured out what our directions were telling us to do.  It was much easier, obviously, since we were taking the directions from the right train station and all.  Haha.

500 meters later, and a lot of sweat and frustration, we made it to our hotel on mainland Venice.  Let me be the first to say- this hotel is SHADY.  It’s in the middle of this residential street with no one around, like a ghost town and the walk under the passageway to get to and from the Mestre train station is hella creepy.  Lots of graffiti, lots of weird smells, just all around a very very weird place.

One thing about Italy that I had heard about, but not really seen yet, was that during the month of August many people leave the cities in Italy to go and vacation elsewhere.  Thus, many hotels, restaurants, and shops are closed down because everyone is gone.  On the mainland in Venice, everything is closed down.  Everything.  Last night we wandered around for almost an hour trying to find a single restaurant that was open, walking down these shady, dirty streets in the middle of nowhere.  Imagine downtown Oakland, but a million times worse.  And empty.  We finally found a little pizzeria near the Mestre station that was open, and I don’t think either of us have ever been so happy just to see a pizza place in our entire lives.  Let’s just say our stay in Venice hasn’t been off to a great start.

Our plan for today is to wander around the Grand Canal here on the island before heading to Milan tomorrow.  Our original plan was to go from Milan to Nice, but since everything in Nice is so expensive, all the hostels and the hotels, most likely we are going to go straight from Milan to Barcelona instead of stopping in the south of France.  It sucks, but that’s the way things go sometimes.  At least that will give us an extra couple of days in the UK to travel around, so it’s not completely disappointing.

On a completely unrelated note, I can’t believe we’ve only been in Europe for 6 days.  7 days?  Whatever.  Time here seems like it goes so slow.  Maybe that’s because all we do is walk around, look, talk to each other, eat, and sleep.  We’ve seen so much and been so many places, you’d think it would be taking a lot longer than it has been.  The UK seems so far away right now, and as much as we love seeing everything here in Italy, I think both of us see London as the peak of our travels around here.  Going pub hopping, watching football, and being in a country where people speak the same language as us.  While I think both of us enjoy the fact that we’re doing this together, looking around and exploring everything, it gets to be tiresome and lonely.

More than anything, though, Venice has worn us down.  Getting lost, being hot and sweaty, it doesn’t really make either of us want to jump up when we wake up in the morning.  I’m sure for a lot of people, Venice could be the pinnacle, the peak of their entire journey here in Europe, but for us we’re hoping that there’s a lot more out in the world than this.

I’m going to keep trying to find a place to put up our pictures from our travels here.  I haven’t been able to find anything yet, but hopefully sooner than later I’ll be able to post something.

Until next time, Ciao.