We're in Florence!
As I type, I’m currently on a train from Rome to Florence. We woke up at around 9 and packed up the rest of our things and headed out, exhausted. Genna and Lizzy are across from me asleep, Lizzy’s head keeps nodding a bit and I really hope that her neck doesn’t hurt too much from the position she’s sleeping in.
When we got to Florence Lizzy’s friend Rachel met us at the train station with a boy Matt that she knows that we actually go to school with in Ireland. It seems like the bigger we make our world with all this travelling, the smaller it actually becomes! We headed to her apartment where she had good internet access so that Genna and Lizzy could sign up for classes. We dropped our stuff off and headed first to the market since it was closing soon. It was unbelievable! Unlike anything that I have ever seen! There were stands upon stand of meat, and fruit, and vegetables, and pasta, cheese, dried fruit and vegetables! Everything you could imagine was right there!! It was AMAZING! We got mozzarella, pasta, chicken and tons of dried fruit and cashews, pistachios and almonds. Can you tell we were craving nutrients? Sure we’ve been eating some great food in Italy but we have been lacking a bit in some departments - hence why we were so excited to eat the salad in Rome too. We went back to Rachel’s apartment and the girls signed up for classes. While they did that Rachel went out to get wine with Matt and Jackie, her roommate who actually knows Lizzy from home. To get wine, you bring empty wine bottles in canvas bags to this place called di vino or something and they fill up your empty wine bottle and cork it for you for only 2 euro. 2 euro! For Italian wine! I wish I liked wine I could appreciate it a little more I think! Lizzy and Rachel cooked dinner while we hung out and chatted. I skyped mom for a bit in the hospital, which was nice because I haven’t gotten to talk to her in awhile. Then we headed to our hostel, Jackie called a cab for us since we don’t speak any Italian unless you include Prego and Grazie. We were pretty surprised when the woman opened the door to our “hostel.” We expected a room with 3 beds and a private bathroom. We got our own apartment. Not too shabby for 30 euro a night! There’s a full furnished kitchen, and it has more plates, dishes and pans than our apartments in Cork do! There is an eating area, a living area, a TV, bureaus if we wanted to unpack our stuff. It is just unbelievable. I love it! It’s no Ritz Carlton, but as far as hostels go, this is basically the Ritz Carlton of cheap hostels. We took showers and set up our internet. Thank God for wifi! Lizzy got in contact with a few of our friends from Cork/Umass who actually are in Florence right now also. They didn’t come out with us because they had to be up by 6 to catch an early train to Venice for the day, but we chatted for a bit and planned on meeting up to hang out the next night. Lizzy’s friend Rachel met us with her friend Mo who is from Florence. First they took us to a bar with live music. The guy had a great voice but it wasn’t exactly good bar music, it was really depressing. Then he started singing Music of My Heart – Nana’s song – I looked at my friends and said, “Ok, time to go.’ From there we went to a discoteca called Space and since Mo works there he got us in for free and he got us in VIP, which means you get to hang out in the VIP area. It was pretty sweet, I’m not gonna lie. We were there until the wee hours of the morning, and were probably the last people there. The others talked about going to another club, but I was so tired, all I wanted was to be pointed in the direction of the hostel. Luckily Genna is amazing with directions and took us right back there. Currently it’s 12 and I just woke up and the girls are still sleeping. I think we needed it! I’ll catch up with you later!
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Roma!
Roma! We woke up at around 9 with the intention of being gone by 10 o’clock. We ended up leaving around 10 o’clock, locked the door to our brightly decorated bed and breakfast/hostel and headed out. We were a little unsure about the whole breakfast thing so we went across the street and grabbed some pastries at a little snack bar that was right in front of the metro stop. Luckily the metro is right at the corner of our street so we were able to hop on right there. It was 4 euro for a 24 hour ticket, and it ended up being well worth it’s price. Our first stop was the Vatican. I could attempt to explain it to you, but I really can’t. It was amazing. The amount of artwork in that place leaves you in awe. Everywhere you turn there is something different. It’s not all Catholic art either, there are tons of pieces of old Greek and Roman gods as well. It took us awhile to get through the entire thing to make it to the Sistine Chapel to see the ceiling Michelangelo painted. There is a huge hallway before you get there and the ceiling is completely painted and extremely ornamental. I can barely describe it so I just took a picture. It was amazing. On our way through the maze that eventually takes you to the chapel Genna stopped us. “Is that Dave?” - Dave being a kid from UMass that also happens to be in UCC with us. Sure enough, it was him in Vatican City also on his way to the Sistine chapel. We made it through the maze a bit more and met him in another room and chatted about our travels. It ended up he had been traveling alone, which I cannot even imagine. We finally found our way to the Sistine Chapel and looked up to see Michelangelo’s famous painting on the ceiling, only what we were surprised to see was that there were a million pictures on the ceiling and that famous one of many done by Michelangelo was in the center, and a lot smaller than I pictured it. It didn’t make the room any less beautiful as there was not an empty space on the walls or ceiling that wasn’t filled with some magnificent painting by an amazing artist of years ago. It was breathtaking. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures – though people did anyways. Every time someone did the guards would clap their hands. I hguess they figured that was the best way to get the English-speaking people’s attention. It didn’t really work that well. Eventually we made our way our of the Sistine Chapel and out of Vatican. We decided we would meet up with Dave on the Spanish steps at around 4 after we checked out the Coliseum. We grabbed pizza at a café near the Vatican – that was a mistake. I’m not even going to say how much we spent on pizza. Thank God it was good or I would be pretty angry. We hopped on a nearby metro station and headed toward the coliseum. We ended up walking all the way around the coliseum since we went in the wrong direction toward the entrance. But it was a nice walk. It was 11 Euro to get in, a bit steep for my liking but it was the Coliseum! That’s a must-see if I ever saw one! It was amazing! It was so cool to walk through there and imagine what it was like when it was actually used as an entertainment base. It is really breathtaking, and there were some awesome views of the surrounding areas like the Forum and the arc. Just amazing. We checked out the giftshop – got the essentials. No extras on this trip, and headed back to the metro and toward the Spagna stop for the Spanish steps. It was like a where’s Waldo game. I spotted Dave in the middle of the steps and we went and sat down. At this point the sun was shining bright and it was so warm. I loved it! We all had our sunglasses on. I hope Greece is this warm – or warmer.
We took some pictures and then we headed out towards the Pantheon. I don’t know if you know this – but the Pantheon has a large hole in the center of it. Want to know what they do when it rains? Nothing. It just rains inside the Pantheon. Pretty cool if you ask me. That was a cool building to see, not nearly as impressive as the Coliseum in my personal opinion. But still cool nonetheless. While we stood around in front of it some weirdo came over to Dave and offered to have his picture taken with him. I really don’t know how to explain the encounter except for weird, awkward and uncomfortable. Dave got pretty annoyed with him and we were pretty close to running away. After that we headed back toward the place that we ate at the night before. It was really well priced in comparison to anywhere else so we decided to go again and Dave joined us. Our favorite waiter was there and he chatted with us about how he had been out way too late the night before last and that’d why he had been so tired. I got the risotto in scampi sauce this time. The best part was the garnish which was some sort of small crustacean with claws and eyes. I put it on my other plate and put the napkin on it. It just made me way to uncomfortable to have it watch me while I ate. Once we finished we headed toward the Trevi fountain which is better to see at night. On our way we got gelato – surprise surprise! I was lucky though – I ordered and paid for a 2 euro cup of gelato (the smallest) but he gave me a 3 euro cup! Wonderful! I love gelato. I will miss it dearly when I leave Italy. We finally found the fountain and it was beautiful at night! We took a bunch of pictures. However the men that sell souvenirs on the streets are obnoxious and besides trying to sell us roses, camera tripods, and weird knick-knacks, they had these rock like things that they were playing with and selling that sounded like those really loud bugs you hear in the summertime in New England. It was the most obnoxious sound ever. Whenever they came near us, Dave would firmly and loudly say “No.” I think he scared them a little. Good. When we were done taking pictures we headed back to our hostel. We were exhausted and had no energy or money to head out that night. We checked out our stuff online, emails and such, worked on class schedules and I packed my bag. Bedtime!
Update: Genna had to go to the bathroom and needed help unlocking the door. I got up and unlocked it for her and as I shut the door behind her I heard the neighbors, very loudly and clearly getting busy in their room across the hall. When Genna got pack she peeked at me on the bottom bunk and gave me a look of shock. All I could do was laugh and say, “Well somebody’s having fun right now.” What a day.
We took some pictures and then we headed out towards the Pantheon. I don’t know if you know this – but the Pantheon has a large hole in the center of it. Want to know what they do when it rains? Nothing. It just rains inside the Pantheon. Pretty cool if you ask me. That was a cool building to see, not nearly as impressive as the Coliseum in my personal opinion. But still cool nonetheless. While we stood around in front of it some weirdo came over to Dave and offered to have his picture taken with him. I really don’t know how to explain the encounter except for weird, awkward and uncomfortable. Dave got pretty annoyed with him and we were pretty close to running away. After that we headed back toward the place that we ate at the night before. It was really well priced in comparison to anywhere else so we decided to go again and Dave joined us. Our favorite waiter was there and he chatted with us about how he had been out way too late the night before last and that’d why he had been so tired. I got the risotto in scampi sauce this time. The best part was the garnish which was some sort of small crustacean with claws and eyes. I put it on my other plate and put the napkin on it. It just made me way to uncomfortable to have it watch me while I ate. Once we finished we headed toward the Trevi fountain which is better to see at night. On our way we got gelato – surprise surprise! I was lucky though – I ordered and paid for a 2 euro cup of gelato (the smallest) but he gave me a 3 euro cup! Wonderful! I love gelato. I will miss it dearly when I leave Italy. We finally found the fountain and it was beautiful at night! We took a bunch of pictures. However the men that sell souvenirs on the streets are obnoxious and besides trying to sell us roses, camera tripods, and weird knick-knacks, they had these rock like things that they were playing with and selling that sounded like those really loud bugs you hear in the summertime in New England. It was the most obnoxious sound ever. Whenever they came near us, Dave would firmly and loudly say “No.” I think he scared them a little. Good. When we were done taking pictures we headed back to our hostel. We were exhausted and had no energy or money to head out that night. We checked out our stuff online, emails and such, worked on class schedules and I packed my bag. Bedtime!
Update: Genna had to go to the bathroom and needed help unlocking the door. I got up and unlocked it for her and as I shut the door behind her I heard the neighbors, very loudly and clearly getting busy in their room across the hall. When Genna got pack she peeked at me on the bottom bunk and gave me a look of shock. All I could do was laugh and say, “Well somebody’s having fun right now.” What a day.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Days 5 & 6 of Eurotrip 2k8...
Since we got in at around 7:30 am, we ended up sleeping till 3 in the afternoon. We headed out to a bagel place for “breakfast” and then checked out some really cool shopping areas. They sell animals at shopping areas along the streets. Like those cart things you see in the center of the malls. There were bunnies, hamsters, ferrets, chickens, and more. I took a picture. I was in awe. We had pizza at the apartment and ended up heading out to a club later that night. It was fun, a little difficult to push away the creepers when you don’t speak their language. But it was still a good time. We got in around 4 or 5, we had to catch our flight to Rome so we didn’t want to stay out too late. Rome here we come!
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Barcelona...
...is amazing!
I absolutely love it here!
We ended up passing out for a good amount of time and then went out to grab some food and drinks and came back to get ready for the night. We got all dolled up and headed out for the night. The first stop was a tap bar. Basically every table is set up with a tap that goes to a keg. There is a screen that has the counts for all the tables of how many litres have been drank by each party. The screen definitely creates a need to race to see how much each table can drink - but we didn't feel like racing. So we did a little bit of drinking before we headed to this nightclub called Opium. Luckily the girl we are staying with knows this kid who can get us in for free. He told us a word to say, (can't tell you it's a secret!). When we got there girls in front of us told us they had an in and that they would take us in with them. But the bouncers didn't let them in so as I walked up I just looked at them and said the word, no problem. They let us in right away. The club is right on the beach and it was amazing. I didn't buy anything to drink there - it was ridiculously expensive, like 10 euro a drink. No thank you. We danced and had a great time until the wee hours of the morning and then Genna and I left together because we were echausted. We got back around 4:30, Lizzy and Allie followed at around 5:30, 6ish. We didn't wake up till about 1pm. We needed the rest.
Once we were all ready and awake we decided to head out to a...of all places, Mexican Restaurant called the Black Rose. It was actually really good. I liked it a lot. Plus the decorating was fantastic!! After that we walked around a bit, checked out some stores and shopping areas, and then headed to the beach. It was a little windy and therefore a bit chilly, but the sun was shining and the ocean looked beautiful. It was so gorgeous.
Later on we went home and changed and then headed to a Tapas bar - a place where you order a whole bunch of appatizers and share. It was so delicious! We drank cava sangria and munched on fried asparagus, sausages, patatas bravas (kind of like home fries with sauce), a salad, and some other really good appetizers. After eating we met up with Allie's friends and headed to a bar called Chupitos. Chupitos is a shots bar. On the wall there was a huge list of all the shots that they served. There were so many, and the names were pretty hilarious. There was one called a Monica Lebinski. I'll let you use your imagination on that one. We started off with one called a Boy Scout. Get your headed outta of the gutter it was totally PG. They give you a marshmallow on a stick and light the bar on fire, so you roast your marshmallow and then stick it into the shot, take it out, put the marshmallow in your mouth and then take the shot and it tastes like a s'more. It was declicious! But the best part was that Allie has an amazing friend named Harry, who didn't let us girls pay for a thing. Every shot was paid for, and he was just one of the most genuinely nice guys that I have ever met. It was fantastic. We headed to Las Ramblas, where there are a lot of bars. However, we didn't realize that it was extremely late/early in the morning so places weren't allowing people in anymore. No problem. We were already by the beach so we decided to go sit on the beach and hang out. On our way there we met 3 guys from BC and invited them to join us. Lucky for us, the Spanish people sell beer on the beach (illegally) all night and morning long, so the boys bought a few and we just all sat and talked on the beach. At one point my friend Lizzy said that we should just stay and watch the sunrise. It sounded like a good idea. We hung out for awhile, Lizzy and Genna were hilarious and at one point had a "fight" where they basically spit random movie lines back at each other in a way that made it sound like they were fighting to anyone who doesn't know them. Allie decided to leave around 5 or 6 because she had gotten really cold. But we wanted to stay and hang out for a bit more, and watch the sunrise on the beach in Barcelona. You only live once right?! At around 7:30 am we decided the sky was light enough for us to consider it "the sunrise" and cold, tired and hungry we parted ways and Genna, Lizzy and I took a cab back to Lizzy's friend Allie's apartment. Lucky for us the door to the complex was unlocked, but we did have to ring the bell to her actual apartment. Luckily we didn't wake up her roommates.
Ok I'm exhausted. I'm sorry. I'll add more later.
I absolutely love it here!
We ended up passing out for a good amount of time and then went out to grab some food and drinks and came back to get ready for the night. We got all dolled up and headed out for the night. The first stop was a tap bar. Basically every table is set up with a tap that goes to a keg. There is a screen that has the counts for all the tables of how many litres have been drank by each party. The screen definitely creates a need to race to see how much each table can drink - but we didn't feel like racing. So we did a little bit of drinking before we headed to this nightclub called Opium. Luckily the girl we are staying with knows this kid who can get us in for free. He told us a word to say, (can't tell you it's a secret!). When we got there girls in front of us told us they had an in and that they would take us in with them. But the bouncers didn't let them in so as I walked up I just looked at them and said the word, no problem. They let us in right away. The club is right on the beach and it was amazing. I didn't buy anything to drink there - it was ridiculously expensive, like 10 euro a drink. No thank you. We danced and had a great time until the wee hours of the morning and then Genna and I left together because we were echausted. We got back around 4:30, Lizzy and Allie followed at around 5:30, 6ish. We didn't wake up till about 1pm. We needed the rest.
Once we were all ready and awake we decided to head out to a...of all places, Mexican Restaurant called the Black Rose. It was actually really good. I liked it a lot. Plus the decorating was fantastic!! After that we walked around a bit, checked out some stores and shopping areas, and then headed to the beach. It was a little windy and therefore a bit chilly, but the sun was shining and the ocean looked beautiful. It was so gorgeous.
Later on we went home and changed and then headed to a Tapas bar - a place where you order a whole bunch of appatizers and share. It was so delicious! We drank cava sangria and munched on fried asparagus, sausages, patatas bravas (kind of like home fries with sauce), a salad, and some other really good appetizers. After eating we met up with Allie's friends and headed to a bar called Chupitos. Chupitos is a shots bar. On the wall there was a huge list of all the shots that they served. There were so many, and the names were pretty hilarious. There was one called a Monica Lebinski. I'll let you use your imagination on that one. We started off with one called a Boy Scout. Get your headed outta of the gutter it was totally PG. They give you a marshmallow on a stick and light the bar on fire, so you roast your marshmallow and then stick it into the shot, take it out, put the marshmallow in your mouth and then take the shot and it tastes like a s'more. It was declicious! But the best part was that Allie has an amazing friend named Harry, who didn't let us girls pay for a thing. Every shot was paid for, and he was just one of the most genuinely nice guys that I have ever met. It was fantastic. We headed to Las Ramblas, where there are a lot of bars. However, we didn't realize that it was extremely late/early in the morning so places weren't allowing people in anymore. No problem. We were already by the beach so we decided to go sit on the beach and hang out. On our way there we met 3 guys from BC and invited them to join us. Lucky for us, the Spanish people sell beer on the beach (illegally) all night and morning long, so the boys bought a few and we just all sat and talked on the beach. At one point my friend Lizzy said that we should just stay and watch the sunrise. It sounded like a good idea. We hung out for awhile, Lizzy and Genna were hilarious and at one point had a "fight" where they basically spit random movie lines back at each other in a way that made it sound like they were fighting to anyone who doesn't know them. Allie decided to leave around 5 or 6 because she had gotten really cold. But we wanted to stay and hang out for a bit more, and watch the sunrise on the beach in Barcelona. You only live once right?! At around 7:30 am we decided the sky was light enough for us to consider it "the sunrise" and cold, tired and hungry we parted ways and Genna, Lizzy and I took a cab back to Lizzy's friend Allie's apartment. Lucky for us the door to the complex was unlocked, but we did have to ring the bell to her actual apartment. Luckily we didn't wake up her roommates.
Ok I'm exhausted. I'm sorry. I'll add more later.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Days 2 & 3 of Eurotrip 2k8...
It’s not very sunny but who I am to complain, hopefully it will get sunnier later. We’ll see. We are doing walking tours today so that we can see as much of Paris as possible and then we are going to check out the Eiffel Tower one more time and after dinner head to the Louvre. Hopefully we will go out tonight as well. Granted – that means pulling an all-night because we have to be at a train station by 6am to take the train to Beauvais airport where we will catch our plane to Barcelona.
We headed out by 10:30 so that we could meet at St. Michel by 11:30 where there were free walking tours, with time to stop for a crepe on the way. Butter & Sugar Crepes for breakfast? Delectable. Our tour guide, Luke, was fantastic and extremely knowledgeable. We walked for at least 4 hours with the tour but it was a great time. I learned so many things. For instance – if there is a statue of a king (or great person) on a horse and all four legs are down, he/she died a peaceful death, but it the left front leg is up they died a bloody death and if the horse is rearing up on its hind legs, they died in battle. It was really cool. We saw Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, and a bajillion other really important historical buildings. In the middle of the tour we stopped for lunch where we all got sandwiches, a drink, and a dessert. It was so delicious. My dessert was this little pie looking thing and I thought that it was filled with some chocolate crème or something – like a mini chocolate crème pie. However, I was mistaken – the filling was pure chocolate. It was really good, but I had to pour out half of the chocolate, it was just waaaay too much chocolate for me. That says a lot because I love chocolate. We ended our tour between the Petite Palais and the Grand Palais and he told us some amazing stories about World War II. In all of Paris – when Hitler took over he wanted nothing more than to see Napoleon’s grave. However in order to look into Napoleon’s grace you must bend over a railing almost as if you were bowing to him and Hitler refused to bow to another emperor so he had them set up a mirror so that he could walk in, look at the mirror and see the grave. However, when he got to the top and looked across – they had set the mirror up wrong. So Hitler spun around quickly to leave and his hat fell off, so he turned around and knelt down to pick it up thereby bowing in front of the tomb of Napoleon. Also - did you know Paris was supposed to be flattened? A famous officer was order by Hitler to completely level it because as the allies closed in on Hitler he states that if he couldn’t have Paris – nobody could. He was there for a month, but he was in contact with someone who was in contact with the allies and the Nazis. He came out with an elaborate plan and in the end set up only one detonator – in the Grand Palais which is a large open building with a flat marble floor. When Hitler called to ensure that he was flattening the city he set off that one detonator, it did little damage to the building, only breaking the glass ceiling and making a mark in the floor – all of which was easily repaired. He said that he just couldn’t flatten all of Paris because of its beauty and history. Thank God for that man. Now we can visit beautiful Paris. The city is so beautiful I loved it.
We headed to the Louvre after and saw the Mona Lisa, and the Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory and Napoleon III’s quarters – where he lived while he was king. It was amazing. We took so many pictures.
But after 9 hours of walking around we were exhausted. We wandered our way back to the apartment and all of us collapsed face down onto the bed for a few hours. Eventually we decided to go out to eat because we needed some food. We found a really cute little restaurant where I got (French) onion soup, which the waitress continually said was “really really French.” I’m not sure what that meant but it was good none the less and then we ordered dessert. I figured it would be the right place to order crème brulee, so I did and it was delicious. But it was too much and I could only eat half of it. Genna & Lizzy got omelettes and chocolate mousse. The chocolate mousse was really thick, and almost frosting-like. But in all it was a fantastic day in Paris.
We had to be up by 4:45 in order to catch a cab to the bus station to catch the bus at 6am to the Beauvais Airport. Our flight to Girona (near Barcelona) was at 9am. We made it into Spain 15 minutes early and found our way to a bus which took us about an hour to get to Barcelona. From there we took a cab to Lizzy’s friend Allie’s apartment and set up camp. Luckily there is free wifi access here so I can type up all this and add pictures! I’ll do my best to keep staying in touch. Now I’m going to go take a nap since I didn’t actually get to sleep until 3am. Do the math – that’s less than 2 hours of sleep.
We headed out by 10:30 so that we could meet at St. Michel by 11:30 where there were free walking tours, with time to stop for a crepe on the way. Butter & Sugar Crepes for breakfast? Delectable. Our tour guide, Luke, was fantastic and extremely knowledgeable. We walked for at least 4 hours with the tour but it was a great time. I learned so many things. For instance – if there is a statue of a king (or great person) on a horse and all four legs are down, he/she died a peaceful death, but it the left front leg is up they died a bloody death and if the horse is rearing up on its hind legs, they died in battle. It was really cool. We saw Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, and a bajillion other really important historical buildings. In the middle of the tour we stopped for lunch where we all got sandwiches, a drink, and a dessert. It was so delicious. My dessert was this little pie looking thing and I thought that it was filled with some chocolate crème or something – like a mini chocolate crème pie. However, I was mistaken – the filling was pure chocolate. It was really good, but I had to pour out half of the chocolate, it was just waaaay too much chocolate for me. That says a lot because I love chocolate. We ended our tour between the Petite Palais and the Grand Palais and he told us some amazing stories about World War II. In all of Paris – when Hitler took over he wanted nothing more than to see Napoleon’s grave. However in order to look into Napoleon’s grace you must bend over a railing almost as if you were bowing to him and Hitler refused to bow to another emperor so he had them set up a mirror so that he could walk in, look at the mirror and see the grave. However, when he got to the top and looked across – they had set the mirror up wrong. So Hitler spun around quickly to leave and his hat fell off, so he turned around and knelt down to pick it up thereby bowing in front of the tomb of Napoleon. Also - did you know Paris was supposed to be flattened? A famous officer was order by Hitler to completely level it because as the allies closed in on Hitler he states that if he couldn’t have Paris – nobody could. He was there for a month, but he was in contact with someone who was in contact with the allies and the Nazis. He came out with an elaborate plan and in the end set up only one detonator – in the Grand Palais which is a large open building with a flat marble floor. When Hitler called to ensure that he was flattening the city he set off that one detonator, it did little damage to the building, only breaking the glass ceiling and making a mark in the floor – all of which was easily repaired. He said that he just couldn’t flatten all of Paris because of its beauty and history. Thank God for that man. Now we can visit beautiful Paris. The city is so beautiful I loved it.
We headed to the Louvre after and saw the Mona Lisa, and the Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory and Napoleon III’s quarters – where he lived while he was king. It was amazing. We took so many pictures.
But after 9 hours of walking around we were exhausted. We wandered our way back to the apartment and all of us collapsed face down onto the bed for a few hours. Eventually we decided to go out to eat because we needed some food. We found a really cute little restaurant where I got (French) onion soup, which the waitress continually said was “really really French.” I’m not sure what that meant but it was good none the less and then we ordered dessert. I figured it would be the right place to order crème brulee, so I did and it was delicious. But it was too much and I could only eat half of it. Genna & Lizzy got omelettes and chocolate mousse. The chocolate mousse was really thick, and almost frosting-like. But in all it was a fantastic day in Paris.
We had to be up by 4:45 in order to catch a cab to the bus station to catch the bus at 6am to the Beauvais Airport. Our flight to Girona (near Barcelona) was at 9am. We made it into Spain 15 minutes early and found our way to a bus which took us about an hour to get to Barcelona. From there we took a cab to Lizzy’s friend Allie’s apartment and set up camp. Luckily there is free wifi access here so I can type up all this and add pictures! I’ll do my best to keep staying in touch. Now I’m going to go take a nap since I didn’t actually get to sleep until 3am. Do the math – that’s less than 2 hours of sleep.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Early Morning Wake-up...
...because we are going to Paris!!
Breakfast was at 9am and consisted of whatever food was left in my apartment. Conveniently that meant toast and eggs. So I made one-eyes (cut a hole in the middle of the toast – put it on the frying pan – drop egg into the hole) and there was fruit so we kind of feasted. Then we were off…
We were at Cork ariport with plenty of time before our flight. While we waited we went over to a little food-booth to get waters. They had a bunch of expensive truffles, which we clearly were not going to pay for. The server offered us some on a little silver platter, to which Lizzy asked him if we had to pay for them. He sassily replied, “Why would I offer you chocolate if you have to pay for it?” It was funny – and the truffles were delicious. Strawberry, mmm. On our way into the plane we met a couple and their son, who was adorable. They were having a little difficulty carrying all their luggage and his little army print rolly-carry-on was a bit too big for him to carry – even though it clearly made him feel like a king. Lizzy offered to carry the little bag for him and helped them on their way to the plane. While we were on the plane, about to take off the little boy began to count down – 10, 9, 8…and when he reached the end he screamed “Blast Off!!” Now there is an annoying way to do this and a cute way to do this. He was adorable. The entire plane started laughing. It was just so cute,
We arrived in Paris a little early. But we didn’t get off the plane until around 3:40. Once we entered the Charles de Gaulle airport there was a huge line to go through for the customs and security check. Once we made it through, we felt like we were in the middle of a Dr. Seuss novel. The center of the airport was outside so there were these tubes that were moving-sidewalks that took you all over to the different levels of the inside of the aiport. I felt like I was on the Jetsons. Pretty cool.
Genna’s friend Matt gave us pretty detailed directions and we found our way to his apartment without a problem. It’s a really nice apartment – decorated really well, had a great family room and his room is huge with a huge closet that has mirrors for doors that stretch all the way to the ceiling. Only problem – he currently has no running water – well sort of. They can’t run the water because when they do the bathtub back up. Nice, huh? So no water. And to think – we thought we wouldn’t be roughing it. Not the case.
However, we can turn the water on for a hot second to brush our teeth or really quickly wash our face. So we did and then we headed out to explore the city.
Since we hadn’t eaten since around 8am, we all really wanted some food. First stop – crepes! We all got crepes au chocolat. C’est fantastique! Then we started to walk around a bit. We decided we would head toward the Eiffel Tower. Another thing about Matt’s apartment – it’s right near the Louvre. So we walked toward the Louvre and explored it. I don’t know if you know this – but the Louvre is HUGE. I mean bigger than big. And it is amazing. From there we could see the Eiffel Tower, and after taking some pictures we headed off towards it – Matt had told us that it was about a 45 minute walk to the Eiffel Tower – not a problem considering we walk that to get from our apartment to town every day in Cork. We were stopped by two very funny African men that made bracelets. I knew immediately that it was going to cost me money when they asked me to put my hand out btu I figured – what the heck. Lizzy and I ended up with two really cool bracelets, that didn’t cost us more than a ride on the Metro. The men said that we had to make a wish right as they tied them and joked with us about our boyfriends, saying that they are “sex machines.” It was pretty hilarious. Plus, they spoke English and French, fairly fluent in both. I was able to talk a little French with the guy making my bracelet, while Lizzy could talk in English to the guy making her bracelet.
Paris is absolutely beautiful and the walk to the Eiffel Tower was fantastic because there was so much to see on the way there. We took some cool pictures once we got there and then we decided to go get some actual dinner – by now it was around 8 or 9. We found a nice little Italian restaurant –I know – Italian in France? But it was great and the server was very nice to us. Plus we ordered the perfect amount of food and it didn’t cost us more than 10 euro each which was pretty reasonable. It didn’t hurt to know that I could get us through a dinner with my knowledge of French. I may not be amazing at it, but in one day I already feel more confident about the language.
When we finished we headed back to the Eiffel Tower because we wanted to see it all lit up – it was so cool. We took as many pictures as we could, granted it was difficult because the lighting wasn’t perfect but we did our best. The best part was when it was sparkling – it was so cool, it was all lit up and sparkling like a Christmas tree. So beautiful. We had to fend off the vendors, but “Non merci” is pretty easy. Finally we decided to find ourselves the Metro (subway) and head back to Matt’s apartment. We found it without a problem, got ourselves to the right line – and ended going in the opposite direction we wanted. No problem – we realized it right away, got off, switched sides and headed in the direction we meant to. When we got out of the Metro near his apartment, we had our bearings about us and found it without a problem, but we saw a girl with Haagen Daas. We all wanted dessert so we decided to walk around until we found it. It took a bit of walking – luckily in a straight line – but we did find it. More conveniently – there was a bathroom we could use there so that we wouldn’t be dying without one at Matt’s apartment. Finally we headed back to the apartment.
We bothered his roommate Josh, who is from Puerto Rico, but lives in NYC and goes to BC, for a while. I was able to get online for all of 5 minutes. Enough time to send an email but that’s about it. We were hanging out in Matt’s room when he got back. After a lot of debating we ended up sleeping in his huge bed – the three of us – while he slept on the couch. We were all ready to take the couches and the chairs but he would not let us sleep in there and insisted that we all just sleep in his bed. We protested for a while but he eventually won over and after some giggling and chatting I rolled over and went to sleep.
Breakfast was at 9am and consisted of whatever food was left in my apartment. Conveniently that meant toast and eggs. So I made one-eyes (cut a hole in the middle of the toast – put it on the frying pan – drop egg into the hole) and there was fruit so we kind of feasted. Then we were off…
We were at Cork ariport with plenty of time before our flight. While we waited we went over to a little food-booth to get waters. They had a bunch of expensive truffles, which we clearly were not going to pay for. The server offered us some on a little silver platter, to which Lizzy asked him if we had to pay for them. He sassily replied, “Why would I offer you chocolate if you have to pay for it?” It was funny – and the truffles were delicious. Strawberry, mmm. On our way into the plane we met a couple and their son, who was adorable. They were having a little difficulty carrying all their luggage and his little army print rolly-carry-on was a bit too big for him to carry – even though it clearly made him feel like a king. Lizzy offered to carry the little bag for him and helped them on their way to the plane. While we were on the plane, about to take off the little boy began to count down – 10, 9, 8…and when he reached the end he screamed “Blast Off!!” Now there is an annoying way to do this and a cute way to do this. He was adorable. The entire plane started laughing. It was just so cute,
We arrived in Paris a little early. But we didn’t get off the plane until around 3:40. Once we entered the Charles de Gaulle airport there was a huge line to go through for the customs and security check. Once we made it through, we felt like we were in the middle of a Dr. Seuss novel. The center of the airport was outside so there were these tubes that were moving-sidewalks that took you all over to the different levels of the inside of the aiport. I felt like I was on the Jetsons. Pretty cool.
Genna’s friend Matt gave us pretty detailed directions and we found our way to his apartment without a problem. It’s a really nice apartment – decorated really well, had a great family room and his room is huge with a huge closet that has mirrors for doors that stretch all the way to the ceiling. Only problem – he currently has no running water – well sort of. They can’t run the water because when they do the bathtub back up. Nice, huh? So no water. And to think – we thought we wouldn’t be roughing it. Not the case.
However, we can turn the water on for a hot second to brush our teeth or really quickly wash our face. So we did and then we headed out to explore the city.
Since we hadn’t eaten since around 8am, we all really wanted some food. First stop – crepes! We all got crepes au chocolat. C’est fantastique! Then we started to walk around a bit. We decided we would head toward the Eiffel Tower. Another thing about Matt’s apartment – it’s right near the Louvre. So we walked toward the Louvre and explored it. I don’t know if you know this – but the Louvre is HUGE. I mean bigger than big. And it is amazing. From there we could see the Eiffel Tower, and after taking some pictures we headed off towards it – Matt had told us that it was about a 45 minute walk to the Eiffel Tower – not a problem considering we walk that to get from our apartment to town every day in Cork. We were stopped by two very funny African men that made bracelets. I knew immediately that it was going to cost me money when they asked me to put my hand out btu I figured – what the heck. Lizzy and I ended up with two really cool bracelets, that didn’t cost us more than a ride on the Metro. The men said that we had to make a wish right as they tied them and joked with us about our boyfriends, saying that they are “sex machines.” It was pretty hilarious. Plus, they spoke English and French, fairly fluent in both. I was able to talk a little French with the guy making my bracelet, while Lizzy could talk in English to the guy making her bracelet.
Paris is absolutely beautiful and the walk to the Eiffel Tower was fantastic because there was so much to see on the way there. We took some cool pictures once we got there and then we decided to go get some actual dinner – by now it was around 8 or 9. We found a nice little Italian restaurant –I know – Italian in France? But it was great and the server was very nice to us. Plus we ordered the perfect amount of food and it didn’t cost us more than 10 euro each which was pretty reasonable. It didn’t hurt to know that I could get us through a dinner with my knowledge of French. I may not be amazing at it, but in one day I already feel more confident about the language.
When we finished we headed back to the Eiffel Tower because we wanted to see it all lit up – it was so cool. We took as many pictures as we could, granted it was difficult because the lighting wasn’t perfect but we did our best. The best part was when it was sparkling – it was so cool, it was all lit up and sparkling like a Christmas tree. So beautiful. We had to fend off the vendors, but “Non merci” is pretty easy. Finally we decided to find ourselves the Metro (subway) and head back to Matt’s apartment. We found it without a problem, got ourselves to the right line – and ended going in the opposite direction we wanted. No problem – we realized it right away, got off, switched sides and headed in the direction we meant to. When we got out of the Metro near his apartment, we had our bearings about us and found it without a problem, but we saw a girl with Haagen Daas. We all wanted dessert so we decided to walk around until we found it. It took a bit of walking – luckily in a straight line – but we did find it. More conveniently – there was a bathroom we could use there so that we wouldn’t be dying without one at Matt’s apartment. Finally we headed back to the apartment.
We bothered his roommate Josh, who is from Puerto Rico, but lives in NYC and goes to BC, for a while. I was able to get online for all of 5 minutes. Enough time to send an email but that’s about it. We were hanging out in Matt’s room when he got back. After a lot of debating we ended up sleeping in his huge bed – the three of us – while he slept on the couch. We were all ready to take the couches and the chairs but he would not let us sleep in there and insisted that we all just sleep in his bed. We protested for a while but he eventually won over and after some giggling and chatting I rolled over and went to sleep.
I'm leaving on a jet plane...
...and you don't know when I'll be back again.
I am leaving in just a few hours for our first stop on the Eurotrip - Paris, France!!
I'm super excited and still packing some random little things. I'm going to try and get online to update whenever I can but unfortunately I can't promise anything. The girls and I had a fiesta last night and ate everything in my apartment. We couldn't leave anything to go bad!! Luckily we left some eggs for breakfast so I'm going to go cook those. Catch up with you soon!
xoxo, brit
I am leaving in just a few hours for our first stop on the Eurotrip - Paris, France!!
I'm super excited and still packing some random little things. I'm going to try and get online to update whenever I can but unfortunately I can't promise anything. The girls and I had a fiesta last night and ate everything in my apartment. We couldn't leave anything to go bad!! Luckily we left some eggs for breakfast so I'm going to go cook those. Catch up with you soon!
xoxo, brit
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Dublin - Dropkick Murphys Concert & Guinness Factory
Archaeology Field Trip - West Cork
