This, i believe will be my final blog of the trip. I cant believe that this is my last day.
Its cooled down quite a bit now though, a frigid 90 something outside. lol.
i thought a good farewell would be a short list of some of the things that ive learned on this trip.
1. Deffinition of a honk/bike bell:
this does not mean a simple "caution" like it does in the states. it means DONT THINK!! DONT HESITATE!!! it doesnt matter which way you go, or how many people you knock over just GET OUT OF THE WAY becuase you are literally 2.5 seconds from death via moped, bycicle, or car. yes, even if you are walking on the sidewalk...a car could have every right to come up behind you and run you down...so when you hear a horn JUST RUN!!!
2. If you are west of germany, the stare down method works fine for creepy men. (staredown method: you notice a slime ball eyeing you. you put on the cruelest face you can muster and stare them in the eye balls until they avert their gaze...and they will, too.) If you are east of germany...DO NOT TRY THE STARE DOWN!! this is only thought of as an invitation. learned this the hard way.
3. The idea of a pillow is really quite a fluid concept here, and varies greatly from place to place. the same goes for a matress.
4. you never notice how NOT NICE a camping towel is (aka...miracle shammy) until you get an actual towel again at a hotel. and i also never thought i would miss wash cloths this much.
5. When you think that you have been in the grosest merto system...its not true. there is always a groser one waiting for you one country over.
6.i have accepted that i will probably never understand how to order or pay at cafes, resturants, snackbars, or buffets in italy or greece. this is a puzzle that has stumped both hannah and i...and we have no one to explain it to us...becuase no one speaks enough english...
7. male italian train porters are your new best friends. they rarely check your tickets...we probably could have toured italy without a rail pass. haha
8. 'EVERYONE OVER THERE SPEAKS ENGLISH" is the biggest lie of all time. so not true in our experience of the budget travel circut. big cities are fine, but the second you leave get ready to not be understood.
9. conquer your fear of the train WC, becuase if you are stupid and dont know how to ask where the bathroom is in whatever language...you could have a long miserable walk. lol
10. just becuase bread is cheap in france, does not mean its a good idea to just eat that for a couple of days. you will want to die.
anyways, i think thats it for now. i will see everybody in a couple of days. ( i cant believe i already have to come home...)
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Friday, June 29, 2007
the problem with your america is that you have gotten away from the classical greek roots of your forefathers...
This is a direct quote from the cafe owner we had a long chat with yesterday, outside the Plaka. (i shouldnt really say conversation...becuase it was really more of his personal dissertation...)
He seems to be quite concerned over the state that america has been in since the 70's, the golden era in his mind. He blames all of the problems attributed to America on two things.
1. the election of bill clinton...and the fact that he necer was impeached like nixon was. (he also thinks that monica lewinski was some sort of front for a poluted water scheme...and that whole affair was the reason that the drinking water in greece is crappy...)
2. that our country has gotten away from the classic greek roots that it was founded on...and if we could just return to the greek alphabet and greek education (this is "the only way to attain real intelligence"), like we had in the beginning...things would be better.
These are all the problems that he attributes to America:
1. Polution. world wide pollution. he thinks it all stems from the united states. and if we would stop using ac the pollution in athens would clear up.
2. dirty water. world wide dirty water. (he mostly blames bill and monica for this one...)
3. the melting of polar ice caps. (once again...americans and their darn ac.)
Lets just say he was quite the experience...once he found out we were americans, he went off on this for like an hour!! interspersed with telling us of the things that he loves about america...and trying to get people off of the street into his cafe. (a popular practie over here...you stop in front of a menu...someone is there to try and charm you in...)
He was the dad from my big fat greek wedding...going on about how everything...EVERYTHING...is somehow greek. even the founding of america by our brittish protestant fore fathers. Hysterical!!!
We deffinately experienced the greek culture yesterday while wondering around the plaka...and i think its one of my favorites. One of the funniest qualities is that they slap everybody on the back...you enter a store, when you leave, the clerk slaps you on the back and says goodbye...or shakes your hand or gives you five. Their very welcoming people...mostly. We're enjoying our time here, and taking it slow since we pretty much cant leave athens at all for the duration of the trip on account of the fires. Apparently, there are 115 wild fires burning all over greece right now...and with this heat ( the worst heat wave that greece has had in 100 years...) its a huge thing. Central Greece is in a state of emergency. So, its not really a good idea for us to venture out of this area...since everything else is one fire...and the fire in athens doesnt seem to be as big a worry as some of the others...
So there will be no trips to the beach, unfortualtey...but i do get to see all, and i do mean all, of athens.
BUt just be praying that everything stays ok for my flight out the night of the 1st...i dont want to get stuck here!!
He seems to be quite concerned over the state that america has been in since the 70's, the golden era in his mind. He blames all of the problems attributed to America on two things.
1. the election of bill clinton...and the fact that he necer was impeached like nixon was. (he also thinks that monica lewinski was some sort of front for a poluted water scheme...and that whole affair was the reason that the drinking water in greece is crappy...)
2. that our country has gotten away from the classic greek roots that it was founded on...and if we could just return to the greek alphabet and greek education (this is "the only way to attain real intelligence"), like we had in the beginning...things would be better.
These are all the problems that he attributes to America:
1. Polution. world wide pollution. he thinks it all stems from the united states. and if we would stop using ac the pollution in athens would clear up.
2. dirty water. world wide dirty water. (he mostly blames bill and monica for this one...)
3. the melting of polar ice caps. (once again...americans and their darn ac.)
Lets just say he was quite the experience...once he found out we were americans, he went off on this for like an hour!! interspersed with telling us of the things that he loves about america...and trying to get people off of the street into his cafe. (a popular practie over here...you stop in front of a menu...someone is there to try and charm you in...)
He was the dad from my big fat greek wedding...going on about how everything...EVERYTHING...is somehow greek. even the founding of america by our brittish protestant fore fathers. Hysterical!!!
We deffinately experienced the greek culture yesterday while wondering around the plaka...and i think its one of my favorites. One of the funniest qualities is that they slap everybody on the back...you enter a store, when you leave, the clerk slaps you on the back and says goodbye...or shakes your hand or gives you five. Their very welcoming people...mostly. We're enjoying our time here, and taking it slow since we pretty much cant leave athens at all for the duration of the trip on account of the fires. Apparently, there are 115 wild fires burning all over greece right now...and with this heat ( the worst heat wave that greece has had in 100 years...) its a huge thing. Central Greece is in a state of emergency. So, its not really a good idea for us to venture out of this area...since everything else is one fire...and the fire in athens doesnt seem to be as big a worry as some of the others...
So there will be no trips to the beach, unfortualtey...but i do get to see all, and i do mean all, of athens.
BUt just be praying that everything stays ok for my flight out the night of the 1st...i dont want to get stuck here!!
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
we're havin' a heat wave...
today we set foot on our seventh (and final...what sadness) country, by way of 36 hours filled with every form of public transportation possible. (bus, metro, train, ferry) Its been quite the couple of days.
We havent seen too much of greece yet, we didnt find our hotel until about 9:30 this evening, so the sightseeing will begin tomorrow. I have seen plenty of the seas around here (ionian sea, meditteranean sea, and the gulf of corinth), and it is they are the most beautiful blue i have ever seen. they really are sapphire blue...up until the shallow areas where they're turquoise. Completely amazing.
i think the next couple of days we'll try to get our sightseeing done. Its been a challenge since we hit pisa, on account of the fact that italy and greece are in the middle of a record breaking heat wave...so the average temperature on a daily basis is between 112 and 115, add humidity. It makes staying out in the sun all day and walking around a tad on the difficult side. But we are hoping to get to the beach in corinth on my last day. (my last day...i cant believe i have to come home already!!)
anyways, i think thats all for now...
somehow i have really lost the motivation for the novel length blogs i am famous for. lol
We havent seen too much of greece yet, we didnt find our hotel until about 9:30 this evening, so the sightseeing will begin tomorrow. I have seen plenty of the seas around here (ionian sea, meditteranean sea, and the gulf of corinth), and it is they are the most beautiful blue i have ever seen. they really are sapphire blue...up until the shallow areas where they're turquoise. Completely amazing.
i think the next couple of days we'll try to get our sightseeing done. Its been a challenge since we hit pisa, on account of the fact that italy and greece are in the middle of a record breaking heat wave...so the average temperature on a daily basis is between 112 and 115, add humidity. It makes staying out in the sun all day and walking around a tad on the difficult side. But we are hoping to get to the beach in corinth on my last day. (my last day...i cant believe i have to come home already!!)
anyways, i think thats all for now...
somehow i have really lost the motivation for the novel length blogs i am famous for. lol
Sunday, June 24, 2007
When in Rome...
We arrived in Rome yesterday...to our second campsite of the trip. The whole camping aspect of our trip is completely random...but nicer than some hostels...were just way out in the middle of nowhere...on the tiber river in the outskirts of rome. Its kind of nice though...we can go into the city, but also have the quiet of the country.
Today we did our first bit of sightseeing in Rome...the collosium and surrounding area. I can deffinately say that today was one of the best days of the trip...awesome stuff. Theres still quite a bit of ruins around the collosium area. Amazing.
anyways...im not really in a blog my life type of mood...so thats the update for the day!!!
Today we did our first bit of sightseeing in Rome...the collosium and surrounding area. I can deffinately say that today was one of the best days of the trip...awesome stuff. Theres still quite a bit of ruins around the collosium area. Amazing.
anyways...im not really in a blog my life type of mood...so thats the update for the day!!!
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Welcome to the Campsite
How to be completely random:
choose to stay at a campsite in pisa sharing a single wide trailer with strangers. Most hysterical lodging experience to date and i dont think that anything will top it. I literally could not stop laughing when we entered our home for the next few days last night. (post discovering the completely confusing experience that is the bus system of pisa. this system granted us the wonderful experience of wandering around the city at 2200.)
A little about "warbler c-1"
-the bedroom does not have room for sven...he is currently wedged between the beds...halfway under. i think to get him out i have to dump ALL the contents and then repack.
-hannahs bed completely blocks the door...followed by a 6" space and then my bed against the far "wall" (a paper thin piece of mystery material that i almost put my elbow through last night post tripping my way to my bed.) It is impossible to enter the room without falling. impossible.
-the toilet is in a closet with a strategically placed window so the neighbors can feel like theyre in there with you.
-the shower...see above explanation of the toilet. add a skylight above that drops tree and bug debris on you whilst you wash.
the redeeming quality of this place is that:
a. its 800 meters from the tower
b. it has live music, randomly enough, every night at 2100...and a pool, which is nice, since the weather yesterday when we passed through florence at 5 pm was 102 degrees with 100 percent humidity. its a killer!!
anyways, other than the hysterical factor of the campsite, its pretty nice. its deffinately better than some hostels...super clean which is really all that matters.
We went up into the leaning tower today which was such a wierd feeling!!! its so wierd to be going upstairs and at the same time feel like youre going down them. All of the stairs are marble...so on the downward slant you better make sure you dont slide!! (if i was in my flip-flops i would have been toast!! haha!) The last flight of stairs was so narrow...both my shoulders almost touched the side walls. The view of the piazza from the top was amazng though. Coming back down that staircase was a tad nerve-racking. haha. It was almost a walk-up, slide-down scenario. Thankfully my complete clutz status did not choose to surface there, unlike the louvre where i slid down 5 stairs (wretched old navy flip-flops)... marble is brutal!! ;)
Tuscany is beautiful so far. Tomorrow we are going to cinque terre and florence...which im really looking forward to. I hear that cinque terra is amazing!!
Italian men are quite the experience as well. A typical encounter:
-Hannah and i are walking down the street minding our own buisiness...
-we hear some italian stallions yelling behind us
-we ignore and keep walking...we know they are talking to us, even though theyre not speaking english
-they catch up to us...and figure out that we cannot speak italian...so they in their infinite ego, begin to "speak inglese"...which consists of a few rudimentary phrases...which they figure is all they need. they are as follows:
"where are you from? america?? AAAAAAAAAAAAHH!"
"you are very beautiful, yes...very beautiful"
"you take a picture with me..." followed by a wink and a kiss blown your direction.
"i take you out tonight"
my favorite is the complete shock on their face when you tell them they cant take you out...they are appalled!!! how can their charming smile, and the constant uttering of "bella, bella" not be working??? How can they be getting turned down??? it is a mystery...but what is no longer a mystery is the reason they are all so buff. this is beacuse they carry around their egos all day...and that is a hefty challenge.
All this to say that italy is an interesting eperience...but we love it!! The culture here is so fun...wake up late, lounge around in cafes all day long, and then wander into a resturant around 8 or 9 pm and eat till 11. My kind of place. :)
choose to stay at a campsite in pisa sharing a single wide trailer with strangers. Most hysterical lodging experience to date and i dont think that anything will top it. I literally could not stop laughing when we entered our home for the next few days last night. (post discovering the completely confusing experience that is the bus system of pisa. this system granted us the wonderful experience of wandering around the city at 2200.)
A little about "warbler c-1"
-the bedroom does not have room for sven...he is currently wedged between the beds...halfway under. i think to get him out i have to dump ALL the contents and then repack.
-hannahs bed completely blocks the door...followed by a 6" space and then my bed against the far "wall" (a paper thin piece of mystery material that i almost put my elbow through last night post tripping my way to my bed.) It is impossible to enter the room without falling. impossible.
-the toilet is in a closet with a strategically placed window so the neighbors can feel like theyre in there with you.
-the shower...see above explanation of the toilet. add a skylight above that drops tree and bug debris on you whilst you wash.
the redeeming quality of this place is that:
a. its 800 meters from the tower
b. it has live music, randomly enough, every night at 2100...and a pool, which is nice, since the weather yesterday when we passed through florence at 5 pm was 102 degrees with 100 percent humidity. its a killer!!
anyways, other than the hysterical factor of the campsite, its pretty nice. its deffinately better than some hostels...super clean which is really all that matters.
We went up into the leaning tower today which was such a wierd feeling!!! its so wierd to be going upstairs and at the same time feel like youre going down them. All of the stairs are marble...so on the downward slant you better make sure you dont slide!! (if i was in my flip-flops i would have been toast!! haha!) The last flight of stairs was so narrow...both my shoulders almost touched the side walls. The view of the piazza from the top was amazng though. Coming back down that staircase was a tad nerve-racking. haha. It was almost a walk-up, slide-down scenario. Thankfully my complete clutz status did not choose to surface there, unlike the louvre where i slid down 5 stairs (wretched old navy flip-flops)... marble is brutal!! ;)
Tuscany is beautiful so far. Tomorrow we are going to cinque terre and florence...which im really looking forward to. I hear that cinque terra is amazing!!
Italian men are quite the experience as well. A typical encounter:
-Hannah and i are walking down the street minding our own buisiness...
-we hear some italian stallions yelling behind us
-we ignore and keep walking...we know they are talking to us, even though theyre not speaking english
-they catch up to us...and figure out that we cannot speak italian...so they in their infinite ego, begin to "speak inglese"...which consists of a few rudimentary phrases...which they figure is all they need. they are as follows:
"where are you from? america?? AAAAAAAAAAAAHH!"
"you are very beautiful, yes...very beautiful"
"you take a picture with me..." followed by a wink and a kiss blown your direction.
"i take you out tonight"
my favorite is the complete shock on their face when you tell them they cant take you out...they are appalled!!! how can their charming smile, and the constant uttering of "bella, bella" not be working??? How can they be getting turned down??? it is a mystery...but what is no longer a mystery is the reason they are all so buff. this is beacuse they carry around their egos all day...and that is a hefty challenge.
All this to say that italy is an interesting eperience...but we love it!! The culture here is so fun...wake up late, lounge around in cafes all day long, and then wander into a resturant around 8 or 9 pm and eat till 11. My kind of place. :)
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
if you´re good to mama, mama´s good to you...
we are here in muran...and can proudly say that last night we experienced the true italian culture.
We got off the train from venice at about 5 o clock...and we werent able to get a hold of the lady we are staying with...so we decided to just head into town and find somewhere to eat and chill out for a while and hope that she picked up her phone later. (we had no idea where she lived...)
So, we walk for about a half hour in the total hottness of italy with our packs on and decide to eat at the first place we see...becuase there is not much around and we cant be too picky...so the first place we see actually says they have a 'menu touristico' so we go head to the patio so we dont have to pay to sit inside. When we round the corner onto the loud patio full of locals (mostly 50 year old men drinking countless glasses of vino and playing cards...), the place goes dead silent and all eyes are on the bedraggled looking, sweaty, beckpacking girls. The most akward experience to date...so we proudly march over to a table a plop down to order.
everyone is still staring...and they are also talking about us becuase we keep hearing the word 'americana'. All the old men are gesturing at us and smiling. (we have discovered that all italian men, no matter how old they get, ever think they have out-aged the label of italian stalion, and therefore think they are flattering you by staring you down....someone should let them know this is a myth.)
So, we try to order...forgetting we are in italy...land of 'dont eat dinner till 8pm'. So we order coffee and decide to sit there till dinner is served...and we made a pact that no matter how many more creepy men, old or young, arrive, we would not leave till we ate!!! we would not let their stares and conversation kick us out of there till we had dinner!! No matter how many of the brothers continued to trickle in in all of their slicked-hair glory...we would not exit until mama showed up to cook us some pasta!!! So we sat...and tried to keep a constant flow of conversation going so that none of the men could find an opening to talk to us...which they were trying to do.
welcome to italy!!!
Finally mama did show up...speaking no english. (we have discovered that even if a place has a tourist menu...it doesnt mean that the poeple will understand you when you order from it. lol.) The woman cooks a mean plate of spagetti though...and we pretty much love mama becuase she was a female and kept the men in line. Sitting there for 4 hours was quite the cultural lesson. It was so funny to watch the men yell at the woman to bring them this, bring them that...and watch the woman bring them nothing. Then watch the men go back to the card game...drink some more...and then yell again. Eventually shed come back out and bring them what they were yelling for. After she took her sweet time.
We did finally get a hold of marta (the woman we are staying with) and she took us to her house...after buying us a scoop of gelatto as a welcome to murano. We love it here...and are enjoying a couple days of chilling out in a little italian at the base of the white mountains (??? i think thats what theyre called) and then we heard to pisa.
Venice was amazing...i was glad to see it, but it was good we were only there for a day. It was so touristy!!! We really didnt feel like we were in italy. But the architecture is amazing...and the city is beautiful...much bigger than i thought at a grand total of 118 islands. Out stay at the hilton was awesome...we had a room with a view...and a free shuttle boat so we didnt have to take the dirty vaporetti (water bus) much. Not that the vaporetti werent an experience...on our forst ride we got to see someone getting arrested, and try to escape from the police. It was pretty exciting. lol.
anyways thats all for now!! love you!!
We got off the train from venice at about 5 o clock...and we werent able to get a hold of the lady we are staying with...so we decided to just head into town and find somewhere to eat and chill out for a while and hope that she picked up her phone later. (we had no idea where she lived...)
So, we walk for about a half hour in the total hottness of italy with our packs on and decide to eat at the first place we see...becuase there is not much around and we cant be too picky...so the first place we see actually says they have a 'menu touristico' so we go head to the patio so we dont have to pay to sit inside. When we round the corner onto the loud patio full of locals (mostly 50 year old men drinking countless glasses of vino and playing cards...), the place goes dead silent and all eyes are on the bedraggled looking, sweaty, beckpacking girls. The most akward experience to date...so we proudly march over to a table a plop down to order.
everyone is still staring...and they are also talking about us becuase we keep hearing the word 'americana'. All the old men are gesturing at us and smiling. (we have discovered that all italian men, no matter how old they get, ever think they have out-aged the label of italian stalion, and therefore think they are flattering you by staring you down....someone should let them know this is a myth.)
So, we try to order...forgetting we are in italy...land of 'dont eat dinner till 8pm'. So we order coffee and decide to sit there till dinner is served...and we made a pact that no matter how many more creepy men, old or young, arrive, we would not leave till we ate!!! we would not let their stares and conversation kick us out of there till we had dinner!! No matter how many of the brothers continued to trickle in in all of their slicked-hair glory...we would not exit until mama showed up to cook us some pasta!!! So we sat...and tried to keep a constant flow of conversation going so that none of the men could find an opening to talk to us...which they were trying to do.
welcome to italy!!!
Finally mama did show up...speaking no english. (we have discovered that even if a place has a tourist menu...it doesnt mean that the poeple will understand you when you order from it. lol.) The woman cooks a mean plate of spagetti though...and we pretty much love mama becuase she was a female and kept the men in line. Sitting there for 4 hours was quite the cultural lesson. It was so funny to watch the men yell at the woman to bring them this, bring them that...and watch the woman bring them nothing. Then watch the men go back to the card game...drink some more...and then yell again. Eventually shed come back out and bring them what they were yelling for. After she took her sweet time.
We did finally get a hold of marta (the woman we are staying with) and she took us to her house...after buying us a scoop of gelatto as a welcome to murano. We love it here...and are enjoying a couple days of chilling out in a little italian at the base of the white mountains (??? i think thats what theyre called) and then we heard to pisa.
Venice was amazing...i was glad to see it, but it was good we were only there for a day. It was so touristy!!! We really didnt feel like we were in italy. But the architecture is amazing...and the city is beautiful...much bigger than i thought at a grand total of 118 islands. Out stay at the hilton was awesome...we had a room with a view...and a free shuttle boat so we didnt have to take the dirty vaporetti (water bus) much. Not that the vaporetti werent an experience...on our forst ride we got to see someone getting arrested, and try to escape from the police. It was pretty exciting. lol.
anyways thats all for now!! love you!!
Saturday, June 16, 2007
true confessions of a studel snob
It is official that Austria is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. After spending just a couple of days in salzberg...hannah and i were practically ready to move there.
Yesterday we took the sound of music tour which was so great. Part of the tour was in the lake and hill district of salzberg which was pretty much the prettiest place on earth. (we also got caught in a total mountain thunderstorm...complete with full bolts of lightning right in front of us as we were running back to the tour bus. i am very glad that i am over my fear of thunder and lightning or that would have been the end of me. haha)
We had some warm cheese srtudel (not gonna lie...ive had better), but it was served with THE BEST vanilla ice cream ive ever had in my entire life!! i cant even describe it. they really know how to do dairy in austria. It has been our main diet, in one form or another. :)
This morning after breakfast at the hostel (which consisted of a role with a vat of fresh cream cheese...im telling you i piled it on!! best cream cheese ever. philiadelphia is weeping over the quality of austrias spread), we went into the childhood home of mozart. there are two of his residences in salzberg, the one that we went in houses all of his instruments. Seeing his pianos, violin, and viola were pretty much a huge highlight of the trip for me. There were also original compositions written by hand. AMAZING!!! (you arent allowed to take pictures anywhere in the musem...but i am proud to say that i snuck a pic of a score...and then the ultimate...HIS PIANO FORTE!!!! i did get caught a little bit for that one, and was subsequently followed around the museum for the rest of the time by a surly austrain...but who really cares?? that picture is getting blown up and framed baby!!!)
Afer touring his house we stopped for a little post breakfast breakfast (a tradition we have started and embraced. we eat the free food at the hostel, and then go get a pastry and coffee an hour later. lol...) This is where i ate the best apple strudel of my life...and now consider myself to be quite the strudel snob...and i dont think ill ever eat it in the states again. It was served with warm vanilla creme (aka vanilla custard...) and it was soul moving. hannah and i are now different people. (i realize that most of this post is about food...but come on people, its me! im surprised it didnt happen sooner...) We also ordered a capacino (which now i know was named for the cappacine monks of tyrol who wear brown robes with white hoods) with whipped cream on the top that has also ruined me for american whipped cream. The best way i can describe it is that it was almost exactly like the filling in a really good cheese pastry. Amazing.
Dinner consisted of a mozerella and tomato sandwhich, suplimented by a hearty selection of cheeses from all over europe. ( i cannot get over the fact that we paid €1.59, the same as for a can of pringles, for what would equal probably 10 dollars worth of cheese in america.) needless to say we have kept the dairy farmers of austria in business for the past couple of days. lol.
We are now in Bolzano, italy after the most beautiful train ride to date, through the alps...which still have snow in some places. They are amazing. Bolzano is in the tyrol region of italy, so its still pretty german here, but there are already vinyards lacing up and down the mountain sides. We are huge fans of italy already...tomorrow we head to venice, which will be an adventure for sure...we shall see if the 5 star hilton lets two homeless looking packpachers in. we may have a fight ahead of us. lol
quick funny story about the border crossing into italy:
hannah and i were barricaded in our little sleeper car (we have mastered the art of taking over multiple rows....throw your crap everywhere, scatter everything as much as possible...and then flop on top of it and pretend youve been sleeping that way for the past 10 stops.) , when we hear the italian crossing guards approach. hannah and i are totally sprawled with nothing ready. The two men fling open our door and brush aside the curtain, and proceed to both peep in their heads for 2.5 seconds, smile, and then slam our door and keep walking. I barely had time to smile, and deffinately did not have time to get out a "buena sera". Needless to say, we did not get a stamp, as our passports werent even looked at. Wierdest experience ever.
anyways, i must go...and one quick moment to get down on one knee so that i can beg for some comments from whoever is viewing this thing 169 times and not leaving comments. you know who you are!!! Much love from italy!! Ciao Bellas!!
Yesterday we took the sound of music tour which was so great. Part of the tour was in the lake and hill district of salzberg which was pretty much the prettiest place on earth. (we also got caught in a total mountain thunderstorm...complete with full bolts of lightning right in front of us as we were running back to the tour bus. i am very glad that i am over my fear of thunder and lightning or that would have been the end of me. haha)
We had some warm cheese srtudel (not gonna lie...ive had better), but it was served with THE BEST vanilla ice cream ive ever had in my entire life!! i cant even describe it. they really know how to do dairy in austria. It has been our main diet, in one form or another. :)
This morning after breakfast at the hostel (which consisted of a role with a vat of fresh cream cheese...im telling you i piled it on!! best cream cheese ever. philiadelphia is weeping over the quality of austrias spread), we went into the childhood home of mozart. there are two of his residences in salzberg, the one that we went in houses all of his instruments. Seeing his pianos, violin, and viola were pretty much a huge highlight of the trip for me. There were also original compositions written by hand. AMAZING!!! (you arent allowed to take pictures anywhere in the musem...but i am proud to say that i snuck a pic of a score...and then the ultimate...HIS PIANO FORTE!!!! i did get caught a little bit for that one, and was subsequently followed around the museum for the rest of the time by a surly austrain...but who really cares?? that picture is getting blown up and framed baby!!!)
Afer touring his house we stopped for a little post breakfast breakfast (a tradition we have started and embraced. we eat the free food at the hostel, and then go get a pastry and coffee an hour later. lol...) This is where i ate the best apple strudel of my life...and now consider myself to be quite the strudel snob...and i dont think ill ever eat it in the states again. It was served with warm vanilla creme (aka vanilla custard...) and it was soul moving. hannah and i are now different people. (i realize that most of this post is about food...but come on people, its me! im surprised it didnt happen sooner...) We also ordered a capacino (which now i know was named for the cappacine monks of tyrol who wear brown robes with white hoods) with whipped cream on the top that has also ruined me for american whipped cream. The best way i can describe it is that it was almost exactly like the filling in a really good cheese pastry. Amazing.
Dinner consisted of a mozerella and tomato sandwhich, suplimented by a hearty selection of cheeses from all over europe. ( i cannot get over the fact that we paid €1.59, the same as for a can of pringles, for what would equal probably 10 dollars worth of cheese in america.) needless to say we have kept the dairy farmers of austria in business for the past couple of days. lol.
We are now in Bolzano, italy after the most beautiful train ride to date, through the alps...which still have snow in some places. They are amazing. Bolzano is in the tyrol region of italy, so its still pretty german here, but there are already vinyards lacing up and down the mountain sides. We are huge fans of italy already...tomorrow we head to venice, which will be an adventure for sure...we shall see if the 5 star hilton lets two homeless looking packpachers in. we may have a fight ahead of us. lol
quick funny story about the border crossing into italy:
hannah and i were barricaded in our little sleeper car (we have mastered the art of taking over multiple rows....throw your crap everywhere, scatter everything as much as possible...and then flop on top of it and pretend youve been sleeping that way for the past 10 stops.) , when we hear the italian crossing guards approach. hannah and i are totally sprawled with nothing ready. The two men fling open our door and brush aside the curtain, and proceed to both peep in their heads for 2.5 seconds, smile, and then slam our door and keep walking. I barely had time to smile, and deffinately did not have time to get out a "buena sera". Needless to say, we did not get a stamp, as our passports werent even looked at. Wierdest experience ever.
anyways, i must go...and one quick moment to get down on one knee so that i can beg for some comments from whoever is viewing this thing 169 times and not leaving comments. you know who you are!!! Much love from italy!! Ciao Bellas!!
Thursday, June 14, 2007
how to almost get arrested in berlin
1. stand in line for the dome of the reichstag (euivalent to the white house) which you can go up in for free.
2. get inside after an eternity in front of the rudest woman alive. pack yourself into the corner of the holding room that is quickly filling
3. realize that you have your huge knife in your bag
4. begin to calmly panic...run through your options in your head, while ttrying not to say the words 'huge knife' too loudly when explaining your rising blood pressure to your traveling buddy. you could run out those glass doors that are quickly closing and push past the 30 people in your way...crap! the doors closed whilst you were pondering this!! ok, so now, you think that maybe before you get to the metal detector and the scrary german officials there to give you a pat down and then a once over with the wand, that you have this big old knife in your purse for no apparent reason. this also seems like a bad idea.
5. stand in line for the metal detectors and break into a sweat as you watch the thourough search that all the others who DONT have weapons are going through...and think about your life getting deported from germany.
6. locate an exit!!! yes!!! there is an exit!!!! away from the mean security!!
7. head towards it...
8. get yelled at in german by a mean security woman...
9. feebly mutter 'exit...ausgang...exit...' and point at the only door that guarantees you and your knife toting ways freedom.
10. stand there as the woman gives you a once, twice, and third time over...till she finally decides to let you out.
11. get outside of the reichstag
12. proceed to run far, far from the reichstag...
2. get inside after an eternity in front of the rudest woman alive. pack yourself into the corner of the holding room that is quickly filling
3. realize that you have your huge knife in your bag
4. begin to calmly panic...run through your options in your head, while ttrying not to say the words 'huge knife' too loudly when explaining your rising blood pressure to your traveling buddy. you could run out those glass doors that are quickly closing and push past the 30 people in your way...crap! the doors closed whilst you were pondering this!! ok, so now, you think that maybe before you get to the metal detector and the scrary german officials there to give you a pat down and then a once over with the wand, that you have this big old knife in your purse for no apparent reason. this also seems like a bad idea.
5. stand in line for the metal detectors and break into a sweat as you watch the thourough search that all the others who DONT have weapons are going through...and think about your life getting deported from germany.
6. locate an exit!!! yes!!! there is an exit!!!! away from the mean security!!
7. head towards it...
8. get yelled at in german by a mean security woman...
9. feebly mutter 'exit...ausgang...exit...' and point at the only door that guarantees you and your knife toting ways freedom.
10. stand there as the woman gives you a once, twice, and third time over...till she finally decides to let you out.
11. get outside of the reichstag
12. proceed to run far, far from the reichstag...
salzberg is completely lovely.
Hannah and i arrived in salzberg this afternoon...and it is quickly becoming one of our favorite places so far. It is beautiful here. We are loving it and weve only been here for 5 hours.
We found a dirt cheap curry place for dinner, (we do dirt cheap food to leave a hefty budget for gelatto. lol. lets just say that while we were in berlin, the food to ice cream budget was not exactly even. we had a haagen das cafe 2 minutes from our hostel. We spent every evening there...)
Anyways...weve just been wandering through the street tonight...which look exactly like they do in the sound of music (which is played every night at our hostel...its on in the background right now...), the place has not changed. I dont think there is a bad part of town either...usually the train stations arent in a very nice area weve noticed...but here even the station area is beautiful.
Salzberg is surrounded by mountains on pretty much all sides from what i can see, covered in greeen grass and trees, and there is a river running through the city. if you want to know what area of town were in...if you watch the sound of music, when maria and the kids are going through salzberg singing doe a deer, at one point they stop on this road with a stone wall behind it, and there is a large white castle behind them up on a hill, we are on the direct other side of that hill and castle. when we leave our hostel, we can look up and see it. Its awesome. Hopefully we can get some pictures up soon!!
Tomorrow we are going to take the sound of music tour, and see all the sights of the city that are in the movie. Hannah and i will also, possibly reinact the movie...becuase we can. haha. it should be loads of fun!!! (we'll see of the others on the bus feel that way as well. lol)
Mozarts house is also here...im pretty excited about that too...we walked past it tonight, hopefully we can go in it tomorrow.
anyways, thats pretty much the update. we are here tonight and tomorrow night, and then we head for bolzano italy that next morning...and from there venice!!!
its so hard to believe that today we entered our 5th country!!! (sadly you dont get stamps in your passport if you cross via train, becuase all of these counrties are in the european union.) i think the fact that i am actually on this trip is finally sinking in...i cant believe im in Salzberg!!!
We found a dirt cheap curry place for dinner, (we do dirt cheap food to leave a hefty budget for gelatto. lol. lets just say that while we were in berlin, the food to ice cream budget was not exactly even. we had a haagen das cafe 2 minutes from our hostel. We spent every evening there...)
Anyways...weve just been wandering through the street tonight...which look exactly like they do in the sound of music (which is played every night at our hostel...its on in the background right now...), the place has not changed. I dont think there is a bad part of town either...usually the train stations arent in a very nice area weve noticed...but here even the station area is beautiful.
Salzberg is surrounded by mountains on pretty much all sides from what i can see, covered in greeen grass and trees, and there is a river running through the city. if you want to know what area of town were in...if you watch the sound of music, when maria and the kids are going through salzberg singing doe a deer, at one point they stop on this road with a stone wall behind it, and there is a large white castle behind them up on a hill, we are on the direct other side of that hill and castle. when we leave our hostel, we can look up and see it. Its awesome. Hopefully we can get some pictures up soon!!
Tomorrow we are going to take the sound of music tour, and see all the sights of the city that are in the movie. Hannah and i will also, possibly reinact the movie...becuase we can. haha. it should be loads of fun!!! (we'll see of the others on the bus feel that way as well. lol)
Mozarts house is also here...im pretty excited about that too...we walked past it tonight, hopefully we can go in it tomorrow.
anyways, thats pretty much the update. we are here tonight and tomorrow night, and then we head for bolzano italy that next morning...and from there venice!!!
its so hard to believe that today we entered our 5th country!!! (sadly you dont get stamps in your passport if you cross via train, becuase all of these counrties are in the european union.) i think the fact that i am actually on this trip is finally sinking in...i cant believe im in Salzberg!!!
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
the sights of berlin
hannah and i did our sightseeing today. (since yesterday was spent soely sitting and eating.)
highlights:
-the remnants of the berlin wall.
there are a couple chunks of it still left up in the city. Its a pretty wierd thing to see, and not as tall as i was imagining. (somewhat along the lines of a stonehenge type of thing.) the lack of height must have made it that more opressing. Being able to see the other side and know that you could never get over. there was a memorial for some of the victims killed while trying to cross over to the west side by the reichstag...and that was cool to see and read all the info there from the soviet occupation.
-the topography of terror.
this is an outdoor exhibition on the sight of one of the soviets governmental buildings. (cant remember which one...sorry.)
it is on one of the street where all of the third reichs official buildings were (including the balcony where hitler made his addresses from), the gestapos headquarters and their house prison, and all of the soviet governemts official buildings. None of these places are there anymore, but the topography outlined where they all were, and gave you a feel for what those streets were like from hitlers time until the wall fell.
its also been interesting to feel the vibe of east berlin, which we have decided the only way to explain is that it is completely void. It feels empty, and you can feel that the sting of the soviet opression has not really left the people. its odd. there is no culture or charm anywhere. people dont smile much, and the subways over here are down right disturbing.
we walked out of our trendy nice little area that our hostel is in yesterday...and it was just a wierd experience.
anyways, i think thats all from me for now. we are heading to salzburg tomorrow for a couple of days and then onto italy!!! love you all!!
highlights:
-the remnants of the berlin wall.
there are a couple chunks of it still left up in the city. Its a pretty wierd thing to see, and not as tall as i was imagining. (somewhat along the lines of a stonehenge type of thing.) the lack of height must have made it that more opressing. Being able to see the other side and know that you could never get over. there was a memorial for some of the victims killed while trying to cross over to the west side by the reichstag...and that was cool to see and read all the info there from the soviet occupation.
-the topography of terror.
this is an outdoor exhibition on the sight of one of the soviets governmental buildings. (cant remember which one...sorry.)
it is on one of the street where all of the third reichs official buildings were (including the balcony where hitler made his addresses from), the gestapos headquarters and their house prison, and all of the soviet governemts official buildings. None of these places are there anymore, but the topography outlined where they all were, and gave you a feel for what those streets were like from hitlers time until the wall fell.
its also been interesting to feel the vibe of east berlin, which we have decided the only way to explain is that it is completely void. It feels empty, and you can feel that the sting of the soviet opression has not really left the people. its odd. there is no culture or charm anywhere. people dont smile much, and the subways over here are down right disturbing.
we walked out of our trendy nice little area that our hostel is in yesterday...and it was just a wierd experience.
anyways, i think thats all from me for now. we are heading to salzburg tomorrow for a couple of days and then onto italy!!! love you all!!
Kürrywurst
yesterday i had my first traditional sausage. actually 2. Kürrywurst.
apparently it is a berlin special and this area is famous for it. i can honestly say that i have no idea what i ingested. it tasted good but is still a complete mystery. the proper way to eat it is to drown it in curried catsup. (it also came with a vat of mayonaise...of which i did not partake. woof)
so yes...i proudly pounded down two 8 in. long kürryworsts yesterday.
i do not think i will be eating anymore sausage this trip. lol.
i dont really have anything interesting to update on...yesterday i literally sat at one cafe or another ALL DAY LONG.
we did not do anything else. it felt really nice. i am deffiantely embracing cafe culture.
one interesting thing hannah and i have noticed, is that outside of beer culture, germany (at least the east side) doesnt seem to have much culture of its own. which makes perfect sense if you think about its history for the past 100 years or so. whatever culture is here is borrowed from other places. (italy, france...)
anyways...we are going to the berlin wall and the reichstaag today. im excited. :)
love you all and love getting comments!!! ( i cant say that enough!!)
apparently it is a berlin special and this area is famous for it. i can honestly say that i have no idea what i ingested. it tasted good but is still a complete mystery. the proper way to eat it is to drown it in curried catsup. (it also came with a vat of mayonaise...of which i did not partake. woof)
so yes...i proudly pounded down two 8 in. long kürryworsts yesterday.
i do not think i will be eating anymore sausage this trip. lol.
i dont really have anything interesting to update on...yesterday i literally sat at one cafe or another ALL DAY LONG.
we did not do anything else. it felt really nice. i am deffiantely embracing cafe culture.
one interesting thing hannah and i have noticed, is that outside of beer culture, germany (at least the east side) doesnt seem to have much culture of its own. which makes perfect sense if you think about its history for the past 100 years or so. whatever culture is here is borrowed from other places. (italy, france...)
anyways...we are going to the berlin wall and the reichstaag today. im excited. :)
love you all and love getting comments!!! ( i cant say that enough!!)
Monday, June 11, 2007
a note on the hostel
i apolagize for completely forgetting to mention our hostel situation. We are in a completely chill area of town, in a nice hostel, staying in an 8 bed mixed dorm. (we can survive anything after the 40 bed mix...)
We enter our room to find that we are the only females.
The funny thing about this is that at the beginning of the trip that would have freaked me right out...and i would have felt like such a piece of meat. However, now...i felt like one of the guys. Thats how far ive come in my dude status. i officially am no longer bothered by the fact that these fellows in hostels seem to be alleric to pants and boxers are all they feel they need. ever.
i am one of the guys. not sure of thats good or bad...but hey, whatever.
We enter our room to find that we are the only females.
The funny thing about this is that at the beginning of the trip that would have freaked me right out...and i would have felt like such a piece of meat. However, now...i felt like one of the guys. Thats how far ive come in my dude status. i officially am no longer bothered by the fact that these fellows in hostels seem to be alleric to pants and boxers are all they feel they need. ever.
i am one of the guys. not sure of thats good or bad...but hey, whatever.
sven...local waiter, your hero and mine.
well...here we are in berlin. we got here after quite the train experience, which i wont bore you with, and got spit out into an area completely away from our hostel...somewhere in the ghetto area of east berlin. So, thanks to hannah and her mad city metro skills, we get to the right area of town finally. The only issue at this point is that we cannot find our hostel anywhere, and the only thing wed eaten was a nutella sandwhich. So, we decided to sit at the first italian cafe we saw and find the hostel later. We ordered coffee, antipasta, pasta, and something else i cant remember. We thought wed really live it up since we hadnt spent an y money in like 4 days and we had a long day.
This was just fine until the bill came, hannah slipped in her mastercard, and sven, our tall lanky german waiter says:
"im sorry, we do not take the plastic."
well crap...you do not take "the plastic" and we do not have "the cash" (whoever says that you dont need cash over here is crazy...weve had numerous occasions where the lack of cash has been a problem. i think we learned our lesson this time.)
so we ask sven where the nearest bank is and hannah sets off for what should be a 2 min. walk to the ATM.
15 minutes rools by.
sven is staring at me.
i am avoiding eye contact.
30 minutes rolls by, sven is looking at me, ( i am still avoiding eye contact) and also speaking with the italian owner and father of an endless amount of sons all working the place. they are gesturng towards me and muttering under their breath. i am avoiding eye contact.
40 minuted rolls by...i am convinced that one of two things has happened:
1. hannah got jumped and is on her way to thailand to be forced into prostitution...
2. she got lost, and this was the final straw...she had a meltdown and is crying on a street corner in east berllin.
either way...im a tad concerned. i think that sven and the army of italians can read the concern on my face...they are all staring at me (all 8 of them) and discussing the situation among themsleves.
50 minutes rolls by...sven marches up to the table removes his apron, and tells me that he is setting out to find her. the family of italian brother look on as sven marches purposefully down the street to find my dear lost hannah.
she rounds the corner just as he is turning it. GLORY BE!! (she ended up walking to an entirely different bank due to some faulty directions given by a couple of italians) (why so many italians??)
sven clarifies that everything is ok...and delivers her safely back to the table.
and it turns out that our freakin hostel was a block away.
i think that story is the most random and funny that we will get in a cafe. i hope. lol.
and what are the odds of getting a waiter with the same name as my pack?? haha.
This was just fine until the bill came, hannah slipped in her mastercard, and sven, our tall lanky german waiter says:
"im sorry, we do not take the plastic."
well crap...you do not take "the plastic" and we do not have "the cash" (whoever says that you dont need cash over here is crazy...weve had numerous occasions where the lack of cash has been a problem. i think we learned our lesson this time.)
so we ask sven where the nearest bank is and hannah sets off for what should be a 2 min. walk to the ATM.
15 minutes rools by.
sven is staring at me.
i am avoiding eye contact.
30 minutes rolls by, sven is looking at me, ( i am still avoiding eye contact) and also speaking with the italian owner and father of an endless amount of sons all working the place. they are gesturng towards me and muttering under their breath. i am avoiding eye contact.
40 minuted rolls by...i am convinced that one of two things has happened:
1. hannah got jumped and is on her way to thailand to be forced into prostitution...
2. she got lost, and this was the final straw...she had a meltdown and is crying on a street corner in east berllin.
either way...im a tad concerned. i think that sven and the army of italians can read the concern on my face...they are all staring at me (all 8 of them) and discussing the situation among themsleves.
50 minutes rolls by...sven marches up to the table removes his apron, and tells me that he is setting out to find her. the family of italian brother look on as sven marches purposefully down the street to find my dear lost hannah.
she rounds the corner just as he is turning it. GLORY BE!! (she ended up walking to an entirely different bank due to some faulty directions given by a couple of italians) (why so many italians??)
sven clarifies that everything is ok...and delivers her safely back to the table.
and it turns out that our freakin hostel was a block away.
i think that story is the most random and funny that we will get in a cafe. i hope. lol.
and what are the odds of getting a waiter with the same name as my pack?? haha.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
i lied...heres the munich photo.
i ran out of time on the last post...so here is the one and only photo taken in munich. (thats how much we loved it...)
homeless on a park bench on a street corner after night train experience.
paris...arles...and munich
in arles
the rhone in arles
our cafe in arles. home of the best coffee in france
this ones for you mom. the happy accorian player in arles. ;)
arles, provence. favorite place so far.
seriously crappy picture of me...from the 2nd deck of the eiffel. :)
le tour eiffel
the river seinne...this is the river running through paris. we loved it there!
the louvre in all its glory
a random fellow we didnt know who really wanted to be in a picture with is. (we dont know why...he only spoke greek...lol.)
life is a party...
This morning, hannah and i decided that we would go to this cathedral down the road for church this morning. Turned out to be a cathilic church...so we experienced mass in german this morning...random and totally funny.
The sermon i think was a catholic version of a pentacostal fire and brimstone speil. Why do i think this? since we all know i dont understand a freakin word of deutch (and the service was in deutch...). becuase during the sermon...in the middle of the priests impassioned german speech, the words 'so you think life is a party?' came out of his mouth in english. (a fine example of the wierd mix of complete german with a tad bit of english spoken here...) followed bt a string of very serious german...and then there it was again...'so you think that life is a party??' followed by some dramatic hand gestutres and more serius german. deffinately odd to have your first mass experience in a language that you have zero comprehension of. but we wanted to go to church this morning, and everthing around here is in german, and this church was the only we ran across that had a readerboard so we could tell the service times. It was interesting to see the architechtural differences between the german cathedrals (granted this one is relatively small...) and those elsewhere in europe. They are comparitavely plain and have much more wood than stone...deffinately not as glitzy either. Which makes sense if you think about the differences in the poeple of germany in comparison to the french.
All in all, an interesting cultural experience, but still very funny. i bet everyone around us thought we were mutes...since we couldnt really follow along with anything...didnt sing ever, or speak\sing the benediction back to the priest. we probably came off as gernerally irreverent. such is life. :)
that is all for now. im going to put some pics up today though. FINALLY!!!
The sermon i think was a catholic version of a pentacostal fire and brimstone speil. Why do i think this? since we all know i dont understand a freakin word of deutch (and the service was in deutch...). becuase during the sermon...in the middle of the priests impassioned german speech, the words 'so you think life is a party?' came out of his mouth in english. (a fine example of the wierd mix of complete german with a tad bit of english spoken here...) followed bt a string of very serious german...and then there it was again...'so you think that life is a party??' followed by some dramatic hand gestutres and more serius german. deffinately odd to have your first mass experience in a language that you have zero comprehension of. but we wanted to go to church this morning, and everthing around here is in german, and this church was the only we ran across that had a readerboard so we could tell the service times. It was interesting to see the architechtural differences between the german cathedrals (granted this one is relatively small...) and those elsewhere in europe. They are comparitavely plain and have much more wood than stone...deffinately not as glitzy either. Which makes sense if you think about the differences in the poeple of germany in comparison to the french.
All in all, an interesting cultural experience, but still very funny. i bet everyone around us thought we were mutes...since we couldnt really follow along with anything...didnt sing ever, or speak\sing the benediction back to the priest. we probably came off as gernerally irreverent. such is life. :)
that is all for now. im going to put some pics up today though. FINALLY!!!
Saturday, June 9, 2007
continuation...
second post of the day?? yes. :)
first of all...it must be mention that the music playing here is queen. (im thinking of you erin!! and our driving down the road dancing to queen moments...) its really wierd to hear queen playing in bamberg germany.
germany is interesting. there is an odd mix of english and german spoken. youll hear a local rattling off in german, but youll hear an english word speckled here and there. european version of spanglish?? also, the german language is scary. no other way to put it...seriusly poeple, use more letters, just try it! and it is nerve racking to hear it being yelled. today on the train, we were on a car full of children (never again!!) and they were all yelling at each other in german at one point and it just put me on edge!! (perhaps this is because i had just left the concentrain camp and had a negative connotaion of screamed german in my head...) anyways, all yelling in german, but they sang happy birthday to one of the kids in english. wierd. cant figure it out.
i also cannot understand the german accent one bit. lol. i had quite an embarrassing experince with it at dachau today:
-curator: -with heavy accent- would you like to put your backpack in the locked room??
me: stare of confusion, involving looking from the door to the man to hannah trying to figure it out.
curator: do you want to leave it there??
me: uh...what??
curator: your pack...in the room???
me: nich spreckenzie deutch...
hannah: -under her breath- hes speaking english...
i am an idiot. i have also given the grocery store the wrong amout of money because i cannot figure out what the heck he said my total was. a couple times.
anyways, we have yet to experience traditional german fare...(other than a truly disturbing pastry involving some sort of undefinable meat and cheese-like substance...only €1...what do i expect??? lol) last night we ate at a thai chinese somewhat fast-foodish joint run by eastern indians with 6 different beers on tap and belly dancing music playing. HYSTERICAL!!!!!!!! (i think the only english that the people there knew was welcome...as it was said to us over and over while we were getting ready to leave...and please, said as thank you.) we have a wierd tendancy to have asain food in the most random places. chines in oundle...a tiny village in the english counrtside (you can only eat so much english food. woof.) and thai in munich...beer and sausage capital of the world. (you can also only eat so much sausage...and we veto all beer as we had a bad experience in scotland with it. we hardly had any...myself only a quarter of my glass...and felt so ill. not drunk at all, but just completely ill. hannah had a somewhat worse reaction...ill leave the rest to the imagination. so we do not really even say the word beer anymore becuase it brings up bad memories. lol)
anyways...i think thats enough for now.
first of all...it must be mention that the music playing here is queen. (im thinking of you erin!! and our driving down the road dancing to queen moments...) its really wierd to hear queen playing in bamberg germany.
germany is interesting. there is an odd mix of english and german spoken. youll hear a local rattling off in german, but youll hear an english word speckled here and there. european version of spanglish?? also, the german language is scary. no other way to put it...seriusly poeple, use more letters, just try it! and it is nerve racking to hear it being yelled. today on the train, we were on a car full of children (never again!!) and they were all yelling at each other in german at one point and it just put me on edge!! (perhaps this is because i had just left the concentrain camp and had a negative connotaion of screamed german in my head...) anyways, all yelling in german, but they sang happy birthday to one of the kids in english. wierd. cant figure it out.
i also cannot understand the german accent one bit. lol. i had quite an embarrassing experince with it at dachau today:
-curator: -with heavy accent- would you like to put your backpack in the locked room??
me: stare of confusion, involving looking from the door to the man to hannah trying to figure it out.
curator: do you want to leave it there??
me: uh...what??
curator: your pack...in the room???
me: nich spreckenzie deutch...
hannah: -under her breath- hes speaking english...
i am an idiot. i have also given the grocery store the wrong amout of money because i cannot figure out what the heck he said my total was. a couple times.
anyways, we have yet to experience traditional german fare...(other than a truly disturbing pastry involving some sort of undefinable meat and cheese-like substance...only €1...what do i expect??? lol) last night we ate at a thai chinese somewhat fast-foodish joint run by eastern indians with 6 different beers on tap and belly dancing music playing. HYSTERICAL!!!!!!!! (i think the only english that the people there knew was welcome...as it was said to us over and over while we were getting ready to leave...and please, said as thank you.) we have a wierd tendancy to have asain food in the most random places. chines in oundle...a tiny village in the english counrtside (you can only eat so much english food. woof.) and thai in munich...beer and sausage capital of the world. (you can also only eat so much sausage...and we veto all beer as we had a bad experience in scotland with it. we hardly had any...myself only a quarter of my glass...and felt so ill. not drunk at all, but just completely ill. hannah had a somewhat worse reaction...ill leave the rest to the imagination. so we do not really even say the word beer anymore becuase it brings up bad memories. lol)
anyways...i think thats enough for now.
beer anyone??
this post finds us in bamberg, germany. a town i didnt even know existed until last night. we arrived in munich thinking we would spend the next three nights there...capitol of bavaria...has to be cool right??
NO!
how to describe munich...hmmm...
first off, there is pretty much nothing to do there. besides drink beer. im totally not exxagerating that. you drink beer or you dont go to munich. we didnt really know that. (we were informed by friends we made from liverpool that really the only reason to come to munich is for the infamous pub crawl, the beir garten, or porn. we had no clue!!!!)
imagine being at a kegger that is pretty much city wide. imagine being the only sober one in the entire city. (so not an aggageration...) imagine that you are staying in a 40 bed mixed dorm, your roomates are drunk sleeze-balls from alberta.
seriously...this hostel was complete insanity. the only way i can best describe it is i felt like someone had transported me back to the 70s and dropped me in a hippie commune. our 40 room dorm was across the couryard from the other 40 room dorm and it was total craziness!! people were running in and out of the windows between the two rooms...liters of beef in hand...smoking pot, playing guitar and butchering the classic drug songs (things always sound better when your totally smashed.) falling out of window sills. you get the picture. (somehow i slept like a rock through all of this...including quite a rousing argument, im told by hannah, between the shnockered alberta boys. she tells me its a miracle i slept. she didnt...lol)
and now you can see why me and hannah found the closest town between berlin and munich that had a vacancy and got on a train heading there. lol.
first we went to dachau this morning, and that was one of the best experiences of my life. i dont really have much to say about it right now, but im so so glad we got a chance to go there. (the only good thing about being in munich) it was deffinately the most eerie feeling place i have ever been to though, really haunting. (in a neccessary way.)
and now here we are in bamberg, and our hostel rocks. we are down in the old part of this little bavarian town, and i think our hostel is actually someones house. theres only 8 beds there. its perfect though, typical of what you picture when you think old bavarian house...huge old beems running through our tutdor style attic room (thats the only way i know how to describe it...probly not right though...correct me if im wrong kristen.) off of the kitchen. we are completely happy to leave munich behind for this!!! :)
the 'internet cafe' im writing from deserves a mention real quick. it is a smoky hole in the wall building with slot machines and arcade games in the front...and then the computers are in the back. judging from the opening screen of this computer...people use these for...how to say it gently...no, theres no way to say it gently...porn.
welcome to germany.
all in all, weve had some interesting experiences in deutchland. and if this 'cafe' is any sign...the wierdness wont be stopping any time soon. lol
NO!
how to describe munich...hmmm...
first off, there is pretty much nothing to do there. besides drink beer. im totally not exxagerating that. you drink beer or you dont go to munich. we didnt really know that. (we were informed by friends we made from liverpool that really the only reason to come to munich is for the infamous pub crawl, the beir garten, or porn. we had no clue!!!!)
imagine being at a kegger that is pretty much city wide. imagine being the only sober one in the entire city. (so not an aggageration...) imagine that you are staying in a 40 bed mixed dorm, your roomates are drunk sleeze-balls from alberta.
seriously...this hostel was complete insanity. the only way i can best describe it is i felt like someone had transported me back to the 70s and dropped me in a hippie commune. our 40 room dorm was across the couryard from the other 40 room dorm and it was total craziness!! people were running in and out of the windows between the two rooms...liters of beef in hand...smoking pot, playing guitar and butchering the classic drug songs (things always sound better when your totally smashed.) falling out of window sills. you get the picture. (somehow i slept like a rock through all of this...including quite a rousing argument, im told by hannah, between the shnockered alberta boys. she tells me its a miracle i slept. she didnt...lol)
and now you can see why me and hannah found the closest town between berlin and munich that had a vacancy and got on a train heading there. lol.
first we went to dachau this morning, and that was one of the best experiences of my life. i dont really have much to say about it right now, but im so so glad we got a chance to go there. (the only good thing about being in munich) it was deffinately the most eerie feeling place i have ever been to though, really haunting. (in a neccessary way.)
and now here we are in bamberg, and our hostel rocks. we are down in the old part of this little bavarian town, and i think our hostel is actually someones house. theres only 8 beds there. its perfect though, typical of what you picture when you think old bavarian house...huge old beems running through our tutdor style attic room (thats the only way i know how to describe it...probly not right though...correct me if im wrong kristen.) off of the kitchen. we are completely happy to leave munich behind for this!!! :)
the 'internet cafe' im writing from deserves a mention real quick. it is a smoky hole in the wall building with slot machines and arcade games in the front...and then the computers are in the back. judging from the opening screen of this computer...people use these for...how to say it gently...no, theres no way to say it gently...porn.
welcome to germany.
all in all, weve had some interesting experiences in deutchland. and if this 'cafe' is any sign...the wierdness wont be stopping any time soon. lol
Friday, June 8, 2007
some pics of the last week or so...
hannah and i in front of the norte dame.
ok...so i planned to do more, but the computer is doing wierd things and i can only get this one up. sorry!! hopefully more later. :)
night train = wierdest experience of my life...
well, we are here in munich, we arrived at 8:30 this morning after being on a train since 1400 yesterday. (i have fully embraced military time) for some reasom if you want to go to munich from the south of france...they take you all the way back up to paris, make you switch stations (paris has 6) and then take you back down again. all in all...16 hours on a train.
the night train wouldnt have really been a big deal had we been able to get sleeper cars. they were all sold out. so, the only seats left were these 5 foot by 7 foot rooms with 6 airplane type seats in them all facing each other. hannah and i's seats were in the middle. somehow you are supposed to sleep here. so you get in your little cubby hole, shove your pack 35 lb pßack over your head (which i can now do with no problem...im getting tougher by the day...) and then sleep in this little room, with no ventilation, staring at strangers. AKWARD!!!
we were ok at first, we had two asians that didnt speak english, a french dude who didnt really speak english, and an american guy who is moving to munich and offerred to give me and hannah free tours of the city. NO THANK YOU!!!! (in a lovely twist of fate, he also happens to be romming at our hostel...why does this happen to us) those who spoke english all chatted for a while, and i fell asleep for a while, but then by a few hours later, the need to get out of the room was imperative. lol. it smelled horribel, and was like 90 degrees in there so we left. the whole train was completely full though...but we had to get away from everybody, and could not go back into our little germ breeding cubby. (the asian chick next to me had a nasty cold...caughing everywhere in that heat with no air flow...no thank you!!!)
so we ended up in the bike room. thats right, hannah and i spent the night in the ventalated bike rack room, on the floor of a dirty german train. not an experience to be repeated. (but somehow it felt cleaner than our seats...thats how bad it was...)
we arent aloowed to check into our hostel until 1500, so we took a little nap on a street corner in munich. we have officially turned homeless for the moment. parents grab the hands of their children when they walk past us. lol. i officially appear to be a threat to society. haha.
needless to say, we miss the south of france. we were in the town of arles...i think my favorite destination so far. it was beautiful there...van gough was institutionalized there, and did several paintings during that time. (including starry night) if you look up what he painted while in arels, provence...those works are an awesome portrait of the town. It was nice and kicked back, we pretty much just hung out at the cafe, and walked around town, and sat on the banks of the rhone river that borders the town. it was awesome. the accents down there were pretty dang thick though...lol. we could never understand a word our desk clerk said...i swear he wasnt speaking french or english. (subsequently he couldnt understand a word that we said eiher...lol) it deffinately cancelled out all negative feelings towards france that we were possibly harboring. lol.
anyways, we can unload our pictures at the hostel were at, so ill probably be putting some up at some point today...i think hannah is uploading some right now...so if i dont get any up...just check hers. hannah-europe.blogspot.com
love you all!!
(sue...please assure jeremy that i dont spend my wholoe trip on the computer...up till now, it feels as though i spend most of it on the trains and the metro. lol...he can calm down about it. haha)
the night train wouldnt have really been a big deal had we been able to get sleeper cars. they were all sold out. so, the only seats left were these 5 foot by 7 foot rooms with 6 airplane type seats in them all facing each other. hannah and i's seats were in the middle. somehow you are supposed to sleep here. so you get in your little cubby hole, shove your pack 35 lb pßack over your head (which i can now do with no problem...im getting tougher by the day...) and then sleep in this little room, with no ventilation, staring at strangers. AKWARD!!!
we were ok at first, we had two asians that didnt speak english, a french dude who didnt really speak english, and an american guy who is moving to munich and offerred to give me and hannah free tours of the city. NO THANK YOU!!!! (in a lovely twist of fate, he also happens to be romming at our hostel...why does this happen to us) those who spoke english all chatted for a while, and i fell asleep for a while, but then by a few hours later, the need to get out of the room was imperative. lol. it smelled horribel, and was like 90 degrees in there so we left. the whole train was completely full though...but we had to get away from everybody, and could not go back into our little germ breeding cubby. (the asian chick next to me had a nasty cold...caughing everywhere in that heat with no air flow...no thank you!!!)
so we ended up in the bike room. thats right, hannah and i spent the night in the ventalated bike rack room, on the floor of a dirty german train. not an experience to be repeated. (but somehow it felt cleaner than our seats...thats how bad it was...)
we arent aloowed to check into our hostel until 1500, so we took a little nap on a street corner in munich. we have officially turned homeless for the moment. parents grab the hands of their children when they walk past us. lol. i officially appear to be a threat to society. haha.
needless to say, we miss the south of france. we were in the town of arles...i think my favorite destination so far. it was beautiful there...van gough was institutionalized there, and did several paintings during that time. (including starry night) if you look up what he painted while in arels, provence...those works are an awesome portrait of the town. It was nice and kicked back, we pretty much just hung out at the cafe, and walked around town, and sat on the banks of the rhone river that borders the town. it was awesome. the accents down there were pretty dang thick though...lol. we could never understand a word our desk clerk said...i swear he wasnt speaking french or english. (subsequently he couldnt understand a word that we said eiher...lol) it deffinately cancelled out all negative feelings towards france that we were possibly harboring. lol.
anyways, we can unload our pictures at the hostel were at, so ill probably be putting some up at some point today...i think hannah is uploading some right now...so if i dont get any up...just check hers. hannah-europe.blogspot.com
love you all!!
(sue...please assure jeremy that i dont spend my wholoe trip on the computer...up till now, it feels as though i spend most of it on the trains and the metro. lol...he can calm down about it. haha)
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
on the road again...just cant wait to get on the road agan...
So, here we are, back at the cybercafe...our home away frrom home, because we thought we'd need to get up early to catch our train south, but our train doesnt leave till 2. whatev.
a note on my observations of the french culture:
-they really do hate americans...completely!! i have many, many examples. in a one hour space we were told by three resturants that had menus posted out side their door that they dont serve food and we needed to go down the street...followed by some ambiguous pointing in the general directionaway from their establishment. (you gotta laugh it off...coincidentlly, this refusal of food was post taking multiple trains that we had no idea the direction of...lol...stupid end to a long first day in france.)
-they cannot tell the difference between an american and a brittish accent. weve been asked so many times if we are from london. haha
-the statement that most of the french speak english is a myth, what should be said is that they posess the ability, but refuse to do so. typical conversation:
me: parle v'ous onglàis?
frenchy: of course! (follwed by a look that says, i'm not stupid, idiot...)
me: great, can you tell me where the train station is?
frenchy: -proceeds to rattle off detailed directions in french with vague hand gestures that are somehow supposed to clarify evrything- puncuated with, "ok?"
me: -thinking, thanks a heap, jerk-wad...- "merci, au revour..." -smile at them, start walking and proceed to get lost.
-they are completely warm and friendly and laid back with each other as a whole. i think that france would be such a different experience if you spoke the launguage decently, it really is a great place, and the poeple are awesome if you can get past the minor detail of being treated like you are human garbage everywhere you go. (i will seriously never look at a homeless person the same again!!) all that to say, i will deffinately be coming back with soma language skills to enjoy the french culture...because it really is great. :)
-every once in a while, you will meet one frenchman (and it ususally is a man...i have yet to experience a nice woman...) who will be so friendly and nice, and he will essentially redeem the whole of the french race. (we met one such man in paris...older fellow, who welcomed us to paris, and said he was glad we were there, and to enjoy our time and meet a handsome young man...we loved him! lol)
-buisiness hours dont seem to exist in rennes...it seems like stuff opens when it opens and closes when people feel like it...its refreshing, also, when you go into shops or cafes, and they arent busy, the workers are pretty much just chillaxing, none of this -always be doing something...never take a break- stupid american work your butt off mentality. im a fan.
anyways, i must talk about our hostel for the last two days, because it was quite an experience. lol
i already mentioned the fact that its really on an ugly canal, rather than a river...liers!!!
but in addition, there was a serious shortage of females there and an overabundance of completely wierd guys. in particular, a morrocan, a peruvian, anda frenchmen. lets just say that the peruvian was right next to us (the walls were paper thin too...you could feel someone lean qgainst the wall on the other side...), and we had to run and hide from him quite a bit. ( a true skill with walls like that!!! he could hear all of our plans...we had to whisper, i felt like i was in mission impossible or something lol)
i cant even really get into the morrocan guy, but lets just say i have never laughed so hard at an attempted pickup line in my life!! it started out with, "with respect, ..." followed by the most disrespectfu sentence of all time!!!!l...HISTERICAL!!!!
then there was the frenchman, so strung out on who knows what, who kept asking us if we wanted some juice, and muttering the word nashville. we suspect that "do you want jiuce" and "nashville" were the only words he knew in english. lol.
needless to say we were happy to have a private room there!! seriously so funny though!!! the morrocan man still makes me laugh...SO HARD!!!
but yeah, we have discovered also, that in order to be understood, you must pronounce everything with a french accent. even an originaaly english word. example, internet. completely noncomprehended unless said with a french accent. same with cyber cafe. it all boils down to the fact that they dont seem to comprehend the english -R- sound, you must say it with the french -i am hawking up a loogie in the back of my throat- way. haha.
so anyways, im out of minutes, and must go. hopefully i can updat in arles.
a note on my observations of the french culture:
-they really do hate americans...completely!! i have many, many examples. in a one hour space we were told by three resturants that had menus posted out side their door that they dont serve food and we needed to go down the street...followed by some ambiguous pointing in the general directionaway from their establishment. (you gotta laugh it off...coincidentlly, this refusal of food was post taking multiple trains that we had no idea the direction of...lol...stupid end to a long first day in france.)
-they cannot tell the difference between an american and a brittish accent. weve been asked so many times if we are from london. haha
-the statement that most of the french speak english is a myth, what should be said is that they posess the ability, but refuse to do so. typical conversation:
me: parle v'ous onglàis?
frenchy: of course! (follwed by a look that says, i'm not stupid, idiot...)
me: great, can you tell me where the train station is?
frenchy: -proceeds to rattle off detailed directions in french with vague hand gestures that are somehow supposed to clarify evrything- puncuated with, "ok?"
me: -thinking, thanks a heap, jerk-wad...- "merci, au revour..." -smile at them, start walking and proceed to get lost.
-they are completely warm and friendly and laid back with each other as a whole. i think that france would be such a different experience if you spoke the launguage decently, it really is a great place, and the poeple are awesome if you can get past the minor detail of being treated like you are human garbage everywhere you go. (i will seriously never look at a homeless person the same again!!) all that to say, i will deffinately be coming back with soma language skills to enjoy the french culture...because it really is great. :)
-every once in a while, you will meet one frenchman (and it ususally is a man...i have yet to experience a nice woman...) who will be so friendly and nice, and he will essentially redeem the whole of the french race. (we met one such man in paris...older fellow, who welcomed us to paris, and said he was glad we were there, and to enjoy our time and meet a handsome young man...we loved him! lol)
-buisiness hours dont seem to exist in rennes...it seems like stuff opens when it opens and closes when people feel like it...its refreshing, also, when you go into shops or cafes, and they arent busy, the workers are pretty much just chillaxing, none of this -always be doing something...never take a break- stupid american work your butt off mentality. im a fan.
anyways, i must talk about our hostel for the last two days, because it was quite an experience. lol
i already mentioned the fact that its really on an ugly canal, rather than a river...liers!!!
but in addition, there was a serious shortage of females there and an overabundance of completely wierd guys. in particular, a morrocan, a peruvian, anda frenchmen. lets just say that the peruvian was right next to us (the walls were paper thin too...you could feel someone lean qgainst the wall on the other side...), and we had to run and hide from him quite a bit. ( a true skill with walls like that!!! he could hear all of our plans...we had to whisper, i felt like i was in mission impossible or something lol)
i cant even really get into the morrocan guy, but lets just say i have never laughed so hard at an attempted pickup line in my life!! it started out with, "with respect, ..." followed by the most disrespectfu sentence of all time!!!!l...HISTERICAL!!!!
then there was the frenchman, so strung out on who knows what, who kept asking us if we wanted some juice, and muttering the word nashville. we suspect that "do you want jiuce" and "nashville" were the only words he knew in english. lol.
needless to say we were happy to have a private room there!! seriously so funny though!!! the morrocan man still makes me laugh...SO HARD!!!
but yeah, we have discovered also, that in order to be understood, you must pronounce everything with a french accent. even an originaaly english word. example, internet. completely noncomprehended unless said with a french accent. same with cyber cafe. it all boils down to the fact that they dont seem to comprehend the english -R- sound, you must say it with the french -i am hawking up a loogie in the back of my throat- way. haha.
so anyways, im out of minutes, and must go. hopefully i can updat in arles.
Monday, June 4, 2007
paris has redeemed itself.
ok, its been a while. we qrrived in rennes last night, after disovering even further the incapability for the majority of the french people to be helpful. it took us 3 hours to find our train out of paris to rennes. and then we almost had our packs sent to a different station than we were artriving at. apparently in europe, the trains split off and go to different destinations, so you not only have to get the right train, you have to get on the right car of the right train. all of this infor,ation you have to get off of a ticket that is wriiten soley in french. now we know. figuring that out is quite an amusing story...but too long and thats not what i want to blog about. lol. i think ive said enough about the choas that is the public transportation sysyem around here. haha.
anyways...Paris. LOVE THAT CITY!!!!! Once we exited the seventh circle of hell, we discovered why everyone says paris is their favorite city. it was amazing!!! when we finally got to our hotel (HOTEL not hostel...our room had a blowdrier.) we made the executive decision that we would shower and put on our one dress and blow dry our hair and see paris looking like actual girls, rather than he/shes that ar dirty and gross. (fyi...we now call ourselves marines...becuase we have not lost our positive attitude once...well, not really. we have lost our kindhearted attitude towards others many times, in particular the creepy male population of france. i have assumed the role of man killer on occasion. but other than that, we are troopers...lol) So yeah, we got on our dresses (you know its bad if i WANT to wear a dess...) and explored the outer campus of the louvre. (our hotel was litterally just feet from the louvre...) they have an outdoor statue garden park thing...which is free and completely beautiful, so we just moseyed around there and unwinded from the day of horror...actually, the 3 days of horror. lol. We ate dinner at a typical french cafe...and i had the best chicken eggplant sandwhich thing OF ALL TIME!!! with a lovely cup of cafe au lait. needless to say, from that point on, paris was my friend.
The next day (totally rocked the dress again...) we went through the notre dam (erin, i was thinking of you...fondly...)...very awesome, climbed the 422 stairs to the top of the tower and saw the panoramic view of the city. ( we also found out that they have this river cruise/ferry that you can hop off and on all day to get to all the sites of paris. it is deffinatly a better experience to float down the sienne under all of the bridges of paris than take the underground death trap otherwise called the paris metro.)
a note on the louvre:
completely amazing...i really cant describe the experience. we only saw one wing (well...i saw a little more because i went in the next day for a while too...saw the apart,ments of napolean. two words...gold leaf!!! everywhere, on everything!!! and i did get stuck in there....could not find my way out!!! so really i saw the apartments of napoleon 7 times. haha)
we went in the wing of all of the itialian art (because we had to see the mona lisa...and did. wow) there are paintings in there that are bigger than a movie screen, that were completed within a year, start to finish. amazing. yeah, there really is too way too much to say about that to fit in this blog. the only thing that sucked about it was the fact that everything is in french, so if you dont know what youre looking at before you get in there, you just dont know what youre looking at. quite a bummer.
also a bummer, because of the check out time at our hotel, and the extremely long queu at the eiffel, we only had time to get up to the second level. we never made it to the top. :( oh well... we got up that much at least.
anyways, paris was completely lovely, and i deffinately want to go back, if it wasnt so expensive, we would have cancelled our time in rennes and just spent it all there. but it is such an expensive city!!!
anyways, we are now in rennes. and we have learned that just because the hostel picture in the website looks nice, does not mean the hostel does. the alleged "river" that our charming little hostel was on is really a muddy canal with a hideous concrete building as our hostel. lol. oh well, its clean and safe, and we get a private room, which you dont notice you miss until you get in one. haha. however, the rest of rennes (other than where we are staying...figures) is a really cool town...completely french. everyone walks around with their baguettes that they got at the patisserie. well spend like a day and a half here and then head to the south of france.
but yes, i think that is all for now, oh wait! i left all of my addresses at home on accident, so if you want a postcard better comment me with your address. and hopefully we can get up some pics of paris while we are here. keep the stories coming in the comments, i really love getting them, i just dont have enough time to comment back really becuase we have to pay for internet time. love you all!!
anyways...Paris. LOVE THAT CITY!!!!! Once we exited the seventh circle of hell, we discovered why everyone says paris is their favorite city. it was amazing!!! when we finally got to our hotel (HOTEL not hostel...our room had a blowdrier.) we made the executive decision that we would shower and put on our one dress and blow dry our hair and see paris looking like actual girls, rather than he/shes that ar dirty and gross. (fyi...we now call ourselves marines...becuase we have not lost our positive attitude once...well, not really. we have lost our kindhearted attitude towards others many times, in particular the creepy male population of france. i have assumed the role of man killer on occasion. but other than that, we are troopers...lol) So yeah, we got on our dresses (you know its bad if i WANT to wear a dess...) and explored the outer campus of the louvre. (our hotel was litterally just feet from the louvre...) they have an outdoor statue garden park thing...which is free and completely beautiful, so we just moseyed around there and unwinded from the day of horror...actually, the 3 days of horror. lol. We ate dinner at a typical french cafe...and i had the best chicken eggplant sandwhich thing OF ALL TIME!!! with a lovely cup of cafe au lait. needless to say, from that point on, paris was my friend.
The next day (totally rocked the dress again...) we went through the notre dam (erin, i was thinking of you...fondly...)...very awesome, climbed the 422 stairs to the top of the tower and saw the panoramic view of the city. ( we also found out that they have this river cruise/ferry that you can hop off and on all day to get to all the sites of paris. it is deffinatly a better experience to float down the sienne under all of the bridges of paris than take the underground death trap otherwise called the paris metro.)
a note on the louvre:
completely amazing...i really cant describe the experience. we only saw one wing (well...i saw a little more because i went in the next day for a while too...saw the apart,ments of napolean. two words...gold leaf!!! everywhere, on everything!!! and i did get stuck in there....could not find my way out!!! so really i saw the apartments of napoleon 7 times. haha)
we went in the wing of all of the itialian art (because we had to see the mona lisa...and did. wow) there are paintings in there that are bigger than a movie screen, that were completed within a year, start to finish. amazing. yeah, there really is too way too much to say about that to fit in this blog. the only thing that sucked about it was the fact that everything is in french, so if you dont know what youre looking at before you get in there, you just dont know what youre looking at. quite a bummer.
also a bummer, because of the check out time at our hotel, and the extremely long queu at the eiffel, we only had time to get up to the second level. we never made it to the top. :( oh well... we got up that much at least.
anyways, paris was completely lovely, and i deffinately want to go back, if it wasnt so expensive, we would have cancelled our time in rennes and just spent it all there. but it is such an expensive city!!!
anyways, we are now in rennes. and we have learned that just because the hostel picture in the website looks nice, does not mean the hostel does. the alleged "river" that our charming little hostel was on is really a muddy canal with a hideous concrete building as our hostel. lol. oh well, its clean and safe, and we get a private room, which you dont notice you miss until you get in one. haha. however, the rest of rennes (other than where we are staying...figures) is a really cool town...completely french. everyone walks around with their baguettes that they got at the patisserie. well spend like a day and a half here and then head to the south of france.
but yes, i think that is all for now, oh wait! i left all of my addresses at home on accident, so if you want a postcard better comment me with your address. and hopefully we can get up some pics of paris while we are here. keep the stories coming in the comments, i really love getting them, i just dont have enough time to comment back really becuase we have to pay for internet time. love you all!!
Saturday, June 2, 2007
finally!!!
ok, scroll down becuase we finally got some pics up...and they really are up this time!! lol
COMMENT ME!!
COMMENT ME!!
Friday, June 1, 2007
it was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
Well said mr. dickens, well said. Today has been quite the day. Actually, the last 3 days have been an experience. I dont really have the time or the energy to update on everything, but todays happenings are deffinately worth a repeat. (also, please ignore any of the huge spelling and puncuational errors that may occur. the french keyboard is totally in a funky order...and i cant find half of the puncuation stufff i need...youre lucky you get a parenthasis and an exclamation point every now and then!)
so, to preface this day, let me just say that yesterday we had quite a few experiences with the french culture that i dont care to repeat! lol. we got on a total of 3 trains that we really didnt know the destination of...three of the ,ost ghetto trains the world has ever seen!! and also got told at three different RESTURANTS that they didnt hqve food...and we would have to go to some ambiguos location down the street. God bless the french. so yeah, we were on public transportqtion from 6 am till about 6 pm. (this is after 14 hours of trains the day before...) and all we had to eat was grainola bars all day. (the last meal we had before that was a wretched edinburgh pub experience that did not end well for us. hannah in particular...lets just say that she got to know the hostel toilet really well...VIA BARFING)
so needless to say last night we were pretty much toast. (and our first couchsurfing experience was wonderful...and involved a crepe party after two days of a strict grain diet. can you say intestinal blockage??
so now you have the backdrop for today.
.on a train bound for paris at 7 am.
.get into paris and discover that this city is home to one of the most STUPIDLY PLANNED OUT metro systems of all time; (think seriously before hiring a french engineer)
.we cannot figure out how to get to our hostel (i also forgot to print out directions...i am stupid.)
.we take the total wrong metro and end up who knows where...we dont speak french...the french refuse to speak english
. we are confused
.we are lost
.we dont know how to get ourselves out of this situation
.we pray that someone will help us...5 minutes later a french businessman asks us if we arre lost and tells us what metro to get on for our hostel...praise the lord!!!
.we start that way...and miraculously hannah figures out the retarded system...genii status...
. we get out at our hostel and discover that we are in the worst area of paris (as previously stated)
. we are afraid we will be snatched up any second now...
.we get to our hostel located next to the communist headquarters of paris and note that it looks like a prison...or mental institution.
.we are now ,ore scared;
.we have the presence of ,ind to run in there and get on the internet...bite the bullet...and pay for a hotel in the heart of paris, knowing that if we dont we will probably be raped and murdered.
the rest is pretty much good becuase we got out of that hell hole and are now a matter of feet fro, the louvre. much better. ill fill in more later, but i need to give hannah some time to blog;
so, to preface this day, let me just say that yesterday we had quite a few experiences with the french culture that i dont care to repeat! lol. we got on a total of 3 trains that we really didnt know the destination of...three of the ,ost ghetto trains the world has ever seen!! and also got told at three different RESTURANTS that they didnt hqve food...and we would have to go to some ambiguos location down the street. God bless the french. so yeah, we were on public transportqtion from 6 am till about 6 pm. (this is after 14 hours of trains the day before...) and all we had to eat was grainola bars all day. (the last meal we had before that was a wretched edinburgh pub experience that did not end well for us. hannah in particular...lets just say that she got to know the hostel toilet really well...VIA BARFING)
so needless to say last night we were pretty much toast. (and our first couchsurfing experience was wonderful...and involved a crepe party after two days of a strict grain diet. can you say intestinal blockage??
so now you have the backdrop for today.
.on a train bound for paris at 7 am.
.get into paris and discover that this city is home to one of the most STUPIDLY PLANNED OUT metro systems of all time; (think seriously before hiring a french engineer)
.we cannot figure out how to get to our hostel (i also forgot to print out directions...i am stupid.)
.we take the total wrong metro and end up who knows where...we dont speak french...the french refuse to speak english
. we are confused
.we are lost
.we dont know how to get ourselves out of this situation
.we pray that someone will help us...5 minutes later a french businessman asks us if we arre lost and tells us what metro to get on for our hostel...praise the lord!!!
.we start that way...and miraculously hannah figures out the retarded system...genii status...
. we get out at our hostel and discover that we are in the worst area of paris (as previously stated)
. we are afraid we will be snatched up any second now...
.we get to our hostel located next to the communist headquarters of paris and note that it looks like a prison...or mental institution.
.we are now ,ore scared;
.we have the presence of ,ind to run in there and get on the internet...bite the bullet...and pay for a hotel in the heart of paris, knowing that if we dont we will probably be raped and murdered.
the rest is pretty much good becuase we got out of that hell hole and are now a matter of feet fro, the louvre. much better. ill fill in more later, but i need to give hannah some time to blog;
The long awaited visual...for real this time. :)
here is the famous outfit...forced to be worn for 8 days straight. 
the creepy hostel in haworth. (it was pretty though...)
pre-hoods and scarf in edingburgh. (i have no idea what that castle is behind us. i swear, if you took the time to find out what every church and castle is around here, you'de never do anything else!)
Paris Can Bite My @ss
Sorry for the profanity...but this city can die...before we do.
Long story short...we get to our hostel, qfter hours on the impoosible paris metro system...qnd qre spit out totally in the ghetto. we arrive qt our hostel; and it is seriously worse than downtown LA. we cannot stay here and return to the states alive. so ze have booked a hotel in the heart of paris. we dont care what we had to pay; and we are getting the fat out of dodge!!!
we will update once we get back into safe society...for now, just know that we are strong...nothing can break us...no one can make give our rights away...arise and sieze the day!!! (thats for all you newsy fans out there)
anywys yeah...later.
Long story short...we get to our hostel, qfter hours on the impoosible paris metro system...qnd qre spit out totally in the ghetto. we arrive qt our hostel; and it is seriously worse than downtown LA. we cannot stay here and return to the states alive. so ze have booked a hotel in the heart of paris. we dont care what we had to pay; and we are getting the fat out of dodge!!!
we will update once we get back into safe society...for now, just know that we are strong...nothing can break us...no one can make give our rights away...arise and sieze the day!!! (thats for all you newsy fans out there)
anywys yeah...later.
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