Day 7

Today was our free day in Nice, although speaking to the others in the group; people didn’t really spend all that much time here.

Matt and I were up at 8:45 for getting ready to leave and having some breakfast. We headed out by shuttle bus to catch the tram to catch the train to a beach near Monaco. The shuttle and tram ran frequently enough to zip around without too much trouble, but the train was delayed about 50 minutes. When it finally started moving, it was incredible crowded! The last 2 people on really should have waited for the next train, because no one could move a muscle. Matt was nailed against a wall, using all his strength not to be pushed over on top of a young kid in a seat. We did manage to get there with enough time to check out the beach.

This was a pebble beach rather than a sandy one. Walking around we saw fast moving water crashing against the rocks, fancy restaurants and drinks and not all that many people. Eventually we came across the beach section which was marked by barriers and had a few more people (still not a crowd). We jumped right in and spent a good couple hours swimming, floating and just relaxing.

Our next stop was back to the train to Monaco. After walking 15-20 min, we caught the train and within 10 minutes, we were there. We wandered over to the Jarden Exotique and then half way back where we came from to get a better priced lunch of cold pizza. Over lunch, we looked over the schedule again and realized that if we wanted to get to the medieval village in Nice before busses finished running, we didn’t really have time for the garden. We took 2 more busses and went for the village instead. The structures were unchanged for a very long time, only the vendors made it look modern. I was tired and had burned under-eyes, burned shoulders and just felt like sleeping. Matt decided he would really like to climb up this gigantic hill with a fortress on the top, so we went for it. (How often are we going to be in Monaco? May as well see it all). The top was gorgeous. We had a view of the water, the whole city and there was also an exotic garden at the top. It was almost all we had intended to see at the other garden (just missing a cave). Eventually we made our way slowly down the hill in order to catch our bus to the hostel. The bus had 3 different schedules, and the one we needed didn’t show up in accordance to any of them. It was alright though because a different bus that eventually came by went to the same place anyways. We again took the tram to the shuttle area, waited for the shuttle about 10 minutes and decided that it may have stopped running and instead walked over the hostel.

We had dinner at the hostel, chicken curry with rice and had our showers. Right now we are waiting to see if we will have a couple drinks with anyone tonight (yesterday we ended up just going to sleep instead) or if we will just get some sleep again. It’s already 11:12pm so we will see.

Day 6

Going to keep this one relatively brief in the interests of getting out to socialize a little bit tonight.

Anyways today was Day 6 of our tour, and another travel day. We bussed from Barcelona to Nice today, stopping only twice along the way- once for lunch (we again selected Mc Donalds in order to keep our food cost down) and the second to a perfume factory. The perfume factory was more interesting than I thought it would be. We got walked through how the perfumes were created including a bit about “noses” which are people who can smell something and pick up on hundreds of different elements of smell mixed together. Apparently there are only 50 noses in the world and one works at their company and comes up with the scents for their perfumes. Our guide had a sense of humour and was making us laugh the whole way through. 

After that, we really just drove some more. We got to our hostel about 8:20 and climbed up 4 flights of stairs with our suitcases. We lucked out again, while some people had 6 people in their rooms, some of the couples including Matt and I ended up with double rooms to ourselves (just based on the availability of rooms in the hostel). We have our own shower, toilet and sink... and a balcony with an amazing view!! Dinner was included today, chicken and potatoes at 8:45. We finished up our meal, picked up a few brochures and headed up to our hostel for showers. Matt is just finishing his now and afterwards, we plan on hanging out at the hostel with a few people here, having a drink or 2, and then heading to bed because we are getting up somewhere around 7:30 to bus into Monaco for our free day.

Day 5

Today was our free day in Barcelona, and a very eventful one!! We began our day around 9am and decided to feast on a breakfast of chocolate as the hostel breakfast was...limited and costly.  Off to the Barcelona’s amazing metro system we went via a rather convoluted route down a ridiculously high set of stairs, around corners and eventually arriving at a clearly marked metro entrance (Paris’ metro stations as mentioned being about as obvious as needle in a haystack on the moon...viewed from the earth with the naked eye...haystack being small as well).

Our first stop...the Sagrada Familia (Holy Family) which is a remarkably over the top cathedral designed by the late Antioune Gaudi and is still undergoing construction due to be completed in 2026 or so.  Absolutely breathtaking the organic nature of this structure and shear amount of sculptures adorning every face of the building.  Even the modern backdrop of construction about it could not take away from the sheer amount of awesome emanating from this building.

From there we ventured to the metro stop Cantalunya (Cata-loon-ya not Cata-lun-ya) which is the beginning of a very popular strip of road known as La Rambla famous for pickpockets but also several bars, shops, and the old city region of Barcelona with some amazing architecture.  Before exploring the old town though we stopped at the Hard Rock Cafe to pick up a souviner and after some exploration ventured off to Montjuïic to enjoy some breathtaking views of Barcelona from a fortress on the top of that hill.  The journey to the top of the hill was exhausting and Tracey nearly passed out near the top but like a champ rested for 27 seconds and pushed on (man I love her!).  Along the way there was a very nice fountain built into the hillside to view and fortunately alot of the route was shaded but that did little to combat the fatigue of bounding up the hill via the hundreds of steps and continuous hill incline (still worth it...do it if you’re there and able). We decided to take a convenient cable car down from the hill top which also offered great views of the city and was a joy to ride in as cable cars always are (at least for me as I’ve never grown up).

Now it was time for the beach.  Tracey had been looking forward particularly to the beach and after a brief inquiry with an information booth determined which metro stop and bus service would get us there the most efficiently (sun was still hot so water would hopefully be fine as well).  We made it there and ended up meeting with a few members of our tour group giving us the opportunity to change and take shifts on the beach watching over eachother’s stuff.  The water was indeed quite nice (cold to the Tracey though) and being my first experience on a proper sand beach was quite awesome indeed.  In addition the beach had an added novelty of being accepting of the topless nature of both men and women.

We stayed at the beach for a couple hours and with the last precious of sunlight approaching we departed to track down some exceptionally cheap sangria and a fridge magnet for our growing collection before heading towards another impressive work of Antioune Gaudi; Park Guell.  We attempted to get there via walking from a metro station relatively close to there.  Supposedly directions from the metro station were clearly signed but this did not appear to be the case and we found ourselves on a nearby but entirely different hill (that’ll teach me to leave my compass back at the hostle).  Wanting to conserve sunlight and the structural integrity of our feet we caught a taxi to the park.  It appeared the driver took a unnecessarily convoluted route but 6.50 euros later we were at last at Park Guell.  Now in Park Guell, Gaudi displays a trademark style of sculpture artwork using pieces of discarded ceramic tiles in mosaic patterns.  The sculptures and supporting structures there once again were amazing.  Similarly being atop yet another hill the view of the city was spectacular and Tracey and I enjoyed sunset in Barcelona (damn our lives are amazing!).

We ended the day finding our way back to the hostel.  At this point we had been on out for almost 14 hours and having climbed two hills, countless flights of stairs and walked likely twice the distance across Windsor we were understandably tired.  Unfortunately the map given to us did not have enough detail to clearly navigate back to the hostel but after 20 minutes of futile walking every which way we encountered a group of 4 locals who happened to going the right direction.  They led us up two enormous flights of stairs and a 5 minute walk later we arrived at our hostel from the opposite direction we were aiming for.  Exhausted but more than satisfied with all we managed to see and do we showered and did our best not to wake the others in our room who had already turned in for the night (sensibly as it was midnight at this point).  A 6:30am start awaits us but Barcelona has been the highlight of the trip thus far and there is still so much to see and do!

The Force is with us.

Day 4

Today started off a bit later than it normally does – packing up the tour bus at 7:45 before a light, well-defined breakfast (what we got was all spelled out on a little piece of paper) and heading towards Barcelona.

The only stop we made along the way was to Pont de Guard, which was really nice!!! It was a Roman Aqueduct that spanned over 50km with only a 70 meter drop in height, which is really amazing! Especially during the time it was built because they had to create any of the tools they needed. Not like they could just go out a buy a leveler.

We carried on driving most of the day and eventually got to the hostel. We arrived about 5pm and the plan was to have dinner at 7 and then either all go out together or start exploring Barcelona. There was a bit of confusion going on in the kitchen and we didn’t end up being able to eat until about 9pm which made it a bit late to go out. Although some of the group was out partying until 3am, Matt and I decided to hang back, get a bit more sleep and be ready for the next morning.

Day 3

Yesterday was day 3. My reason behind typing out it’s events a day late is because our last hotel didn’t actually have an outlet to charge the computer. Yesterday was mostly a travel day. We were up bright and early to be on the road again. Our tour guide told us that Avignon wasn’t the most exciting place in the world and that we only really stop there because Barcelona is too far of a drive for a single day. Don’t believe that – Avignon was great! We stopped for wine tasting about half way there and got to sample a red wine, white wine and sparkling wine. The white was ok, the red was a little better in my opinion (Matt didn’t care for it at all), but the sparkling wine was amazing! Amazing enough to pick up a bottle. A bottle of wine from France!! Bought in France!! I’m so excited!

Afterwards we continued on our long journey and finally made it in Avignon. The “not the most exciting” scenery of Avignon was stunning. There was a music festival going on, so there were people all over the place. Street performers juggled batons of fire on a unicycle, swallowed balloons and sold all sorts of jewellery and knick-knacks. We saw Pope’s palace and wandered around the outside of it.

We didn’t stay out as late as some of the group and wandered back to the hostel relatively early. The hostel was... not a 5 star hotel, but we did luck out because while the rest of the groups had 4 people, Matt and I were on our own again because of the way numbers fit together. We had a bed, a bathroom that contained a sink, a shower, but no toilet. The shower didn’t have an enclosure of its own- it drained in the middle of the bathroom floor. The internet was too expensive to bother with so we had a relaxing night in.

Day 2

Today was another day of lots of excitement!  Matt and I were up for breakfast and preparing for the day around 9.  The first thing we decided to do was see the Eiffel Tower, so we walked over to the subway, bought a day pass (which was not the easiest task to do when everything is in French) and made our way over. We didn’t go to the stop closest to it, but instead picked one where the tour guide told us was a nice viewing point. It definitely was! Our photo taking lead us closer and closer to the tower until finally we were right underneath it looking at the people lined up to go inside. We decided to wait in the line while deciding whether we were going to go up the Eiffel Tower, or make our way over to another tall tower for a nice view of Paris. We ended up choosing to stay at the Eiffel Tower, so while I was in line waiting, Matt looked around to make sure we were in the right line and see where the other lines went. He noticed that the line for tickets to take the stairs up the tower rather than the elevators was much smaller, so we decided to trek up the stairs in order to save time and be able to see more of Paris. By this point it had started to rain and people were turning back and heading for cover. We stayed where we were and got through the line in about 15 minutes!

The stairs weren’t actually too bad to climb. There were a lot of them but we were too excited to really notice them. The views were stunning and it brought back a lot of memories from my trip in highschool. I was so happy to be able to share the experience with Matt J.

After the tower, we grabbed some late lunch/early dinner at a Chinese restaurant (which ended up just being buffet foods microwaved, but still didn’t taste bad) and checking out the Louvre. The Louvre was closing in 45 min by the time we got there, so we decided it wouldn’t be worth the admission for the short time. We wandered around the area, took lots of pictures and then decided to check out Jim Morrisons grave at the cemetery.

We almost got there on time to enter before the gates closed, but ended up being distracted by a parade happening right on the street we were walking down. We stopped and watched as zumba dancers and people from all ethnicities came down the street, dancing to all sorts of different music. It was really cool to watch. Matt asked someone what was going on and he said “Carnival!”. We spent quite a lot of time there enjoying the performance. Afterwards, we got back to the cemetery which was long since closed, but we took pictures of eachother headbanging at the cemetery gates since it reminded us of the Pantera song.

We wanted to see the Eiffel Tower at night and how it lit up and had some time to kill before dark, so we decided to head back to Notre Dame to see if there were any street performers or anything interesting going on. As it turned out there wasn’t too much, so we went for another walk to check out interesting statues and buildings in the area before going back to the tower.

We finished off the evening sitting on the stairs in front of the Eiffel tower, eating crepes and just enjoying the amazing view. When the tower lit up it glowed a bronze colour at first and then started to sparkle. It was amazing to see and really the perfect way to end a night in Paris.

Afterwards, we hopped back on the tube, transferred a couple times and came back to the hotel for showering, blogging, uploading pictures to the computer (just in case anything happens to the camera) and getting ready for tomorrow. 

Eurotrip Day 1

Hey guys so at long last the trip we’ve been saving our money for is upon us and has begun quite well.  Lets start with yesterday though.

Yesterday was our last day in London and it was considerably busy.  Most people would take the day off work to sort out details but we had tried to book enough in advance to make things easier on us.  Unfortunately work dragged on longer than usual and we could not make the appointment at our ideal storage facility where 2 of our luggage bags were going to be stored while in Europe.  After several phone calls and sending Tracey off to the secondary option we just barely managed to secure somewhere to store the luggage but had to actually bring the luggage before 11pm.  Between eventually doing this and clearing out the flat we did not stop to rest really at all until midnight.

Today then began promptly at 5am.  This time again turned out to be a wee bit optimistic about ...

Tracey: Sorry about that break in thought everybody. I am carrying on with what Matt had already started typing. Anyways we were a bit optimistic of how much time we would require to pack up our final things, return the keys of the flat to the company we rented from, have the last minute sweeping and throwing things away and be on the tube.  For some reason in our tired state yesterday, we thought it would take about 40 min to do all that. With a lot of rushing around, we did it in 50 and still managed to get to our departure point, 10 minutes early instead of 20, which as it turns out didn’t matter at all because the bus was held up in traffic and running late.

In out wait time, Expat offered us free champagne mixed with orange juice, which we enjoyed with a chocolate bar we brought from home (didn’t have time to pick up proper breakfast). It was a pretty amazing start!

The bus tour itself was alright. We did about 10 hours of driving including rest stops, the border and ferry crossing. The ferry was huge and although moving quite fast, we didn’t even realize it was moving until we looked out the window a little later. It was only an hour and a half so by the time we grabbed some lunch, sat to look out the window and had a conversation with some of the others on the trip, it was over. The tour guide seemed quite strict and set on scheduling and preciseness, but she had a sense of humour. She asked all of us to go up and share a bit about ourselves and no one at all volunteered... until she offered a price for the first person. Of course I can not say no to a prize, so I was the first one up, rambling about how I am a heavy metal fan who is into old Nintendo video games, science fiction and museums. No one else had as long or as interesting of an introduction. She also asked for someone’s Ipod to put some music on the bus and no one except myself volunteered one, so we listened to Sea shanties and rock n roll. I am quite sure I’m the weird one on the trip, but so far I haven’t been shunned from conversation.

We got to Paris just after 5 and checked into our hotel. A change of scheduling gave us twin hotel rooms rather than 4 room dorms, so we are comfortable and get to sleep when we want to without being woken by roommates. It is clean, nice and really everything we need for a couple nights.

After spending about an hour in the hotel getting organized, we had our guided bus tour of Paris. The stops were all out of order because of traffic. We were told we could leave at one of two stops, Notre Dame Cathedral or the Eiffel Tower as long as we found our own way back to the hotel. We jumped off at Notre Dame Cathedral and went for a walk to take pictures of a famous bridge with engraved padlocks all the way across it on both sides. Our tour guide told us before that couples engraved their initials on them, attached them to the gate and threw their keys into the water to symbolize their eternal love. She also mentioned that it was illegal and the locks were cut every 6 weeks or so. We got our photos and wandered back to check out the cathedral, getting distracted by people who were feeding birds and having them land right on their hands. A man gave us free bread to try it ourselves and we had a blast. At one time, there were 3 tiny little birds eating off my hand! We decided to stop for dinner and ended up getting shwarmas (cheapest food around) and then trying to check out the cathedral once again.

Outside the cathedral, there were men about my age rollerskating up ramps and doing all these tricks in the air right in front of the crowds. They were jumping pretty far into the air and doing some impressive tricks. We stayed and watched a bit, then carried on forwards.  There was a man who appeared to be fishing in a tiny bucket. When we got closer, we saw that it was a bubble wand that made massive bubbles. There was a man elegantly balancing a glass ball on his arms, neck and fingertips quite well. At some points it looked like it was floating. 2 Others were twirling batons into the air, which appeared they would later light on fire.

We finally got to Notre Dame at that point and wandered in as a movie was showing. We walked around the building to take a look at its architecture and headed out again.

At this point it was getting fairly late. We walked over to check out a statue that Matt had seen in the distance and then looked at the maps at the bus stop and in our Expat Booklets to find our way to the nearest subway system. We got to where it looked like it should be and pulled the map back out to find out specifically where to go next. As Matt was pulling out the map, I noticed people walking up stairs from underground in a not so well marked... subway station! We put the map back, went to the machine and figured out what the French screen options were and how to use the automated system to get tickets home. Once we had those printed, it was 2 transfers and just under an hour to get back to the hotel which we are sitting at right now. We have both showered and it’s 11:10pm now, so we will figure out what we are doing during our free day in Paris and finally get a proper nights sleep.