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.