Jun 2007

We made it to Venice yesterday after having a long, but enjoyable train ride from Munich. Grand total time=7hrs. The route took us through the most scenic views I have ever seen. Im about 99% sure Ill live south of Innsbruck, Austria before I die. We counted over 10 castles on the way to Venice. PLUS.. we met a really nice couple from Baltimore who sat by us. We shared stories (they were completing a hiking/biking trip) and when they left they sent us away with money for dinner. We tried to decline but they insisted so we splurged on a nice dinner last night.

Today was our 1 day to see Venice, so we left our amazing hotel at 8am. I should tell you why this place is so amazing, so let me list all the luxuries:
1) we have A/C! (I havent had this since the States!)
2) we have TV in our room! (havent had since Switzerland)

I could keep listing, but something tells me you arent as impressed with this list as I am.

Now on to Venice.. is it too late to head back north to the cold?.. one day in Italy and Im already sunburned and spent most of the day wiping sweat from my brow. Oh well.. it was still a good day.

Just to reassure yall.. we arent anywheres near the UK (and I wouldnt head back there anyway!)

Though its our last night here in Munich, I wanted to show yall a photo of the hostel we are staying in..

My quarters are pretty much the top 5 stories and all towers. A NICE!

Besides seeing the castler (err our hostel) we have also drank in a beer garden and went to a few museums. Here are some more photos, enjoy...

Mammoth Pretzel:

Tomorrow we leave for Venice and our last country.
Cheers

This was very hard to finally get posted, so you better appreciate the poor quality of such small photos resized in MS Paint of all places.

These are from Paris, London, Amsterdam, and Munich:

Amsterdam.. Oh lord where to start..
Well I guess picking up from the last post is as good a place as any.

We did infact end up in the Red Light District our first night there. And to correct a previous statement I made.. we werent in THE district, we were a few streets a way. I figured the 3 brothels outside our window meant we were there, but I guess its not contained to just that area (lucky for us!). So Im guessing you want a description of the District (its really not a place that conforms to the constraints of the english language, and language in general).. but if I had to try to describe the feel of it, itd be something along the lines of a grown up Disneyworld (horrible analogy, I know). But thats how you feel.. its just something totally different from everything youve known.. its every taboo in the flesh. And did I mention its great! You walk around dumbfounded as its a total role reversal between men and women.

But the Dutch are wonderful people.. the friendliest so far, followed very closely by the French believe it or not.

Our second day of Amsterdam consisted of insane weather and Rembrants grave (well its in a cathedral.. but no one knows where). Later we went eat sushi (I caved).. and during all of this we experienced sun, torential downpours, hail, and 2 rainbows to finish it all up. The 2nd night was also our last night, so we made run last trip to Disneyworld and then went to sleep early in preparation for our early 6:30am train ride to Munich (an 8hr ride).

I hated leaving but Im pretty sure the cops are closing in on us by now. First it was PETA after me for eating horse in Switzerland (insert "so hungry I could eat" joke here).. then it was the French police after us for sneaking out of that Versaille train station after not having the right ticket.. then the British were on to us for our illegal taxi ride (but desperate times called for desperate measures).. and now an angry prostitute in Amsterdam wants my camera because she thought I was taking a photo of her (it was of the canal and the church in the background, I swear!). Hopefully Germany accepts asylum seekers because they just got 4 new ones.

So I figure I can give you a good laugh about todays train ride (since these always end up humours at our expense). Well we boarded and everything was going perfectly to plan untill the loud speaker notified us of a change in plans do to a train wreck yesterday or today. So that led to an hour or 2 detour. Then we had to change trains again and we still arent good at doing this apparently since we couldnt find a seat and ended up (once again).. sitting on the floor in the back of a train car (see sometimes you have reserved seats and other times you dont). So we rode on the ground for about an hour with 2 Canadian girl backpakers until the nicest train employee came by and led us to some first class seats in a "special" part of the train. Well the special seating turned out to be the smoking cart (good thing 2nd hand smoke doesnt kill!). So 10 hours later we finally made it to Munich and I love it already.

Note.. these entries are never re-read.. so excuse everything about them. Id like to say its because im following in Kerouac's footsteps
"first thought, best thought".. but its more lazyness.

London has gone the way of the US, and George Orwell isn't resting peacefully in his grave because of it.

Everywhere we heard about the heightened state of security and had CCTV cameras watching our every move.

We did see a lot though, but London (in my opinion my other companions may argue differently) can't compete with Paris. Paris is the Texas of Europe. Everything there dwarfs the rest of Europe. But I won't turn this into a hate fest because it wasn't all a let down.

On our second day we split up, the girls going shopping and Quentin and I going to some museums. We ended up seeing the Rosetta Stone as well as Egyptian, Greek, and Roman artifacts. From that museum (whose name slips my mind) we headed to the Imperial War Museum and saw a lot of D-Day/WWI/WWII exhibits that were really cool if you are into that sort of thing.

The 3rd day consisted of going see the Tate Modern art museum, the National Gallery, and the Millennium Bridge.

Now I'm on today..
We had a train ticket for 8:30am on the Eurostar leaving for Belgium. So we left early from our shitty hostel (I'm glad to be still alive from that experience) only to find that the metro was closed until 7:30am...and when you are about 30 mins outside of London, and you have to be at you train 30 mins. early to go through customs and what not, you start to panic a little (and rightly so). So we walked around thinking our best bet was the bus, but quickly realized a taxi would need to be found, and fast. By some miracle we walked upon one and got our ride to Waterloo Station. On the way, the taxi driver brought us to the place where the London bus bombing occurred last summer. When we finally made it, we thought everything was going good. We boarded with little problems (Lindsey got searched) and then we boarded and our train got delayed right before we went through the chunnel. Did I mention we had a connecting train from Brussels to Amsterdam 30 mins. after we would arrive from London. So with the delay, we ended up in Brussels running around looking for our train with 15 mins. before it would leave. Of course it was the furthest track away, but we made it.

So midway through the train ride to Amsterdam (hour 4 or 5 of our train riding for the day) we find out we have to change trains. So we got off and get on a new one and its a much better train so we don't realize we are sitting in first class. Well when the ticket man started coming around, we realized our mishap and ended up sitting on the ground at the end of the cart for the last 2 hours of the journey.

And after all of that, we've made it to Amsterdam.. glad to be out of London (where it rains all the time and can't compete with Paris).

We've already seen Anne Frank's house tonight, but its still raining even here (I blame London) so we might just enjoy this mansion of a houseboat we are staying on and plan a full day tomorrow.. or we could experience the Red Light District tonight since it is LITERALLY right outside our window.

Photos soon.. I promise.

• *I had every intention of posting photos with this entry but apparently internet cafes in Europe are locked down tighter then the US/Mexico border. I promise I'll get some up later if possible (I have my ways).**

• *Second note: forgive any misspellings, I don't have a spellcheck**

• *Third note: some of this may already be in the last post**

So we've made it to London, England. But before I indulge you with the details of our first day here, I'd like to dedicate this post to what we did in Geneva and our days in Paris. So here comes a long post, sit back and enjoy...

Geneva:
Our one day in Geneva was an easy day meant to help our newly arrived travel mates cope with the impending "never ending day syndrome" that comes from arriving at 8:30am. Having time to kill before checkin, we headed to Lake Geneva where we saw the water cannon (shoots over 100m in the air (oh no, they got me using the metric system!)). From there, we walked the waterfront till we reached the United Nations Europe headquarters but was dissapointed to find them closed (it was Sunday I think). That was about all we did that day in terms of note worthy activities, sorry for such an anti-climatic ending but like I said, we were taking it easy.

France:
So the next morning we woke up and headed to the train station early to catch our 3 hour long train to Paris, France. The ride was nice, through the French countryside and it reminded me of our past week in Cully/Lutry, Switzerland.

Upon arrival at the station, we set out walking to our hostel, just over 1 mile from the station. It wasn't long till we got lost and realized we were right back staring at the train station we had walked away from 10-20 minutes before. So we opted for a cab who also got us lost. Apparently theres a Rue (road) and Blvd. by the same street name. After having to pay for the ridiculously long cab fare because well, no one could argue in French, we checked in to the Hotel Richard (though hotel is somewhat misleading as it implies some standard of "quality"). But it was home, and it treated us well enough for our 3 night stay.

After getting situated in our rooms, we went to the metro to learn the ropes and get in as much sightseeing as we could (realize the sun isn't setting on us till like 10:30pm every night). So we headed first to Notre Dame Cathedral. We walked through it and was amazed at the size, but passed on going to the top after looking at the long line winding outside the building and down the street. Afterwards we foolishly walked to the Louvre instead of taking the metro again. Someone should put disclaimers on these maps that say, "Jackass, its further then it looks!" Once we made it, we had to hunt for the famous glass pyramids since they aren't in the middle courtyard like you would think. When we got there, we noticed the line wasn't long at all so we seized the oppurtunity and headed into with one goal, the Mona Lisa. Thankfully there must be many "tourists" like us because every room seriously had a sign pointing the way to it. So as you can imagine, when we finally arrived (30 rooms/corridors later) the crowd around it was unbelievable. We inched our way upfront to realize.. its rather small. Feeling like we had accomplished something great though (how many can say they saw THE Mona Lisa?), we headed to the Greek/Egyptian exhibit to convince ourselves that we weren't some run-of-the-mill tourists. Now it was getting late, and we were very tired, so we headed back (once again foolishly) to the original metro station by foot to then head back to our hostel. We stopped in at a supermarket to buy dinner (cheese and french bread, the official food sponsor of this Europe tour) and went back to our hostel to have our first authentic french dinner: french bread, various cheeses, and a wine bottle that we had no corkscrew to open (and my pocket knife proved to not be a substitute). In case you were unaware, every place we have been so far in Europe has no A/C units or fans, so you have to rely on the good ole' wind to blow through the wind, and it just so happened that every night it wouldnt be blowing when we first went to sleep, but later in the night the temperature would plumit freezing the sweat on our brow. But I suppose you get what you pay for in life, and the days in Paris easily made it for these nights (plus I've already been conditioned to this since Switzerland).

My reasoning for not posting since our first night in Paris, besides the damn French keyboards that are hard to get used to, was the shady neighborhood the internet cafe was in. On our way back to the hostel after making that initial post, we saw a girl pass out on the street and just some real shady characters around.

So now to Day 2.. we got up at 9am (a common theme of the trip since theres a sense of urgency with every day of the trip) and headed to the Catacombes. It began with what seemed like a never ending staircase deep into the Dante's Inferno of Paris. But when we finally got to the bones/skulls we were impressed at the magnitude of dead that had to be transported down there and the designs the body layers did (like crosses and other designs). Lindsey's unscientific poll estimated the body count to be somewhere in the millions, but that number might be way off and Quentin and I have our doubts on it. Once we made it out of that death pit, we headed to the Eiffel Tower. Having learned our lesson from the day before, we held tight to our 3-day metro pass and got off at the nearest station to the Tower. The Eiffel Tower is HUGE. No photo has ever done it justice, its just something you have to see for yourself. Walking to it, we were greeted with the only english words a gypsy knows, "Do you speak English?". Lindsey's run in with a gypsy (there are a lot of them) earlier in the day had gotten us all on guard, so we knew to avoid their trickery and just pass them by. So, before I worry anyone, let me tell the story of Lindsey and the Gypsy (that has a Disney movie ring to it).. We were at the train station earlier that day when Lindsey was asked that question mentioned above by one of them, and being the nice person she is (and maybe because she did in fact speak English and had been English deprived in French countries for over a week) she said yes at which time th gypsy presented a card of "her" life story asking for money to help her get home.. this of course provides the distraction for either the gypsy or another to A) steal from her or B) get pity/money from Lindsey. After realizing what she got herself into though, she walked away with the broken gypsy ideal given to her by Disney's Esmeralda.

Ok, back to the Eiffel Tower, we declined to wait in the long lines to go to the top and instead headed towards the Arc de Triumph (foolishly walked again). It was commisioned by Napoleon and also houses their "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier" Memorial. Once we got there, we went to the top to get a panarama of Paris and on the way down, I found a flower that had blown from the wreath of the grave (finders keepers). After eating lunch at a cafe on Champs Elysees, we went to pay our respects at Jim Morrison's grave. We broke into an acapella rendition of "The End" since it seemed like the right thing to do. We also encountered a mad French man arguing with the guard by his grave about, what we thought, was the barricade around Morrison's grave. Two french women confirmed our suspisions. At this point it was getting late again and we were tired from our days worth of walking to we strolled out of the cemetary talking of life/death and our next days plans.

On our final full day in Paris, we went to Versailles in the morning and opted for the free garden entrance. The gardens are around 250 acres, and if that doesn't make your jaw drop then I don't know what else I can say other then that it went back as far as the eye could see. And the whole thing was beautiful gardens with fountains everywhere. Once back in Paris we headed to Hotel des Invalides (aka Napoleons Tomb). This military building was stormed by the French people to seize the weapons to then go "Storm the Bastille!". And like everything else in France, Napoleon's Tomb could fit about 50 Napoleons in it, seriously.

On our last night, we headed back to the Eiffel Tower to watch it light up, and just enjoy the city one last time.

So today we took the Eurostar here to London under the English Channel. We have already checked in to our hostel, seen Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, a Princess Diana memorial fountain, and the Achilles statue in Hyde Park. I know what you are thinking, what else could they do?? Well, I guess I'll leave you with that.

That's the extent of my French. Anyway, after a 3 hour train ride from Geneva we've made it to Paris. We already have seen The Louvre including the Mona Lisa, Notre Dame, and all kinds of parks, etc. Tommorrow will be an action packed day filled with a ton more sights.

Photos later hopefully.

I feel now is a good point in the trip to begin describing the hard lessons we have learned so you don't have to.

1) Whenever flying on your second connecting plane don't assume that the flush button is in the same location as on the first plane. More than likely it will end up being a "Call for Assistance" button. And no, pressing it again doesn't turn it off. It only rings the bell a second, third, forth time as you begin to panic. Find the flush button (on the left this time) and run like hell!

2) 220v sockets never play nice with 110v appliances, especially hair straighteners that begin melting and almost burn down B&B's. You can thank Ashleigh for that tidbit.

3) And of course, avoid dancing cowboys at all cost.

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Here are a few photos from the apartment. The spots that look like green fields are actually vineyards. And speaking of, we are having a wine tasting experience tomorrow.

Today we visited Lausanne, Switzerland. The highlight, at least for me, was the Cathedral. Its beginnings as a church date back to the 6th century, though it wasn't built into a cathedral until around 1000. The area around the altar featured a basement crypt and tombs of bishops and other clergymen. You can't help but feel apart of the Da Vinci Code here, especially with the Templar Knight statues surrounding the altar and everything when looked at carefully creates the letter "M".

The past 2 days we have visited the Château de Chillon and the Castle of Gruyères, both in Switzerland. The Château de Chillon is in Montreux on the shore of Lake Geneva, while the Castle is in the Swiss countryside which gave a nice change of scenery. I'm being rushed, so this will be all.

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After our all-day trek to Mont-Blanc in France yesterday, we came home to an incredible lightning storm over the lake. While I didn't manage to capture any of the lightning, I did get a decent shot of the restaurant outside our Bed & Breakfast.

Today we awoke to more rain in the morning, but by noon the rain had passed so we headed down to Montreux, Switzerland (about 20 minutes away and home to Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water”—go listen to the lyrics). Besides that though, Freddie Mercury found a haven from stardom in the town of Montreux and because of this, the citizens have erected a statue of the Queen front man and also hold a day of celebration in his honor every September.

Now to elaborate on our first 2 days...
Day one was pretty lazy as we adjusted to the “never-ending day syndrome” brought on by a plane ride that none of us slept on and an arrival at 7:45am. Eventually we made it to Ouchy, a smaller part of Lausanne, to walk the streets and listen to live music. As we were walking up, Michael and Consuelo were telling us of this crazy man they once saw in cowboy boots and a kilt dancing during one of the shows. As odd as that is alone, they then elaborated that he’d be the only one dancing right in front of the stage and would spin around on too many occasions to be accidental exposing the lack of clothing underneath his kilt. So on this fine Sunday night, we too were in for such a treat. Like a celebrity in a crowd of admirers, he made a small entrance to the laughter of people who were un(fortunate) enough to have seen him before and as the music picked up, began to dance a dance I can conjure no words to describe. I can only hope that one photo can do it some justice. Why one photo you ask... well, you see, I didn’t want to be zoomed in at the wrong moment of a spin. So I got in and got out, so to speak. I’m hoping none of your imaginations led you down that path; if so… seek immediate therapy.

Day two was similarly nauseating, just in a different way. We went to France to see Mont-Blanc, a 12,000 ft. mountain in the French Alps. We took two lifts to ascend to the top and then immediately lost our breath. The simple task of climbing 20 steps had us all panting and sitting down for the next 5 minutes. For those of us who dared to look over, the view was amazing.

Au revoir

We made it! I'm short for time, so here are a few photos that I will provide commentary on later. Let your imaginations run wild with the kilt-wearing cowboy dancer.