Paris was a really interesting trip. We got there in the afternoon, but we were just so drained by everything else that we did not have energy to do much. The airport we flew into was so far out of town that it was about an hour and a half journey just to get into central Paris. Our hostel/hotel (it was actually a legitimate hotel, so that was a nice change) was way out of town, so we had to travel even more just to get there. Once there, we couldn’t find it, so we just wondered around this little town for a long time, with men working at auto body shops leering at us. Finally, a local pulled up in her car and offered us a ride to our hostel, which was kind of scary in retrospect, but greatly appreciated at the time. Once we got to the hotel, we checked in and went to our room. The website had double beds and single beds for the same price, so D and I decided to go with the double just for the heck of it. When we walked in to our room there was only one double bed, so that plan kind of backfired on us. It was fine, just funny. Later, we wondered around town for about two hours trying to find a grocery store to get food. We finally found one, and stocked up on bread, butter, jelly and chips. We only ate hot food once the whole time in Paris, but it saved us a ton of money.
After that, we turned on CNN worldwide, and went to bed for 13 hours. That sounds terrible, but we really needed the rest, and Paris is really boring when you are broke. The next day (Saturday) was our epic sightseeing day. We saw everything there is to see that is free in Paris. The Louvre (apparently it is free to students on Friday nights, so we really missed out there, but our guidebook said you had to pay)was gigantic, and a really beautiful building. The pyramids were interesting, but they didn’t really go. We ate lunch in the sculpture garden, which was neat. We saw the Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel tower, and just about everything else. It was a full day, but a good one because we kept busy and didn’t spend any money.
Back at our hotel, we got delicious hot sandwiches and ate them while watching CNN. I learned more about current events on this small trip than the entire time I have been over here. It is amazing what you can ignore without tv. We got up the next morning and left, and had another long day of travel back to Edinburgh. As soon as we arrived, we went straight to Kebab Mahal and then to bed.
Overall, it was a great trip, and nothing bad happened and there are no regrets. Even though Paris wasn’t exactly what I expected, I am really glad I went there, because it just seems like one of those places you should go if you have the opportunity, but I will never go back. People are mean for the most part, hate Americans, and somehow the entire city smells like urine. Rome and Barcelona were both great though, and I would love to go back to Rome, or even just Italy in general. It was brilliant.
So that was my ten day EuroTrip. It was pretty epic. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for making it happen! Love you!
Inside Notre Dame CathedralMe standing in front of Notre Dame
The Eiffel Tower
The Tomb of the Unknown Solider
Arc de Triomphe
The whole Louvre.
A closer shot, with pyramid.
The rose window of Notre Dame
The Seine, and in general a nice shot.
Another stained glass window at Notre Dame
The busiest intersection in Paris
Memorial for French Holocaust victims. This place was crazy, and was built to resemble a concentration camp. It was pretty heavy.
D and I in front of Notre Dame.
And that is my trip! I have a ton more pictures to put up here from other stuff that has just been going on, so look for those later!
D and I left for Rome on Tuesday the 21st. We left around noon from our hostel. We arrived in Rome at about six in the evening, and we had one hell of a time trying to find the bus we needed to take to our hostel. Public transportation was the worst in Rome compared to everywhere else I have been, save the States. I imagine it would be hard to build a proper metro with all the really old foundations and architecture, but it really was bad. The metro made a big “X,” so stops were not abundant. The bus system did not make up for it, either. When we finally found the bus stop we needed, we still had to wait for an hour, and then the bus was tiny and we had to stand with our bags for another 45 minutes. It was just rubbish. The good news is that was about the only bad thing about Rome.
The night we arrived, we got to the hostel around ten and just went to bed. I read for a little bit. On that side note, a couple of the guys here recommended a series of books called Inheritance. I had never heard about it, but I started reading it right before we left on the ten day. I finished two of the books while on vacation, and the third just yesterday. It is so good! The first book is called Eragon, so I would recommend it to anyone. It is about dragons, elves, dwarves and other races fighting evil. It seems so dorky but it was really good. The author is now 24, and he started writing it at 15 when he graduated high school. Very good; very entertaining.Trevy would probably like it.
The next day, we hopped on a tour bus and went around to all of the major attractions. To be honest, this was a waste of money, and everything is so close that if you just dedicate some major time to walking around and planning, you can see everything major in most cities on foot. Anyway, the first stop was St. Mary’s church, I believe. Supposedly this is a really famous church because they have an important relic: a piece of Jesus’ manger. From there we went to the Coliseum. So awesome! It really was amazing. I will talk more about with the pictures, but it was one of my favorite places. After a few more stops, including some famous churches, the parliament building and a bunch of statues, we ended up at the Trevi Fountain. Unfortunately, they were cleaning it, so we did not get a great view of Neptune, and we couldn’t go right up to it. It was still really neat though. I had some trouble throwing my coin from that distance, however, and actually missed the font on my first try. Does that mean I am doomed to never return to Rome? After we visited the fountain, we went to eat. We had some delicious sandwiches, but they did not serve cold beans (haha, VanAmpting family joke). From there, we met up with John, our Assistant Director, and we spent the remainder of our time in Rome with him.
We just did a ton more sightseeing that day, including the Spanish Steps and the Pantheon. We also had gelato at least once, maybe more. We ate a lot of gelato in Rome. That night, we all went on a pub crawl. The theme of the night was “When in Rome,” so we said that as much as we could. We met up with our roommates from the hostel, and overall had a great time. It was the best pub crawl to date, and we got a really cool shirt that says, “I came, I saw, I crawled,” so that was really neat. We ended up at the Coliseum at around three am, and were walking home as fruit venders were putting out their wares for the day. We got home around 4 or 5, and amazingly, woke up at 7:30 to go to Vatican City. The lines were not bad at all, and we got right through into St. Peters, which is beautiful. From there, we went through the Vatican Museum, which had some amazing artwork. Unfortunately, my pictures of the paintings did not turn out great, but they were just wonderful in person. All the masters were there, including Donatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael. I don’t know if I remember their names more for their artwork or the Ninja Turtles. Both are probably pretty solid explanations.
Then there was, of course, the Sistine Chapel. It literally was amazing. We couldn’t take pictures, and I am sure I will not be able to explain it and do it justice. It was just brilliant. The colors were so bright and vibrant, even after the hundreds of years. It was breathtaking. My eyes were tearing up just looking at it. I had seen the Creation of Man portion before, but I really didn’t realize how much other stuff was there. It was absolutely beautiful. I bought Trevy a postcard here to send. I got him a postcard with the Creation of Man on it, but just the fingers touching. I felt awkward about sending the entire picture through the mail to a little boy. Well not so little anymore, according to Mom. A teenage boy, then.
Anyway, it just blew me away. After this, we had dinner. Again, no cold beans, but there was a delicious pesto. From here, we went to the Coliseum. We actually went inside and toured it. It was really cool! I really can’t believe how much of it is still standing even after so long and how many attacks it endured.
Normally, when you buy admission to the Coliseum, you also get entry into the Roman Forum, which is basically a bunch of ruins. We did the Coliseum so late that we did not have time to do the Forum before it closed. We could have gone back the next day, but D and I left rome that day.
We had to get a taxi at 3:30 in the morning to the center of town! It was ridiculous. It all worked out fine, but it was just a really long day of traveling. Next came Paris!
This is the parliament building. US troops nicknamed the sculpture/statue the "Wedding Cake" apparently.
St. Peter's Basilica
Some Swedish girls we played foose with on the pub crawl.
A crazy man we met in the street.
The Coliseum. Amazing!
Bottom of the Spanish Steps.
Our roommates at the hostel that we met on the pub crawl. They were Kiwis.
Me sitting on a piece of Coliseum.
Me gazing into the Coliseum.
D and I at the airport on our way to Italy. Note the Hand being present in the picture.
This is the castle thing that was the Illuminati's Church of Illumination in Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. That book is a lot better now that I know all of the stuff he is talking about. I am going to go back and read the Da Vinci Code again as well, now that I have also been to Paris.
D, John and I at the Coliseum.
Inside St. Peter's Basilica.
This one gets a story. As already said, D and I got really lost on the way home. D gave me her socks to walk in because my heels were apparently hurting. Why she is not wearing her shoes, I don't know. What is really of interest is the rock in her hand. This was stolen from the Coliseum at night after the pub crawl. It is a cobblestone. D tried to bring this home with her, which meant that we got the grand inquisition from Italian security guards at the airport. Needless to say, it did not make it. I went through security first, and I saw D's bag on the machine. The rock was just this huge, black box. They were not happy with us. They had to talk to like 5 guards to clear us, and I really think they were contemplating arresting us, or at least D. The good news is that we didn't, and it makes for a pretty good story. As D's mom put it, it is for things like this that Europe hates Americans.
The top of the Spanish Steps.
The Roman Forum
Inside the Coliseum. Neat, huh?
St. Peter's tomb.
The Pantheon.
A Swiss guard. They wear ridiculous pants.
Coliseum at night after the crawl.
The Trevi fountain. They were cleaning it, so we did not get great pictures of it.
And more Roman Forum.
Here is the deal with the trips! We left around 9 in the morning on the 16th. D, Leah, Jesse and I all went to Barcelona. It started out with a bang, literally, because we saw the bus was past our stop, so we ran to the next one and Jesse literally fell. It was hilarious. This trend of Jesse tripping kept up throughout Barcelona.
The trip there was pretty uneventful, but I got my first taste of flying with Ryanair. It was fine. The plane is all seat yourself, so there is kind of a free for all to get the best seats on the plane, and you end up lining up early before boarding to make sure you get to the front. I took a couple Benedryl (thanks for that tip, Erin!) so I was knocked out, but the others told me that the plane was really loud.
Once we arrived, we had to navigate the metro to get to our hostel. Luckily we have had a lot of practice with this, so it wasn’t too bad. Our hostel, Barcelona Dream (cheesy, isn’t it? Their motto online was, “Barcelona is a never ending dream, and we are a never ending hostel.”) was really nice, even though it was outside of town. The metro was literally a two minute walk away from the front door, and the beach was like ten minutes away. It was a new hostel, so the bedding and facility was great. That was really nice, because there are some crap hostels.
We really took it easy here. We walked around town and went to Las Ramblas, which is a pedestrian area that is filled with merchants, spent a lot of time at the beach, and took siestas almost everyday. Afternoon naps are a great idea. They really refreshed us. And before you say anything about it, we were immersing ourselves in the culture, and even if we were awake, we would not have anything to do, because literally everything shuts down from 2 to 5. We had a really great time. We made most of our own food, save for the paella (which was excellent) and a stop at the Hard Rock (D really likes them). We had pasta twice, grilled cheese and Leah and I made an epic salad one day that fed us for days. We were so economical! For the rest of it, I will just post pictures and comment on them.
Here is us girls in the Mediterranean. This is basically how most of our vacation was spent.
Another one of us.
This is me with a lion at the Christopher Columbus statue.
A shot of the beach. It not super warm in Barcelona. We were hot and wearing skirts and tanks and stuff, but no one else was. Most of the time we spent at the beach, we were the only ones actually in the water. We had a blast, though.
Leah and I with The Hand. This is a severed hand from one of the bars on the pub crawl we did. It was Halloween themed, and this was floating in a tank of water. Leah "borrowed" it, and now it is our favorite souvenir. D and I took it with us on the rest of our trip, and we took pictures with it where Leah should have been. We still have it, and the Hand has seen just about every adventure we have had since Barcelona.
Leah wrote "Spain '08" in the sand.
This is the Elvis portion of the Hard Rock. They only had his hat, Pops.
This is Leah, Jesse, me and one of the guys from our hostel we went on the pub crawl with. He is an Aussie, but I can't remember his name.
Another one of the guys, this one a Canadian.
Here is me peeking out from behind a tropical tree.
My glorious paella. It was so delicious, I cannot even describe.
Port Vell.
Our group outside the house before leaving.
The three of us on the pub crawl.
This building looks like water. It was neat.
Inside Notre Dame Cathedral
Me standing in front of Notre Dame
The Eiffel Tower
The Tomb of the Unknown Solider
Arc de Triomphe
The whole Louvre.
A closer shot, with pyramid.
The rose window of Notre Dame
The Seine, and in general a nice shot.
Another stained glass window at Notre Dame
The busiest intersection in Paris
Memorial for French Holocaust victims. This place was crazy, and was built to resemble a concentration camp. It was pretty heavy.
D and I in front of Notre Dame.
