For my dearest Nana, and my companions in the blogosphere, yes all 6 of you, I am back to update.
It has been a solid 2 months since I embarked on by backpacking journey. My feet still hurt, but I feel like I have seen the world. Obviously I have not see all of it, but I have seen a bit.
This will be maybe my most brief account of it all, and all stories and locations may/will be elaborated later down the road.
not to quote Mario, but "Here we gooooo"
April 9: London.
London was an amazing city. I found their accents a bit hard to understand at times. Often times it was harder to understand them than it is to understand people who do not have English as their first language. A bit funny, really. Alex and I arrived to central London around midnight and accidently got on the wrong bus. Maybe it was the right bus in the wrong direction, but we don't really know. There was a smelly man on the back of the bus who grumbled like a pirate and a potato sitting on the floor of the bus. Once we realized we were not in the right part of town, we exit the bus in the Piccadilly Circus area. It was saturday night. We walked half way across London with the help of a boy named Michael Smith- he went by Smithy.
The first day in London we did the free walking tour. This took us by all sorts of places, including Buckingham Palace. The wedding was about two weeks away at this time and the city had already began to prepare. By prepare I mean all souvenir shops had stocked up on items with WIlliam and Kate's faces printed on them. I may or may not have purchased a tote bag with their faces on it....
This is me at Wellington Arch. It was a really pretty area near lots of parks.
From there on we saw everything that I previously considered classic London and things that I now consider classic London. Included are, the palace, the red phone booths, the black taxi cabs, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, the big Ferris Wheel, Royal Guards, double decker red buses, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, the Tower Bridge, Baker Street, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, Platform 9 and 3/4 (where Harry Potter catches his train to Hogwarts located in King's Cross Station) uhh and probably lots of other things, but those are the big ones.
We had to be careful, as the silly Brits drive on the wrong side of the road. I had the classic meal, fish and chips, and experienced the classic rainy weather for only 15 minutes. The only things I would have liked to have done differently is to take one ride on their subway "the tube" and to have seen some Banksy art. OVER LONDON WAS GREAT!
April 12: Hamburg
I should preface this with the fact that stating "April 12" is a bit of an overshot. We left London at 6am by Ryan air and landed in Germany around 1030. By 1130 we made it into the city of Hamburg and grabbed food at McDonalds because it has free wi-fi and was the first place we saw. We went to our hostel at noon but check in was at 3pm. Being tired from our mistake of pulling an all nighter for the flight, Alex and I both passed out at noon in the lobby, woke up at 3pm to check and and I proceeded to sleep until 7am the next day. This is the reason why I should probably start Hamburg on April 13.
When I awoke the morning of the 13th we headed out for the free city tour. As nice as the tour was, and as nice as the sky looked, it was freezing cold and windy the entire day. I kept my head down and in my jacket for the majority, but managed to look up a few times to take in the sites and snap a few, very few pictures.
I was not overly impressed with Hamburg. It was a port city, and had a decent amount of history (main Nazi port fore exports in WWII) also the city where the Beatles played a lot of shows before they made it big, but overall I give it a 5. If you're in the area, stop by, but I wouldn't reroute any trips to make it there. My favorite part was when we walked under the channel through the tunnel to get a view from the city across the water. It was our last night there and a good way to end. If i had done anything differently, I would have gone to the model museum.
APril 14: Amsterdam
Amsterdam is a popular tourist destination for various reasons, among the top I would say are the infamous "coffee shops" and Red Light district. Neither of these were my main motivation for visiting, but both were interesting to see. The drive into the Netherlands was absolutely beautiful. So green and full of baby sheep! I found the city itself quite weird. The houses are structurally similar to those in San Francisco, tall and skinny, but these were all sorts of bold, odd colors, with thickly painted window panes. Not only were they a bit off on that aspect, almost all of the houses leaned. Leaned. A lot. To the side and two the front. It was very strange. There are over half of a million bicycles in Amsterdam alone. You are maybe 30x more likely to be hit by a cyclist than by a car, and don't underestimate them. they are quite frightening. So there are weird houses, an abundance of bikers, oh and the fact that you can buy marijuana in almost any form in almost every other story in the center. At night if you wander the streets you will undoubtedly come upon lit windows with girls waiting inside trying to find customers/clients.
Yes it was just a bit much for me. I think it is a place that is interesting to see, but I would probably not return again. Also, I was near the Ann Frank house and a seemingly homeless man offered me a carton of icecream. It was frozen solid and still completely sealed with the top and clear plastic air tight covering. Perhaps the weirdest thing I have ever been gifted.
I enjoyed my time in Amsterdam, but 2 days was enough for me. It would have maybe been nice to go inside the Ann Frank house or to rent a bike and ride around. WAIT!! I have forgotten. Some of my favorite street art was in Amsterdam. One included "peace" written in purple on a dark gray wall, and painted on a construction tarp was "we used to be wild, then we became sedentary"
April 16: Brussels/Paris
April 16 was the second time on my trip that I was in 3 countries in one day. The first was the day we left (Vienna, Austria, Bratislava, Slovakia, London, England). We left paris early in the morning and bussed to Brussels, Belgium. While we were here we saw a really cool cathedral. It was so much cleaner on the outside than most cathedrals in Europe. We also saw the famous statue Mannekin Piss, which is a little boy that is peeing. It is sort of weird, but one of the cities biggest attractions...
BEST PART, dun dun dun. THE WAFFLES. obviously. Belgian waffles. I die. Only thing worth posting picture of. Strawberry with Nutella, soak that up, yummmm. Between my two waffles, yes that is right, I got another one, this time with Amarena ice cream on top. Good, but honestly, how do you compare with chocolate and strawberries?
April 16: Paris
We get into Paris around midnight and found our hotel rather quickly. I have left out a lot of what happened to Alex and I. If you want to know, we got lost a lot. never severely lost, but we are just not experts on finding the right way the first time. Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts sure do.
Paris round two was quite enjoyable. We started with the staples, ie Eiffel Tower, where we have a baguette with some camembert cheese and then made our way up to the Arch de Triumph, down Champs Elysees and eventually to the Louvre, and Notre Dame. We walked all of this. We must have thought our feet were invincible. We were wrong. This time i was SO SO impressed with the Arch de Triumph. I don't know why I liked it so much but I just thought it was so beautiful. It is huge and magnificent and had awesome sculptures on each side of the pillars.
The men who sold the Eiffel Tower Key Chains called us "Lady Gaga" and there were still hoards of them all over the place. The second day I slept in and adventured around the area of our hotel, the Republique area. It was a cool area with a lot of restaurants and shops. There were a bunch of homeless set up in the middle, and some of them even had couches, but I felt it was a safe area. That afternoon we headed to Montmarte, which has also been known as the area where the artist hang out, and the area home to the Moulin Rouge. Atop the hill sits the Sacré Cœur, which is a catholic church. The outside and inside were both magnificent. I think it is my favorite cathedral I have seen in Europe.
That night we went to watch the Eiffel Tower light up. It was a cool sight, and we ran into one of my friends from UT. He also studies in Vienna but we didn't know he would also be in Paris. Hook 'em. All the way from France. Our final day we packed up and headed back toward Notre Dame, but it was the weekend before Easter and a mass was happening so we left and went to a cafe and got our last crepes in France. I LOVED BEING IN FRANCE!! I think the language is beautiful, and even if I only know a few communication words, I think bonjour is the most fun way to greet people and merci is such a nice sound to thank others with.
April 20: Barcelona
It must be noted that we left Paris at 3pm on the 19th and arrived in Barcelona at 6am on the 20th. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. There were a bunch of crazies on the bus. Seriously, bus people are special people. People that you most likely never want to encounter.
That aside, Barce was a really great city. Our weather could have been a bit better, as I would have been more than content just laying on the beach. Perhaps it was good it was a little chill, so I was forced to go see the city. By this time we had met up with our friend Drew from Michigan and Jess (room mate in Vienna) would be there the first afternoon. We started with our own little tour of Gaudi architecture. He had a really unique vision for his art in all forms and is a staple in Barcelona design. We also visited Park Guell, which was one of my favorite parts of the city. I FINALLY saw the coast!! The water was beautiful but cold.
The second or third day, honestly I cannot remember we went to the beach. I got a massage from one of the asian ladies walking around. The cops were patrolling so she layed her head on my back and in an asian accent in her broken spanish said policia policia. It was really funny, but it was a good massage; 15 minutes for 5 euro. I had put on my bathing suit to lay out so I went to change before we were to head back to the hostel. The bathroom stall I was in didn't lock and of course in the two seconds I take my hand off the door to switch from bathing suit to underwear someone opens it, so I cover myself and she shut the door again. Then I realize my white denim shorts that were just in my hand were no longer there. Let's take a guess as to where I dropped them... That is right, in the toilet. So now I have wet white denim shorts. Really cool. My soggy pants self and friends wound up listening to a really cool street band for awhile. Street musicians were all over Barcelona and really added to the feel of the city.
Each night we bought snacks/dinner and ate on the steps at the port. I went to the Picasso museum. I like his sketches from his early years way more than the cubism he produced later on. There was a really cool park near the coast and Barcelona has its own arch de triumph made of red brick. It was really cool as well. The last day we were there was the Spanish equivalent of Valentine's day. Their version: girls get roses, boys get books. Who gets the better end of the deal? The included pic is at the top of tres cruces in Park Guell
April 23: NICE
The morning, and by morning I mean 4am, we get to NICE. Shady time to be out, but you do what you have to. I cannot even put my feelings toward Nice in words. Anything I attempt to say with not do my feelings or happiness justice. It was so beautiful ad french and clue and clear and relaxing. It was everything I needed. EVERYTHING. We had wine and cheese and I ate a lot of Subway, it was just perfect.
To add to the greatness, MONACO, is a 30 minute and 1 euro bus ride away. That is the best joke that I have ever heard. MONACO, I must emphasize, because, seriously, it is MONACO. Every other car was a Ferrari. The Casino is less than a rocks from away from the Hotel de Paris and I was just so overwhelmed by the money and the beauty. It was not even real. It is like a weird over priced fantasy land.
Pictures, though they do not do it justice are the best way i can attempt to explain how great it was.
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