The last few days I've spent taking trips to near by towns, hiking up to see old cities on top of mountains and last week I even went swimming in the sea - althogh briefly. Today was spent rollerblading along the boardwalk by the beach. I also went out and got my bottle of 1990 Champagne. Only 330France (About $80) Bottled 'especially' for the millenium. I'm all set now. We're planning on heading into the centeral square in town for midnight with the other expected 50,000 people and then being on the beach to watch the sun rise in the morning...
So, I've got some pictures for everyone to make you all jealous...
The city of Antibes and Genevieve
Our Xmas tree
On Xmas eve, after a bit too much wine, a bunch of the people from the hostel came back in, laughing, packing this christmas tree through the door. Everyone in the hostel donated stuff to decorate it. (Yes, the Xmas disks are mine)
The gang and the tree.
Panorama from the mountain we hiked up in Eze.
More scenery in Eze from the old village..
And more...
The boardwalk by the beach in Nice.
Nice and Caroline and Gen.
The two girls I spend most of my time with. We spent the afternoon up here with some beer. We then went to the beach and had more beer. Did I mention I like Nice?
After new years I'll probably spend another few days in Nice to let the New Years craziness in London settle down, then go there to look for work...
Happy New Year everyone.
It seems as tho the north of France was just hit with a huge hurricane type of wind storm (170kph winds) and there's power outages, roads are closed, trains aren't running, blah blah blah. I'm still in Nice. It's still nice here, kinda windy. We spent the day down at the beach watching the waves break on the rocks and get all the tourists wet. Im supposed to go to Paris tommorrow. Some people attempted to leave for Paris today but couldn't make it. If tommorrow I still can't get to Paris I'm not totally sure what I'll be doing - but, hey.. It's all part of the adventure, right?
For Xmas, we went out to a restraunt (15 of us) as planned. Xmas day we went down the beach and played a spontanious version of touch football/rugby and then rode on a big ferris wheel in the winter carnival in town. Weee....
Well, still going to hope to be in Paris for New Years at the Eifel tower (Or possible the new Leaning Tower of Paris.. )
The hostel here is small 20 bed place and Nice is about the center of the French Riviera. Most people come here for a week or so taking day, or even half day trips to the cities around here (Including Monaco with its big casinos). The hostel ends up with a big 'family' atmosphere. The people who work at the hostel are also just travellers who decided they might like to stay even longer. I've made reservations here until X-mas. Those of us who are still going to be here until then are planning on going out for a big expensive French dinner at some fancy restraunt in the old town.
There isn't much to tell about the last few days I've been here. It's been mostly seeing a few of the museums in town, and going out to pubs at night with the 'regulars' at the hostel and the new people who've just arrived. We mostly go to a bar down by the beach called "Thor's". It's got live bands every night and fairly cheap drinks.
Eifel Tower and a typical Parisian street.
The beach in Nice.
Sunset
"The" gang
Making Breakfast.
Me and Scott (at left) got up after 3 hours of sleep to make pancakes at 7am, as promised, for the two girls who work at the hostel.
Genevieve got up and sang a song at the Thor the other night. Woo! Rock-star!
Well, Hopefully everyone will have a happy X-mas. It still doesn't feel like Christmas here: too warm. But the decorations are all out and the stores are packed as usual. I'll try to make at least another update before New Years :)
21 hours, 4 trains and 4 countries later I was in Amsterdam
I did the Heineken Brewery tour again, but skipped out on Van Gogh and the Anne Frank house for the 2nd time. But, now I can assurdly say that Amsterdam has the best Flaffle's in Western Europe. (Berlin has the best Shwarma's... )
Eventually the girls headed back to London and I headed back to Paris to get ready for New Years. On the way I stopped in Brussles. The first time I was here I didn't like it. I figured now that I was more experienced at getting around big cities I might enjoy it more. Naa - Brussles is boring..
Back in Paris I made my reservations for New Years here. I found I had a bit of extra money and since I lost my sweater in Rome, my jacket in Barcelona, the button my my jeans broke and I'd been wearing the same 6 pairs of socks for 3 months, I decided to go shopping.
I got myself a new leather jacket. I figured I'd be the envy of everyone back home having gotten a new jacket in Paris. I got out of the store and pulled the tags off so I could wear it home. It was then that I noticed the "Made in Canada" logo. Oh well, C'est la vie.
So, now I'm in Paris with about 17 days to kill before New Years and I gotta find something to do till then. Maybe Nice, or Switzerland, or back to Spain? Off to Germany again? Not sure yet..
Anyhow, Picture time! (Yaaa!)
Heineken man who brought us beer the first time in Amsterdam.
Heineken man who brought us beer the second time in Amsterdam.
Aussie girls the first time I at the beer tour
Canadian girls the second time I was at the beer tour
Typical night at the hostel in Barcelona.
The ugliest duck I have ever seen.
Canadians.
Left to right is Mattew (Quebec City), Jen (Ottawa), and Ghalib (Vancouver). We were going to rent the van call it 'The Canuck Truck' with a few others.
The square where the hostel was in Barcelona.
Gaudi's architecture in Barcelona.
More Gaudi
Gaudi's church, and some people I went to see it with. (American, Canadian, Mexican and Australian. Left to Right)
Well, there you go. I'll probably get another update or so in before new years... Keep checking in! :)
10am : Wake up.
10-2pm : See stuff in the city
2-6 : Sleep (Siesta)
6-2am : Sit in hostel talk with people, play pool and drink beer
2am-6am : Clubs open. Go to Club
The hostel we stay in has a large kind of ´beer hall´ area for drinking and vending machines to get beer. It´s pretty expensive (About $1.50 CND) and they won´t let you bring in outside alcohol. So we all go out to the grocery store and buy the same brand of beer as they sell here for about $0.25 a can and fill up a few of our backpacks and drink those. It seems to be a tradition to stack beer cans up to the ceiling in big beer towers. We´ve tried building the Eifel tower, but they´re always more Leaning Tower of Pisa-ish. Midnight the clubs open but they don´t get going until 2am. In Barcelona there is a ´dock´ area where they have what is best describe as a mall of clubs. Three floors of a outdoor plaza and every ´store´ is a club. They all have glass walls so you can wander around and see who´s in, and then you can just walk in if you like it. No cover on any of them so if you don´t like a song you can wander out and over to the next. Most of these places play top 40 spanish pop (Yes, even Ricky Martin) and they have this fasination with songs you dance particular moves to (A la Macerena) Some guy will come out on the dance floor with a microphone and lead people along with the moves when the appropriate song comes on...
There is one catch tho. You aren´t allowed into these clubs with sneakers. I´m not sure why, but my Nike Airwalks are a big faux pas in these clubs. Door men stand at the doors, look at your feet and if they see sneakers they grab you, say something in Spanish and won´t let you in. The first night here a bunch of us went out and three of us weren´t allowed in because of our sneakers. One of the people was Jen, a girl from Canada who quickly told us she had an idea and told us to follow her. She went to another door about 10 feet away and walked up to the door men. We followed closely behind. She was wearing a sweater and a T-shirt underneath. As she got to the door she pulled off her sweater, straighted out her shoulders smiled and walked in. Me and the other guy quickly hurried in behind her with the doormen´s eyes focused on her chest...
So, there´s not a lot more to tell. I did manage to see the Picasso art gallery. Some.. err.. ´interesting´ stuff there. Also there´s a local architech by the name of Gaudi who does this strange ´natural´ kind of work. Seems often like you´re in a cave or something while in his buildings. He also designed a park. It´s tough do describe, but I do have a bunch of pictures. BUT the internet here doesn´t let me use disks
I´m not yet sure where I´ll be going next. The rest of Spain is just not as exciting in the middle of winter so I may wait and see it some other time. We´ll have to see what happens. No need to leave Barcelona just YET. :)
Tours is an area with a bunch of castles nearby that I though would be nice to see. But, getting there I found they were all quite a ways out of Tours. I figured I'd check into the hostel and see if I could find some people who wanted to get together and rent a car. Well, the hostel was pretty much empty. It was this big old boarding house for a boys school or something and NO ONE was there. It had a 10pm cerfew and I sat around on a couch watching french soap operas with some French guy that I think worked there. He never spoke.
So, the next morning I decided I would just head down to Barcelona on the next night train. No luck there. There are no train that go to Barcelona from Tours. I would have to go back to Paris and then get a night train from there. My rail-pass has run out so now I'm paying for trips, and this one would of cost $200. So, I ran over to the bus station. Gotta be a bus, right? No. It doesn't go from Tours either. But, I can catch it from Toulouse, Paris or Bordeaux. Going back to Paris feels redundant, and Toulouse isn't in my guide book and there aren't even any 'official' hostels in the city. So, I went to the other side of France to Bordeaux. I had gone through Bordeaux about a month and a half ago, but never stopped there.
The hostel in Bordeaux was supposed to be easy to find, right near the train station - and it was. I found it, and found it to be closed for construction. It was being used as a homeless shelter or something of the sort in the meantime and there was some big bouncer/doorman guy who rattled off in french the directions to another hostel in town. I headed of in that direction and walked and walked and walked and finnally stopped in at a bakery (The french have hundereds of bakeries everywhere) and asked for directions. At first the lady wasn't sure if the street even existed. The I tried saying it a few different ways and she figured it out - but still wasn't sure where it was. Some other guy came into the store and she asked him. He knew of the street but wasn't positive on how to get there. They both eventually agreed that I should continue down the same street and ask someone else. I left the store with the two of them inside still discussing where it might be.
Awhile later I stopped off at a small cafe and asked the guy in there. He told me that I was completly in the wrong section of town and needed to catch the 22 bus which would go down it. I got on the 22 bus and the driver told me he didn't go anywhere near the street, but he could take me to a stop where I would need to switch to the 6 bus and that would take me down it. Eventually got on the other bus and took it to the right street and the driver let me off. I walked down the street, found the address I was given, but there was no hostel there. It was some art-design studio. So, I caught the next bus that said 'train station' and found a hotel near the station. This wasn't so bad. The room was the same price as a hostel in Paris (about $30) and I got to sit in the bar and talk with the locals while we watched the local soccer (err.. 'football') team play on TV.
So, this morning I went to the Tourist Information office, got a map and directions to the hostel. This time I was able to find it by walking there and checked in... Yaa!
Okay... So, some pictures:
Firstly, I had a diskette that got some junk on it (Belgium chocolate, I'm sure) and I lost a bunch of picutres from Amsterdam. I got bored and using another diskette, a butter knife and a handy-wipe I managed to same the pictures...
Heineken brewery line up at 9:00am. You get all you can drink beer at the end of it.
People drinking beer at the brewery at 10am
Heineken man who brought us beer.
Canals of Amsterdam
Scooters in Florence
Typical piazza in Florence
Police man I'm not sure what he's guarding, but it must be important.
The only thing to see in Pisa
Me and Melanie. One of the girls who I stayed with in Switzerland.
Two crazy girls from Swiss wasting time while waiting for train.
Lausanne, Switzerland when I arrived.
Lausanne, Switzerland when I left.
Paris at night
The Mona Lisa.
Paris, from a the Louvre
Okay, that's all for now.. Tune in next week when.. uh.. I think I'll be in Spain.. Maybe :)
Back at the hostel I was back with the French Canadians and mentioned that I wanted to go to Switzerland but wasn't to sure about going because it was pretty expensive and my train pass is running out, so an extra stop isn't something I _really_ wanted to do. Two of the French girls explained to me that they actaully were living in a small Swiss town called Lausanne and said they would love it if I came back with them and stayed with them for a few days.
I've had to make some tough decisions while in Europe. This wasn't one of them.
I then took a day trip out to Pisa to see the famous leaning tower. In the height of the Renaissance Florence and Pisa were the two main towns. Now Pisa just has a tower. I met with a Canaidian on the train and we got there, found the tower, took pictures. He decided to stay behind and I went back to Florence. Headed to Switzerland that night with the two girls.
Switzerland was really nice - With the trees, mountains, and such it was a lot like Vancouver. And it was even raining. The money there is even the same value as a Canadian dollar. (I wont mention how much things cost cause *KAFKA* says I spend too much time talking about prices (smirk) ) I spent 4 days there and most just did nothing. Bought some winter clothes, and through out some of my summer stuff. After resting up and getting in some good practice with my French, I got back on a train and headed to Paris.
I don't have time now to get pictures up, but I'm going to try to find some more time before I leave Paris and maybe give you guys a whole bunch.. We'll have to see if I can find a cheap place to do it from...
The city lives up to its reputation. The place is a maze of tiny streets with laundry hanging between buldings that stretch as far as you can see. The streets are packed with markets that remind you more of some oriental city. And of course theres the crazy Italian traffic to top it off. The city is also known for its huge links with the Mafia. Sicily is and island just off the coast, where the 'Godfather' supposedly came from in the movie.
I stayed at a hostel called '6 small rooms'. It was possibly the coolest hostel I've been to yet. Basically its and aparment this Australian girl (Jen) has rented out. Its got a big kitchen, a couple bedrooms with 6 beds or so per room, and a living room with a TV, VCR and a bunch of couches. You feel like you're staying in an aparment with a bunch of roommates. Jen was the mother of the place, reminding you to do your dishes, making sure you didn't get lost in the city, and making sure you were in bed by midnight. Most evenings everyone in the hostel would sit around the TV and watch a movie, or play monopoly (The italian version).
Got to see Pompeii. Its a pretty amazing place. It really is a city. You get a street map when you get there, and you gotta find your way around, just like a town. Unfortunaly there's no bus system... But, you can walk down original roman streets, gutters down the roads, tracks in the cobblestone from chariot wheels, and see stores along the side of the street, paintings still on the outside of the store to show what they sell. There will be a counter just inside the window of the store with some big round holes that were for holding pots of food. Basically fast food stores of Pompeii.
I spent the other days wandering around the streets of Pompeii and then last night took a train to Florence. Spent most of last night singing french songs with some french Canadians and explaining the Canadian seperatist problems to some Australians and drinking the cheap beer out of a vending machine in the hostel. I also ran into a guy I met in Naples who had gone of to Rome the day after I got there, and then ran into a girl I'd met in Rome a week before - crazy...
Erp.. Time is running out, not going to get any pictures up today. Hopefully next time!!!
We bring you live to Naples, Italy, where we have our hero, Jason, for an exclusive interview.
Jason, could you give us an example of what you normally eat on a day in Europe."
Well, it normally consists of going to the supermarket and gettings some bread, cheese, and a bunch of fruit.
Its been said that you have been seen entering McDonalds. Now considering the multicultural possibilities you could be partaking in, this seems kind of odd. Would you like to comment?
Generally, being in Europe, I wouldn't be going into McDonalds. But, once you get here things change. Try walking down a street, in a city you dont know, with a big bag on your back and you haven't eaten since that peice of bread you had in the morning. You have the choice of going into a restraunt, where you cant be sure how much the locals will rip you off, eat food your not too sure what it is, and have to fight through a language barrier. Or you can go to McDonalds. The price is always going to be reasonable, you know exactly how bad the food is going to be, and a BigMac is a BigMac no matter the language.
So, what then is your favorite European happy meal?
Personaly I go for, what I call, the "Vincent Vega Pulp Fiction Happy Meal". A Royal with cheese, French Fries covered in mayo, and a beer.
Heh-heh. Those of our readers who didn't catch that might want to check into the first few minutes of the Pulp Fiction movie.
Well, I think thats all the time we have for today. Tune in next time when we follow our Hero as he heads back north from Italy and tries to find a place to stay for New Years in Paris....
So, Venice. I took a night train and got to sit in a compartment with 4 big american guys who were chewing tobacco all night. They were doing 'Europe' in 3 weeks. Pfft.. Amateurs. Anyhow, arrived in Venice and took the 'bus' which really amounts to a ferry. The only hostel that was free was on this island off the main section of the city, so I had to pay about $15 for a day pass for the ferry, on top of the $25 for the hostel. It ended up being REALLY expensive to stay there, but Vienna was really really cool.
The city is on a bunch of really small islands all connected by bridges, and full of canals. The city is made up of tiny little alleys so theres no cars anywhere in the city. The main mode of transportation is boat. Mostly the 'bus' system I mentioned or overpriced taxis. You can also take the classical gondolas, but they cost about $100-$150 for a 50 minute ride. The buildings are all about 4 stories tall and the bridges and the alleys and the stores all look the same. To top it off the maze of little streets and tiny alleys is complex enough that the map you get at the tourist office is useless as it doesn't have a bunch of the streets on it. So, one wrong turn and you can be lost for hours. You end up writing down directions to places as if it's an computer adventure game. 'From the square go North, East, North, North, then West. You should be at the small church. Then West, West, North and you'll get to the restraunt.'
The first day I was there it was great, but I was so busy finding a place to stay and getting settled in I didn't see a lot of the city. The next day this really thick fog setteled in - making it even worse to find your way around. I spent two days there in the fog, and then headed out to Rome.
The train to Rome was PACKED. I'd heard they packed them pretty full in Italy, but didn't think it would be that bad in the off season. Apparently not, I had to stand for 5 hours. The weather in Rome was much better :) Even the people who were working in the Hostel were saying how much it is like summer here. Rome is great, but the traffic is INSANE. Road signs and lights are suggestions here. Most streets have crosswalks but no lights and you just sort of head out into traffic. Motorbikes are all over the place and the roads have no lanes, so they dive in and out of cars, and also buzz through any red lights they might come across.
So, the first day I say the Colloseum - the big Roman arena where they had all those gladiator battles, and the Roman forum. The forum was the center of Rome, where the Romans had their politial and religous stuff going on. It's where the goverment sat, and where all the famous people made their famous speaches. "Friends, Romans, Countrymen..." etc. It's right in the center of downtown Rome. They've litterly torn down the center of town and started excavating.
The next day (Today) I went down to see the Vatican. Apparently today was a bad day. The pope comes out for his weekly wave on wednesdays and the place was packed with people. I didnt get to see the sistine chapel etc, because the number of people but I did manage to get into St. Peter's Basillica, which is basically the Pope's church. The thing is HUGE and all the paintings in there are done by those famous renaisance people (Michelangelo, etc). The entire thing is made of marble they swipe from the Roman colloseum, which is why its all falling apart and made of nothing but old bricks.
I also went and saw this famous fountain you're supposed to throw a coin into and then you'll come back to Rome. The fountain was under countruction and you couldnt get very near it. I guess they don't really want people comming back.
I'm actually convinced that I should of let more people over here know I was comming to Europe. With the amount of cranes and scaffolding around I've come to the conclusion that they actually haven't finished building Europe yet. Oh well :)
So, Ive been on the internet for an hour now, but Im going to stay on longer to get you guys some pictures (cause I know you love them so much)
Venice in the fog (They're big on pigeons)
Vienna in the fog at night(You might have to turn up the bightness on the monitor. This was haloween night, and really cool.
Roman arch and some roman construction. Taken from inside the colloseum
Roman building which had the largest cement dome in the world, until 1954.
Vatican The pope is actually in that little car - I got there just as he was driving away.
Inside the Bastiala It looks WAY more impressive than this, but my camera needs a wide angle lense.
Vatican swiss guard. Michealangelo designed the uniform.
I had to climb 500 stairs to get this shot.
Okay... Next I'm off to Naples and Pompeii. Then.. uhh.. I dunno... :) TTYL...
Eventually we found the second one. This one was much better. It was apparently the one Walt Disney based the Disney castle on. It was built by King Ludwig, who was a little eccentric. He spent the entire countries budget on the castle and eventually was arrested, declared insane and promptly died under mysterious cirumstances. (The guy had built a cave behind a secret door to his bedroom - total wacko...)
So, we took the country roads back to Munich and got *REALLY* lost once we hit the city. Our directions from the car place were written in REALLY bad english, and after about an hour of driving around Munich we stopped off at a gas station and some older German man helped us figure out where we were. We drove right past the place once more and then FINALLY figured it out. One of the guys headed off to Venice, and me and the other guy (Mike from Rhode Island) headed off to Prague. (Wait - Wasn't I going to go to Milan next? Ya... well... )
We took the night train to Prague, got off the train and had to fight through people trying to convert our money for us, "You need money change? I have no commision. Good rate. Change money quick." and people trying to offer us a place in their basement, "cheap. Close to town. Very very clean."
We found a food stand and had to do the conversion in our head twice. A food long sub sandwich was $2. It didn't appear to have much in it, but still.. We rejoiced had a sub and headed into town. Finnally we found the hostel, paid our $10/night and stopped to check out the cooler in the fridge. A bottle of water was 30 crowns. That worked out to just over a dollar. A bottle of beer was 15 crowns. In a city where beer is 1/2 the price of water, you just can't go wrong.
Prague is a strange mix of run down dirty city (somewhat like cities in mexico) and the most gorgeous buildings in europe. Everyone you met in the hostel would tell you that had planned to be there for 2 days, and ended up staying for 6. I made it out in 4 days. We ate at McDonalds the first night (Really hungry, new town, don't know where to eat or what the food will be like. And there you see the Golden Arches. And you can get a Big Mac, large fries, and 500ml coke for $3...)
We met a bunch of other people there and spent the days looking at the buildings and the churches (Remember - When you enter a Catholic church have to take your hat off or God gets mad, and when you enter a Jewish church you have to put on your hat or God gets mad.) The nights were spent at the locals pubs drinking pints of beer at 50c each. Prague also has this stuff called Absinth. Most of the other European countries have the good sense to make the stuff illegal. It's 70% alcohol. Most of the bars limit you to 2 shots. After 3 you have trouble remembering your name. After 4 they say you start to see things.... I decided to stay away from the stuff..
From there Mike headed to Berlin and I took off to Vienna, where I am now. Vienna is.. well, dull. It's got these great buildings from the 1700s or so, but after Prague, with ones from the 1500s packed all over the city it seems a bit overdone here. Mostly it's rich aristocrats trying to out impress each other by spending more and more money to build buildings that look Roman. If your into music, opera or shopping Venice would be great. But I just haven't gotten into it. Oh, and their metro system sucks! :) But after having spent 3 weeks in Germany picking up a little German, then fighting for 4 days with speaking Czech in Prague, I feel like I almost know the language here.
The other night I met five Australian girls and three guys from France. The Ozzies couldn't speak french and the French guys couldn't speak English. I spent the entire night as translator and we played card games and drank French wine.
From here I was planning on heading to Milan but a Japanese guy told me that Venice would be much nicer. So we played paper/rock/scissors, and his scissors beat my paper, so I'm going to Venice tonight.
So... uh... everyone have a happy Halloween. They don't have Halloween in Europe apparently, so I'll have to find some other Americans/Canadians and run out and scare Italians :)
Some pics...
Dachau Concentraition camp
The scenery in Bavaria
Us & car, lost in Austria
The 'Disney' castle
The streets of Prague
More of Prague
Yet More of Prague
Prague at night.
