You win some, you Louvre some. Although I guess it says a lot about me that I’m losing to France… So we booked our hotel for Paris for three nights, but the night before we arrived I found out the so called hotel was not very close to Paris. It was about 30 km away. Needless to say this was bad news. After hours of researching I determined it wouldn’t be too bad since there was some kind of train that went along our hotel that was free with our Eurail pass. Yeah, I thought it would be easy…
After an hour train ride from Paris to our hotel on the outskirts of Longjumeau, address miscommunications, and another hour of walking around a French village, we arrived at our hotel. Hotel Premiere Class. This leads me to a mathematical equation I recently discovered: the actually quality of a hotel is inversely related to the amount of quality they advertise. For you long time readers, you might recall a little hotel in India named Hotel Perfect. This hotel also proves my theory.
To be fair, Hotel Premiere Class wasn’t ALL that bad. The room was very cramped, but the people there were extremely nice. It was just a shame about the location. Our first night in the city of love, Blaine and I decided to climb the Eiffel Tower (671 steps, and an elevator the rest of the way. Yes, I counted) and stayed up there until closing. Unfortunately, the train back to Longjumeau closed at midnight and we arrived at the station at 12:15. So a word of advice to everyone out there, if you’re staying at some odd place on the outskirts of where you want to be, make sure you check to see you have reliable transportation back. We ended up taking a metro as far south as we could, and then caught a 40 Euro cab ride back. Just to give you another idea of how hideously far away this place was, we had a map of Paris and the surrounding region, and Longjumeau was not even close to being on the map.
On our third night in the city of lights, we decided to provide ourselves with extra time to get back to Longjumeau. We got to the station around 11pm, only to find out that the railway company was having a strike that day, and no other trains were going to Longjumeau that day. Luckily, one employee was frantically working and told us about a bus we had to take. We didn’t get back to the hotel till 2am. Sorry, that’ll be my last complaint for a while.
I have to admit, Paris did have some beautiful things. The Eiffel tower is incredible at sunset, as is the Arch de Triumphe, the Louvre (the sculpture exhibit is INCREDIBLE), Notre Dame, St. Michael, the catacombs, and so many more historically-rich destinations. The only problem for Blaine and I was that we didn’t know practically anything about the history of anything…
I must say I was pretty impressed with the food and wine. Easily the best croissant I’ve ever had was from a grocery store in Longjumeau. It was so flaky, buttery, and light… and only 0.60 Euros each. On a few occasions Blaine and I purchased some cheese, a baguette, and a bottle of wine and went to eat it on some garden somewhere, such as the Luxembourg Palace. I can only imagine Paris is a much better place with somebody of the opposite gender.
Well, the day finally came to leave Paris. We were excited to get out of Longjumeau and move on to Zurich, Switzerland, where Blaine had a friend we were going to meet up with. After accidentally waking up 5 minutes before check out, we discovered on our hour train ride into the city that when we had booked our train tickets a few days earlier, the lady had actually booked us for that day, even though we repeated so many times that we weren’t leaving for a few days. Frantic, we went to the train station, hoping to find something that went to Zurich. Luckily we found something, but it arrived 20 minutes later than the other one (this would put our arrival into Zurich at 12:30am). This was pretty late to meet up with Blaine’s friend, especially since he lived a bit outside of Zurich, but he said he was in the city and didn’t mind. Well, our first train is about 20 minutes late, and we miss our connecting train in Geneva. We have to wait another hour for one to come in, and we arrive in Zurich after 2am. We told Kevin (Blaine’s friend) to not bother waiting for us because we didn’t want to be a hassle. With no place to sleep, we arrive in Zurich at 2am…
More to come!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
AmsterDamn it's good, and Brussels has sprouted some good things.
Well, I’m still alive.
This trip has been a bit of a rollercoaster so far, and it’s not slowing down. First off, we arrived at the airport in DC. Things were going alright, and we had everything planned out. We had registered for eight international flights on standby, and we were going to run from gate to gate to see if we could catch one of them. At our second gate, which was boarding to Munich, the gate lady called our names to the front. As soon as we walk up to the little desk she starts yelling at us. And I mean yelling. Apparently you aren’t allowed to register for multiple international flights on standby. Not only is it a breach of company policy, but it’s a breach of national security. We apologized to her, but this lady continued to be rude. Very, very rude. Her name was Dorris. We do not like Dorris.
After breaching national security we had to take the standby thing one flight at a time. This was especially frustrating because about 90% of all the flights to Europe take off around 5:30. Needless to say, we missed every flight that first night and had to set up camp in the airport. While there we met a bloke from London named Russ who was in a similar, albeit much worse situation. You see, Russ had flown down to San Francisco on standby to go to a job interview. He had been trying to get back to London for about a week now, making his way west ever so slowly. By being so late in getting home he had lost his job and was on the verge of losing his girlfriend. Yup, he’d been living in airports for a week. In spite of everything he went through, he still had such a positive attitude. When Blaine and I finally caught our first flight out of DC after 28 hours of being in the airport, we wished Russ good luck and headed in business class to Amsterdam.
For some reason I had always imagined flights to Europe taking a long time. I just thought it seemed logical. Well, seven and a half hours is an awkward time for an eastbound flight, because as soon as you have dinner, you sleep for maybe 3 hours and they serve you breakfast. Kind of messes with your body clock. When we arrived to Amsterdam we were very sleep deprived with no place to stay, and it was 7 in the morning.
Things eventually work out. They just do. We found a place to sleep and explored Amsterdam for a while, trying to stay awake until the night in an effort to fix our body clocks. It was tough to stay awake, but the fact that the Netherlands were playing in the world cup that day helped. The streets were packed, and we literally could not find a bar/pub with a place to sit. We also meandered over to the Van Gogh museum that day. I found that there were some similarities between us. He was 26 and unemployed when he decided to quit everything and become an artist. I’m unemployed and I don’t know what I want to do. Although I hope that’s where the similarities end because he also committed himself to a mental institution and shot himself.
Amsterdam is beautiful. Everywhere you go there is some kind of canal with boats peacefully floating by. We decided to get a little cultural experience one day, and went to the Heineken Brewery (which I highly recommend). For the record, I am now a beer pouring hero.
Today we checked out of our hostel and hopped on a train to Brussels. We are only here for one day, so we tried to make the most of it with three priorities: chocolate, waffles, and beer. Coincidentally, I happened to have chocolate with all of these. I need to say right now that the beers here are the best in the world. I know that probably doesn’t come as a big shock, but OH my GOODNESS. I tried a Belgian White, a passion fruit beer, strawberry beer, coconut beer, honey beer, chocolate beer, apple beer, mixed fruit beer, Duff beer (D’oh!), other local beers, and an extra strong beer (10.5% alc.). I had just about all of these in a pub called Delirium, which boasts a record 2004 beers available, including their own Delirium brew “elected best beer in the world”. Belgium hasn’t been a bad place.
For those of you who know me, I like food. For those that don’t know me, I still like food. Needless to say, food is a huge part of any of my travels. I always want to try the next, weird thing. Well, so far Amsterdam proved pretty weird in that regard. I went to some kind of fast food restaurant that was literally a giant vending machine. You insert some coins into a slot on the wall and open a little drawer to pick out your food. Kind of reminded me of the vending machine restaurants in Japan. I chose to eat a burger, just to be safe, and a beef croquette. Don’t ever have the beef croquette. You know cheese sticks? Well, imagine a cheese stick, but replace the cheese with gravy and you’ll have an idea of how it tastes. Again, don’t ever have the beef croquette. This meal was later followed by our breakfast this morning of some mystery item Blaine and I bought at the bakery in the train station. I quickly dubbed these pastries “blandcakes”.
I’m not going to tell you how delicious the Belgian chocolate or waffles are (but trust me, they are de-licious), but I am going to tell you when you go to Brussels you should have the mussels. They taste so good, like they really should. They are served with fries, I tell you no lies. I’m going to stop rhyming and just finish by letting you know we are on our way to Paris tomorrow. We’re staying there for three days and heading down to Switzerland, then Rome. After that we haven’t planned anything concrete. We might try to make it to the Greek isles, or just head up to Prague and Germany. We’ll see how we feel when the time comes, and most importantly see how our wallets feel.
Oh, and I’ll upload pictures as soon as I can. I lost my little SD card converter, so I have no means to upload pictures. I’ll make it happen soon though.
This trip has been a bit of a rollercoaster so far, and it’s not slowing down. First off, we arrived at the airport in DC. Things were going alright, and we had everything planned out. We had registered for eight international flights on standby, and we were going to run from gate to gate to see if we could catch one of them. At our second gate, which was boarding to Munich, the gate lady called our names to the front. As soon as we walk up to the little desk she starts yelling at us. And I mean yelling. Apparently you aren’t allowed to register for multiple international flights on standby. Not only is it a breach of company policy, but it’s a breach of national security. We apologized to her, but this lady continued to be rude. Very, very rude. Her name was Dorris. We do not like Dorris.
After breaching national security we had to take the standby thing one flight at a time. This was especially frustrating because about 90% of all the flights to Europe take off around 5:30. Needless to say, we missed every flight that first night and had to set up camp in the airport. While there we met a bloke from London named Russ who was in a similar, albeit much worse situation. You see, Russ had flown down to San Francisco on standby to go to a job interview. He had been trying to get back to London for about a week now, making his way west ever so slowly. By being so late in getting home he had lost his job and was on the verge of losing his girlfriend. Yup, he’d been living in airports for a week. In spite of everything he went through, he still had such a positive attitude. When Blaine and I finally caught our first flight out of DC after 28 hours of being in the airport, we wished Russ good luck and headed in business class to Amsterdam.
For some reason I had always imagined flights to Europe taking a long time. I just thought it seemed logical. Well, seven and a half hours is an awkward time for an eastbound flight, because as soon as you have dinner, you sleep for maybe 3 hours and they serve you breakfast. Kind of messes with your body clock. When we arrived to Amsterdam we were very sleep deprived with no place to stay, and it was 7 in the morning.
Things eventually work out. They just do. We found a place to sleep and explored Amsterdam for a while, trying to stay awake until the night in an effort to fix our body clocks. It was tough to stay awake, but the fact that the Netherlands were playing in the world cup that day helped. The streets were packed, and we literally could not find a bar/pub with a place to sit. We also meandered over to the Van Gogh museum that day. I found that there were some similarities between us. He was 26 and unemployed when he decided to quit everything and become an artist. I’m unemployed and I don’t know what I want to do. Although I hope that’s where the similarities end because he also committed himself to a mental institution and shot himself.
Amsterdam is beautiful. Everywhere you go there is some kind of canal with boats peacefully floating by. We decided to get a little cultural experience one day, and went to the Heineken Brewery (which I highly recommend). For the record, I am now a beer pouring hero.
Today we checked out of our hostel and hopped on a train to Brussels. We are only here for one day, so we tried to make the most of it with three priorities: chocolate, waffles, and beer. Coincidentally, I happened to have chocolate with all of these. I need to say right now that the beers here are the best in the world. I know that probably doesn’t come as a big shock, but OH my GOODNESS. I tried a Belgian White, a passion fruit beer, strawberry beer, coconut beer, honey beer, chocolate beer, apple beer, mixed fruit beer, Duff beer (D’oh!), other local beers, and an extra strong beer (10.5% alc.). I had just about all of these in a pub called Delirium, which boasts a record 2004 beers available, including their own Delirium brew “elected best beer in the world”. Belgium hasn’t been a bad place.
For those of you who know me, I like food. For those that don’t know me, I still like food. Needless to say, food is a huge part of any of my travels. I always want to try the next, weird thing. Well, so far Amsterdam proved pretty weird in that regard. I went to some kind of fast food restaurant that was literally a giant vending machine. You insert some coins into a slot on the wall and open a little drawer to pick out your food. Kind of reminded me of the vending machine restaurants in Japan. I chose to eat a burger, just to be safe, and a beef croquette. Don’t ever have the beef croquette. You know cheese sticks? Well, imagine a cheese stick, but replace the cheese with gravy and you’ll have an idea of how it tastes. Again, don’t ever have the beef croquette. This meal was later followed by our breakfast this morning of some mystery item Blaine and I bought at the bakery in the train station. I quickly dubbed these pastries “blandcakes”.
I’m not going to tell you how delicious the Belgian chocolate or waffles are (but trust me, they are de-licious), but I am going to tell you when you go to Brussels you should have the mussels. They taste so good, like they really should. They are served with fries, I tell you no lies. I’m going to stop rhyming and just finish by letting you know we are on our way to Paris tomorrow. We’re staying there for three days and heading down to Switzerland, then Rome. After that we haven’t planned anything concrete. We might try to make it to the Greek isles, or just head up to Prague and Germany. We’ll see how we feel when the time comes, and most importantly see how our wallets feel.
Oh, and I’ll upload pictures as soon as I can. I lost my little SD card converter, so I have no means to upload pictures. I’ll make it happen soon though.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Who's up? Europe!
I’m sitting in the lobby of a Holiday Inn in Leesburg (the boring capital of the world) watching the world cup and waiting for a shuttle to the airport. My next adventure? Backpacking through Europe with my high school buddy, Blaine Pellicore. His dad is a pilot so we can score free standby tickets. Sounds like a good gig, but the only catch is that there are 8 different cities we could be flying in to. All we have is a Eurail pass and no plans. The going? Tough. The journey? Indescribable. The blog? Slightly entertaining at best.
Might as well do a little update right now while I can. I’ve been in DC for the past few days as kind of a layover waiting for our standby flights today. Well, that’s a little misleading actually. I’m not in DC, I’m in a little place called Leesburg, Virginia. There is nothing to do here. I’m serious. The Holiday Inn is right next to a freeway, and there aren’t even any sidewalks leading off the premise. I needed to eat, so I had to hike through some bushes and get lost in a suburb before I wound up at a grocery store which is literally on the other side of the highway. It took me about an hour to get to, but you can see it from the entryway to the hotel. Frustrating…
I’ve met a few people here in “DC” too. Blaine and I have utilized the shuttle service here quite a bit (get free rides to the airport (which is a $47 cab ride, which was my “welcome to DC” (not sure if I can do parentheses in parentheses like this))). On our first night we were going to try and get into the city, but there was another guy in the shuttle kind of doing the same thing, only he was being dropped off at a local restaurant for free. Not bad. His name was Paul and we ended up joining him for dinner and a few beers. He worked with a company based in Orange California of all places called “Marcell” or something like that. Small world.
Yesterday I took the long trek into the city. Shuttle to the airport, bus to outskirts of DC, subway to the heart of the city. Took me about 2 hours. Thank you Leesburg. I met this guy on the way named Elvin (but his friends call him “T”). He was there for a business conference and was looking to kill a few hours sightseeing. Coincidentally I was too, and we ended up spending a few hours together. I think he was in his 40s, born in Brazil but had lived in Louisiana most of his life. Interesting guy who seemed to know a bit about DC. Later on I met up with a friend from Chapman who was doing an internship here, Lindsey Clopp!
I’m still in the lobby, waiting for this shuttle. If we don’t catch any of these 8 flights, I’m not sure where we’ll be sleeping tonight… Even if we do catch any of these flights, I’m still not sure where or even if I’ll be sleeping tonight. The whole journey lies ahead, and right now, anything could happen.
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