Amsterdam in a Nutshell

Last week traveling =( . So sad, not going to think about it! Alright gotta back track a bit...Our last night in Paris we ventured back to the Eiffel Tower and turned out to be perfect timing - the sun was just setting so we got to see the views in daylight, sunset, and darkness. Very cool. The views were amazing and the tower all lit up was pretty sweet.

Afterwards we had our last meal in France and slept early as the next morning we took the 6am train to Amsterdam (thats what we get for not booking trains ahead AGAIN!). Amsterdam was absolutly a change from what we were used to! Everything was in English, everyone spoke English, and everything felt much more welcoming. The city is beautiful and clean and very relaxed. Unfortunatly, when we first got there a thunderstorm started (typical). We had reservations at a hostel and found it in the pouring rain...but when we got there it was a really young crowd and a huge 2 building hostel where one bunk bed was 30Euro so we decided we could find better. We set off in the rain again and were soon quite miserable, cold, and very very wet. And for a good while the only hotel we could find was the Tulip which, thank God, we had read abotu in the Lonely Planet beforehand so we didnt walk right in as its quite a strange hotel that caters to a specific set of gay men.....i wont get into details on what that specific set consists of but it freaked us out a lot!!!

Anyway eventually we found a place (another gay hostel we suspect, but thats Amsterdam i guess) and settled into the city nicely. Its just such an amazing place, totally on a different wave length then anywhere else in the world. Everything is so liberal, like 201312309 times more thasn Canada. Everywhere you go there are coffee shops which sell weed and where people smoke but also in resteraunts and other places there are people smoking weed like cigerettes! So strange to see. And they have so many gay oriented things. Even a monument for all the gay people killed in the second world war. They also have public urinals all over the city! And everybody rides bikes, EVERYBODY, which makes walking every difficult as you somehow always end up in a bike path and dont notice until someone is ringing their bell at you and muttering about the tourists. We loved it so much but knew we had to get on our way as we wanted to see Normandy, France before heading up to London. Well of course we once again waited to the last minute to book our trains....and everything was sold out. Sweet. So we pretty much got stuck in Amsterdam but it worked out beacuse Pat, who is in germany working at the moment, decided to join us for the weekend. We had soooo much fun and walked the entire city, including the Red Light District which was another crazy part about Amsterdam. Its such a strange, strange place. The hookers kind of look like zoo animals behind their windows, its so wierd. We also went on a non-profit boat trip around the canals and saw a lot of really cool things like the smallest house in the entire city (SO thin!) and the red light district during the day.

(beside the green awning is the small house)

Amsterdam was so awesome but we had to continue on. We spent some tiem in brussels which was pretty boring and then took a high speed train to London where Cam met us at the train station. Now we are staying at his 'flat' and so far its been so wonderful. Nice to feel like we are at home again! So many pictures already but I better go because Cam wants his computer back and Ive been on it forever.....

Amsterdamned

Cant post pictures right now because i managed to get the one computer with no connection uploading thingy. So I'll just give you a quick update. We're in Amsterdam right now and its so beautiful! Loving it here, total oppisite of Paris as its very slow paced, simple, quiet, and everyone is so nice! We meant to only stay 3 or 4 nights but our plans have been changed for us. Turns out trains from here to Paris (where we needed to go to catch another train to Normandy) are sold out for Eurail passholders and also a national French holiday makes travel, on the one day that wasnt sold out, impossible as no trains run on French holidays. Bahhh. So once again our inability to book trains any time sooner than a day before we leave has caused us some stress.
But oh well. So we wont be retuning to France but instead we will be going to Belgium! And from Brussels to London via Eurostar train which takes us right into the city which is actually quiet perfect!
Thats your quick boring update for today! Will try and do a proper post tomorrow.

Like the Backwards Episode of Seinfeld, Just Less Entertaining

okay this computer is very stupid so please read this post starting from the bottom and then go up *GO BACKWARDS*** thank you! everything is numbered for your enjoyment.


7. Today we did the Eiffel Tower and Arc du Triumph but once again its rainy and freezing cold so we did the Arc really quickly and vowed to go back to the eiffel tower later tonight when the line has died down. and we are gonna go right to the top! Im so excited! We leave Paris tomorrow morning (at the wee hour of 6am) to go to Amsterdam! So excited! Hopefully it will be warmer and sunnier there....6. Anyway, after partying with the Parkers we headed up to Montmartre and were further impressed with Paris. Wow such a beautiful area. very hilly with cobblestone streets and artists everywhere. We had another fantastic meal then went for a walk. in front of the Sacre Coure cathedral were tons of people sitting on the steps watching a silent film that was on a huge screen down below in the park. And there was even an a band playing music to the movie and everything, it was the coolest thing ever. We stayed for awhile and enjoyed it. Man i love Paris.

5. You see, even before we left for Europe we have been trying to come up with a plan to get into Tony Parker and Eva Longorias wedding because we knew wed be in Paris on the day theyd be here getting hitched. And it would have been perfect because i lilke famous people and Steve loves basketball (even tho im sure hed prefer a wedding for someone on the Pistons but whatever). We just barely missed their St. Tropez pre party and this inspired us to figure out a way to get an invite into their wedding. But we got lazy and gave up. And then as we are walking down the street minding our own buisness, we actually stumbled upon the event! It was crazy how many papparazi were there and how big their cameras and lenses were and how much security there was! It was absolutly crazy to witness.

4. After the Lourve we found another great resteraunt and had the greatest meal ever. So far the food in France has been the best by miles (excluding Italy of course). We went to bed immidiately after as we were sooooo tired from our Lourve day. Yesterday, we walked the entire city! We started with the Pantheon which was very cool as it has a pendulum in it and a huuuggggeee crypt with lots of interesting people buried there like Victor Hugo and Marie Curie. Next we went to the Nortre Dame Cathedral which was so huge and gothic but not our favourite place (way too many people, but i guess thats what happens when free admission). Then we decided to make the trip back to teh Lourve to pick up some gifts for Steves sister Sharon whos very into art and such and requested some items) and thats when we found it.....





3. Now we are in Paris and im loving it! Weve done all the touristy stuff and eaten so well and been EVERYWHERE!!!!! At first the metro system was impossible to understand and it was absolute hell to get to our hostel with our huge packs on, trying to figure it all out, getting frustrated, trying to understand whether a posted map was for the bus, train or metro, etc but now we are getting around soooo easily. Also, we finally encountered the rude french parisian thing, people here suck. But we sort of expect it so it hasnt been all that bad.Our first night we had a very nice French meal and then hung out at a pub in order to feel a bit more at home. The next day we hit the Louvre good and hard. We did almost 6 hours there! and it hurt! but we survived. Although i dont care for anything more about ancient egypt ever again. We thought it would be cool to start with egypt but after an hour of the same artifacts over and over again, we were starting to go crazy. Any any time we tried to go see something else, we always ended up back in ancient egypt! This got us to start saying things like "the Louvre sucks" and caused us to begin to refer to it as "the Loo" so we decided a break might be in order. And we were right, after a coffee outside away from the museum, we returned refreshed and began to enjoy it again. For the last few hours we were there we saw tons of cool Greek statues (although Steve often was frightened by them, thought they looked like they were staring at him and that they could come alive at any minute.....see now my fear of the dark doesnt seem quite so irrational DOES IT??) and then lots of Italian art. The art was the greatest part, especially this one painting that sits oppisite the Mona Lisa. Its absolutly huge, takes up the whole wall, and we eavesdropped on a tour guide explaining the picture so we got to find out so many little details about it. It was very DaVinci Codeish.

biarritz on a nice day (as we were leaving pretty much)



2. We left Bordeaux the next day and went to Biarritz and oh my god we loved it. Its a total surfing town and so of course, we had to try it out. And both of us are now convinced we should devote our lives to nothing other than surfing. It was so so so much fun and we spent almost the entire day surfing! for the first bit we had a lesson and then later on we rented boards. And as it got later and the tide higher, we really started to get thrown around by the waves. In the end we emerged so so sooooo sore with bruises all over us but wow i cant wait to do it again....whenever that might be....the waves on lake Ontario arent really condusive to surfing you see, but one day well get back out there.the only bad thing about our time there was teh weather. it was so cold and rainy! which seems to be the theme of our trip. Because of this we decided to check out another oceanarium in order to have some shelter for a few hours, it wasnt as good as Lisbons but they had seals which was cool! Then after we braved the rain to take some cool photos of the very angry ocean and scenery. It was soooo cold and we got completely soaked but it was totally worth it.


1. Wow weve done so much since the last post! The wine tasting tour in Bordeaux was pretty fun, we went to two different chateaus and tried 4 different kinds of wine. We were sorta bored for most of it as our tour guide was some old french lady with a boring voice but the second cheateua we went to was run by people who genuinely seemed excited abotu what they were doing. They were a pretty young family too and they took us out to the vineyards and really explained a lot of things like what different leaves look like for different types of grapes. and yes this is kind of boring info but you see now we at least have one piece of wine info to tell people and pretend we are really smart wine conneseurs.

Cette Un Tres Pictureful Post Ce Soir, Non?

The last keyboard i had to use was horrible so it took me soooo long to type out that small amount of stuff. There was really so much more that happened in Barcelona but it would have taken me so long to write about on that stupid crazy keyboard. But now we've figured out how to turn the keys into english keyboard style keys so this will be much, much better.

So Nice was amazing. We actually stayed at the greatest hostel of all time. It was pretty far from the city center but they really thought of everything like they would drive us to the closest bus stop all morning and when you were done you day, they would be either already there ready to pick you up or you just call a free number and they come get you. It was the easiest transportation in the world. And it was nice to because as you were waiting for their van to come get you we'd always meet others staying there and got to meet lots of people in that way. We got into a nice routine - wake up and move out (we had to switch rooms everyday, its a long story)m eat free breakfast in the huge dining hall, get a drive to the bus stop, take a bus to wherever, find a beach and do nothing all day!!! pretty nice life! at night we'd always go eat in the huge common area (cheap meals and such good food like beef burgundy) and then spend the rest of the night drinkin cheap wine and beer and hanging out with everyone in the hostel. It was really sad to leave cuz it was all just so easy and relaxing and CHEAP! Besides all of that, Nice is absolutly beautiful:

butttt alas we had to move on, things to see and places to go.

We took a loooooong 10hour train to Bordeaux where we are now and so far so good. We feel very French. For the past 5 days we've been saying random things in French and I've been pretending that I understand anything anyone says to me. Really though, we suck. Our french talk to each other is usually limited to the following few sayings (with strong french accent for emphasis, of course): "oui oui", "ces't ridiculous non", "ce soir", "ah zuit!", etc. We also put "tres" in front of mostly any adjective we use in a sentence and "non?" at the end of every sentence. So, you see, are French is nearing perfection and by the time we get home we should be fluent.

We will also be wine specialists too. Tomorrow we are going wine tasting!!!!! Way too excited about it! Hopefully we will pick up some wine-related french phrases to add to our extensive vocabulary.

Today we had a nice sleep in a room not filled with dorm beds for a change! Then explored the city lots. Its very medieval and old looking and so QUIET. Its like no city ive ever been in before. We've walked all over and also visited an old cathedral built in 1000! it was so cool and big! ANd inside it had that church smell (like incense and holy water or something) and huge paintings of jesus in various forms of pain and torture and candles and a massive organ - all so very ancient cathedralish. We also liked that it was free.

Now we are killing time because we are broke and its sorta rainy out and we dont have much to do today. Big, long day tomorrow though! Cant wait to see the chateaus, and the vineyards, and other French things and taste lots of yummy Bordeaux wine! Apparently wine that we get at home for 60$ is 2euros here so place your orders in with us via email and we'll see what we can do!

The end of Spain and Beginning of France

Sooo sorry for the long absence but weve either been on the road all day ornight or in hostels with fre internet but lots of people waitingso no time for blogging. Firstly i would like to thank uncle rob for bringing to my attention that adrien has a website....if a family member would kindly inform me of the address, that would be swell (why am i always the last to know everything???).

Lots hqs happened since last post. we took an overnight train from lisbon to madrid and ended up loving madrid. unfortunatly there was some sort of huge championship football thing in the city the next day and you know how europeans are with their football sooo we were left homeless. we called every hotel imaginable and searched the entire city but there wasnt a bed ANYWHERE! sooo instead of getting to enjoy madrid for two days we had to have a quick visit instead and then catch an overnight train for a way to have shelter for the night. if this was amazing race, madrid was our worst leg ever. buuuttt we did manage to get to the modern art museum where we got to see lots of dali and picasso and the GUERNICA which was so amazing. Steve, who had earlier liked the idea of going to an art museum in europe, could be overheard saying ^art is boring^ within ten minutes. in his defence tho, it was boring, except for the dalis and picassos.

anyway, Barcelona was incredible, i absolutly loved it. Its filled with crazy dr.suess looking buildings by the archetect Gaudi. we went to the park by him (which ive been to before with the fam) and the sagrida famillia (or something like that) which is his church that will take 200yrs in total to finish! so cool. the first time i went to Tam tam in montreal i was re,inded of this park and going back now i realize how amazing tams is; even with all the crazy archeticture it cant beat tam tams! we also visited the stadium that FC Barcelona plays at and hit up the beach. at night we ate the greatest paellia at 10pm nightly and took in some barcelona night life which was so much fun. altho i think im getting old, i couldnt make it to 6am like a true barcelonian, not even close.

so after 3 blissful days in barcelona we were off to Nice to start our france trip. But of course i wasnt that easy...a lovely train strike forced us to take a 14hour bus ride that cost us 50euros instead of a free 10hour comfy train ride. it sucked, lots, but after those bus rides in laos; i will never ever complain about an air conditioned normally seated bus!!!!

now we are staying at the greatest hotel ever in Nice with a huge dinning room / bar where we partied last night. its huge and aussie run and the greatest. Yesterday we took a short bus to Monaco and enjoyed the ritzy life and swam in the med, it was such a nice day. Monaco is so beautiful and so much fun! now we are off to the beaches of Nice nd more swimmi,g in the med!!! off to bordeaux tomorrow!