La Vie Parisienne

I'm sitting here in the dead of summer in a house that is now roughly the same temperature as the surface of the sun, and thinking about all the myriad things I need to be doing.  Things like cleaning my ridiculously messy bedroom, planning for my new apartment, or, you know, working on that novel I wrote.  So naturally I made a peach cobbler and am now eating it.  I think that I deserve credit for turning off the television for the first time this summer.

Well, I also need to be writing a blog, so I guess I am being somewhat productive.

We left off as I was departing for Paris.  The bus left Victoria Coach at eleven o'clock pm, and I won't pretend that I didn't push people out of my way to be sure I got a window seat, but for an eight hour ride, it was for everyone's benefit.  Here's a little photo blog:

Walking from the hostel to Victoria Coach

Here's a fun little story.  I decided to take the overnight bus because I would kill two birds with one stone: the trip would double as hostel for the night and transportation.  My bus left London at 11:10pm and arrived Paris at 9:30ish.  I'd spoken to a few people and everyone agreed that this was a fairly good idea.  What no one (Okay, my roommate thought about it and I chose to ignore it because it was too late at that point) thought about was that I'd have to get off the bus at least once for the ferry.  It turned out we needed to get off when we arrived in Dover for passport control.  Then we got back on the bus and the driver told us half an hour.  A few people got off and went to the mall for something to eat and to use the bathroom (pictured below).  I turned on an episode of Downton Abbey figuring it wasn't worth it to go back to sleep if I'd be awoken in half an hour to get on the ferry.

Halfway through my second episode I realized we weren't boarding anytime soon and I was wasting valuable sleeping time.  So I closed my computer and put my head down.  Thirty seconds later the driver turned on the bus and we drove onto the ferry.  Such is life.

Port of Dover

I'd been texting Maureen for a bit but my phone was dying, so finding a plug was sort of a big deal, especially since I'd only be able to use it for a few more minutes and it was reading at about 1%.  Worse, it only had six pounds top up on it, so I'd barely be able to use it in Paris, but I knew I'd need it to get to my hostel.

Omg I got an outlet for my phone of the ferry and it was British!

Once I was plugged in I (tried) to cuddle up and get some sleep.

My corner on the ferry

Last view of Britain- the Port of Dover

It actually worked.  I slept the whole way and woke up when the intercom announced we were entering the Port of Calais (Le Port de Calais).

First view of France- Calais

So I got my things and slumped downstairs after everyone else to get back on the bus.  I didn't waste any time and put my head down before we'd even exited the ferry.  Then I blinked and we were being ushered through customs, which really seemed like it was just passport control again, maybe to make sure we hadn't snuck on during the journey or something.  Then back onto the bus, and I really did sleep.  I blinked again, and we were arriving in Paris.

We all hauled our bags off the bus and I found a place to sit and reorganize, at which point I noticed the small pocket on my bag was open and empty.  I knew my book light had been in there, as well as... something... possibly important... 

I checked the cargo hold on the bus but there was nothing to be seen.  It was officially my first theft of the journey: a book light.  I checked everything else, but it was all in good order, nothing missing at all.  Just a book light.  What the actual hell?

First theft of the journey- A book light and a us/uk power converter worth $0.60 

I later had a panic attack that it had been my hogwarts wax seal, but upon returning to Wales found it safely on my bedside table where I'd forgotten to pack it.  So I'm fairly certain it was just a power converter.  Either way, at the time I was annoyed and confused as to why someone would steal it.  But again, such is life, and I knew even then that it wasn't worth crying over.  So I put on my bag and tried to figure out where to go.  I wasn't even positive I was in the right place until after I'd dug through my bag for a few euros and used the bathroom (30 cents) and found the metro station.  

Now, Metro stations are the same as any other underground station.  You buy a ticket, scan it or swipe it or feed it or whatever the particular station wants, board, deboard, go on with life.  The problem was, even the English machine made NO sense.  I wanted to buy a ticket, so I clicked the ticket button, but nothing happened.  So I decided to go for region, and entered a big station near my destination- Gare du Nord.  Nothing.  According to the machine, Gare du Nord didn't exist.  It was early, and also late, for the station to be particularly busy, so I had to wait a bit for someone to come through.  I finally had to ask a man to help me, and I figured he'd show me the button to push to get a ticket, but instead he walked me through purchasing a ticket, picked out the correct change from my ziplock bag for me, and fed the machine (no, he didn't steal any money), then he showed me which train to take and which direction, and rode with me.  He spoke very little English, but more English than I spoke French, so we swapped languages around as much as we needed to in order to understand each other (a little).  It turned out he was going to Gare de L'est, which is quite close to Gare du Nord, so he rode the few extra stops with me and showed me where to get out.  He also taught me the most important word I was to learn- Sortie- which means "exit."  I snapped this photo of us before he went back to catch the train that would take him to where ever he was going.    His name was Abdel.  Nice guy, actually.  

First friend!

I knew that Gare du Nord was probably one stop too soon, but nice as Abdel was, I wasn't keen on walking him to the door of my hostel.  I figured if he followed me I could go into the train station and lose him.  But of course, he didn't follow me.  So I was free to wander and find my hostel.  I was able to log onto the internet long enough to get a few maps which I saved as photos on my phone and find my way to my hostel.  I did get lost a few times, but it wasn't bad and I found an ATM on the way to pull out around two hundred Euros.

I stayed at a place called Perfect Hostel in the Montmartre district, which ended up being about six blocks away from Sacre Coeur.  Once I'd found it I was able to check the majority of my bags and head out into the city.  The woman behind the counter, who was helpful enough if a little curt, directed me to a patisserie around the corner to could get some breakfast.  Naturally, I got a croissant.

First French food!

And here we have disappointment number one.  I had somehow, foolishly perhaps, expected this to taste ten times better than any croissant I had ever had before.  I expected angels to sing and the heavens to part.  I expected, at least, that it would taste difference.  

Don't get me wrong, it was good.  It wasn't a cafeteria croissant.  It wasn't packaged or from a tube.  But it was just a croissant. It was no better than anything I'd had from any real proper bakery at all, although perhaps a little crispier, and by extension messier to eat.  Good, but ultimately it was a croissant.

My first stop of the day after this was a coffee, where I seriously embarrassed myself with my appalling French.  After that, I had plans for a particular iconic fixture.  

Any guesses?

That's right:

The Eiffel Tower.  

I arrived, exhausted, thinking I'd just look.  But then somehow I ended up in line buying a ticket.  Of course, it wasn't instantaneous.  I waited for some two hours before I was at the booth.  But eventually I was going up, up, up, up the elevator.

I made friends here, too.  They were British, from the North, I can't remember exactly where, and living in Cambridge.  We'll call them Lucy and Rick, (mostly because I still can't remember his name...).  They were great.  We met in line after buying tickets and ended up going all the way up and back down together.  He had been before, but she hadn't (if I remember correctly).  We had fun pointing out Sacre Coeur in the distance and finding different landmarks.  This is them: 

After the Eiffel tower I made my way back to my hostel where I unpacked, met my dorm mate, and started thinking about dinner.  Of course, my guide book ended up being utterly useless, so I had no idea how to eat at a cafe.  That might sound strange, but it is completely true.  I walked into several and stood awkwardly waiting for assistance, before running away in fear of insulting someone.  No one warned me that you just sit and they'll help you.  I wandered first only a few blocks from the hostel, then a few more, and then suddenly I was on the steps of Sacre Coeur, and directly in front of it was a cafe where one of the server spoke nearly perfect English.  He explained how to behave at a cafe, that you should sit and they'd come serve you, and then that I could stay as long as I wanted.  He flirted with me quite a bit and called me enchantingly beautiful, which was all well and good until he turned around and was horrifically racist to a Japanese-American couple to the point where I paid and left immediately.  No thanks.  But still, this was my view:

I had French onion soup and a nutella crepe I couldn't finish.  

The next day it seemed only natural that my first stop should be Sacre Coeur itself.  I have about two hundred photos of the place itself, but none of the inside, which was, I won't lie, spectacularly beautiful.  I can't explain it, really, but it felt so deeply sacred.  Unlike London, where old churches are just giant tourist attractions, Sacre Coeur has roped off the middle portion of the church for those who come to pray and enforce strict, near-silence.  

It was, however, my first real brush with pickpocketers.  They lurked in hordes on each of the landings on the massive steps holding some weird string things which they used to do tricks or make bracelets.  Then while they were entertaining unsuspecting tourists, their friends would come up from behind and walk away with watches, wallets, and passports.  I have to wonder how they got away with it, though, because at least these ones were incredibly obvious.  I'd have ignored them a bit more if it weren't for the fact that when I tried to get past them, one guy reached out and grabbed my wrist to encourage me to stay and I had to jerk away from him.

Anyway, I knew my next stop already.  It seemed obvious after Sacre Coeur, so I caught a train to Île de la Cité and Notre Dame. 

While wandering, the first thing I found was a bridge covered in these locks.  

It's a Paris thing, or at least it started in Paris, this fad of putting a lock on bridge with the person you love and tossing the keys in.  Cute.  I'm mostly only posting this because I like the picture.  This isn't even the actual Love Bridge.  I'll get to that in my next post.

Anyway, just behind the bridge was this beauty:

Again, I am faced with the problem of describing it.  All that I will say is that where Westminster fell short, Notre Dame went above and beyond.  It felt massive and cavernous and sacred.  It was beautiful and still and moving.  That's all I'll say for now.

On my way home I stopped at Pont Neuf for a photo op.

I think I had a sandwich for dinner before I wandered the souvenir shops on the street leading to Sacre Coeur and bought my second round of French macarons and chocolate from a shop called "La Petite Musee du Chocolate" (no idea if that's spelled right).  Pretty sure raspberry was my favorite.  Or rose.  

Tomorrow: my walking tour of Paris, the Arc de Triomphe, a Paris Photo Shoot, Versailles, The Louvre, and the runnaway paper doll.  (And by tomorrow I mean whenever I post the next blog).  Until then, my fearless followers, au revoir!  

Better late than never

Well so much for posting within a week or so.  That obviously didn't happen.  Unfortunately, as soon as I arrived back in California I got a terrible cold and was incapacitated for a whole two days which somewhat set the tone for the next two weeks or so.  I suppose more like three weeks now...

Anyway, I'm home, safe and sound, and will do as I previously intended and post several blogs relating to my European adventure and follow it with the final post about returning back to california and settling in.

Well, as promised, here is London:

I arrived in London early in the day on the thirtieth as planned.  I had with me one huge backpack weighing in at about 10k, a stuffed animal, a barely functioning computer, and a camera, ready to see everything in London that I hadn't gotten to see before.  I'd love to direct you at this point to my flickr page filled with photos of my whole trip, but unfortunately, Flickr has decided to suck, and I therefore can no longer access it.

Anyway, I stayed at Astor's Victoria Hostel just a few blocks down from the Victoria Coach Station.  It was a lovely hostel, or as lovely as one can expect from a hostel.  The beds were made of a very squeaky red metal and the luggage storage consisted of wire mesh cages under the bed upon which we could place a lock to secure our belongings.  I was only able to access the internet in the lobby, but that wasn't too bad.  I did try to skype once or twice in the kitchen area, but it was no good, mostly because of noise from the rest of the guests watching tele and talking or, on one night, getting quite drunk together.


My first day I went first to Kings Cross to take a photo with the iconic trolly, only to then learn that they charge somewhere in the realm of ten pounds for the photo, so I decided that I was happy getting a photo outside of the platform and spending a considerable amount less on a silly souvenir.

Here I am, looking like an exhausted dork:

Backpackers never wear makeup, didn't you know that?

So I left the station and found a Pret A Manger where I could have lunch with a view of St. Pancras.  From there I went to the British Museum, where I saw the Rosetta Stone:

Not my view from the cafe, this is much pretier.

British Museum!

Rosetta Stone

Although there was a lot to see and a lot to take in, I find that I have very little to actually enumerate.  I wandered and I observed and took an obscene amount of photos, all of which will be up on Photobucket as soon as I get my act together.  It was, like the Stonehenge experience, quite remarkable and not very easily put into words.

After that I went back and tracked down some dinner before heading to a ghost walk.  

Old school gaslight.  Probably the best part of the tour.  There are around two hundred of them scattered around the regions near Trafalgar square.

Now, I would like very much to tell you that, like the Jack the Ripper walk I took at Christmas time, the Ghost Walk was a little spooky and a lot of fun, but unfortunately, this guide really didn't hold a candle to the last guide.  He didn't seem interested in giving the spooky tour advertised on their website, but made it quite silly.  Maybe because there was a seven year old in the group (okay, who brings a child on a tour that is advertised to cause nightmares for weeks? I mean seriously, check your parenting handbook, I'm pretty sure that's in the "don't" section), but here I was expecting a slightly spooky, sort of eerie tour, and what I got was a few uncomfortable giggles, mostly silence, and a slightly judgmental guide.  Lame.  I was looking forward to being spooked for weeks!  I'm a masochist like that.

The tour wasn't that bad, just a bit disappointing.  I did get to snap this lovely photo while we were wandering through St. James Park, however:

Well, after that I went back to my hostel but decided to stop on the way for a glass of wine at the pub round the corner.  It was an incredible wine, and the bartender flirted with me for a bit and I wrote a beautiful letter to Molly which is still in it's envelope on my desk, and damn, I really need to send that.

Am I rambling yet?

Well, I think I was then, because I hadn't considered that, since I'd been up at five to catch my bus and barely slept during the ride, I was exhausted and probably a bit dehydrated because that wine went straight to my head.  So I stumbled back to my hostel on my first night a little bit drunk and feeling very nostalgic and pretentious.  As J.K. Rowling would say, "not very rock'n'roll."

Day two I awoke bright and early for a hosteler's meager aproximation of breakfast and went out into the world for my second walking tour.  The day's main attraction?  Westminster Abbey.

I am faced again with the challenge of explaining why I did not hate my tour, but why it pretty much sucked.  These are the memories that stay, of course, no matter how badly I try to replace them with the good memories, picking out souvenirs and snapping secret photos of various people's tombs (That's not weird, is it?)  Well, the walking tour got us in with group rates and between that and the cost of the tour itself I was saving about five quid, and that seemed a reasonable goal, so I went for it.  The tour was fine in itself, although they led us through quite quickly and there wasn't a lot of stopping and wandering to be done.  We followed the woman with the umbrella who told us the moment we were receiving our id badges (which were actually just little white stickers we put on our shoulders), that photography inside was strictly forbidden once we were inside the actual church.  So naturally I got in trouble while still outside for taking a photo.  Color me confused.

Westminster is lovley, though I won't go into too much detail, mostly because my memory is fading, but also because you can read that in any travel magazine.  I want to tell you what I remember: it was crowded.

Not with people, though there were TONS of people.  It was beginning to feel much more like a tourist attraction that an actual working church.  No, I mean it was crowded because there were tombs and relics and just things everywhere.  Everything was so busy.  And it was small.  I know you're probably confused when I say that.  You're probably thinking "Westminster Abbey is HUGE!" but alas, it is not.  If you've ever been to a cathedral at all you've probably been in something roughly the same size as Westminster, at least when it comes to the central cross.  That might have to do with it being so busy, but it really didn't have that cavernous awesome feeling that I expected.  It also lacked the hallowed feeling of Tintern Abbey.  That, again, goes back to the tourist attraction.  It was just... empty.

There's the main cross of the church, then a small back room area that I can't entirely remember the purpose of except that there were chairs with names on them, and there was an area off to the side where all of the tombs and memorials were.  I almost forget now who all was there, because I wasn't allowed the to take photos, but also because this was the section that were ushered through the fastest, and where we wanted to linger the longest.  After that we were taken back into the hallway outside and the guide explained that the tour was over, the bookshop that way, and have a lovely day.  A few of us wanted to go back and finish looking, but we were informed that was all there was to it.  Great, we pay for the tour and then learn that that is literally all we get, the tour, and that's it.  Oh well.  Such is life.

At this point it was about two in the afternoon.  I was exhausted and my feet were killing me.  A quick lunch and I was back at my dorm for a nap before going out again.  This was one of my lazier days, as my feet adjusted to near constant walking.  So I stayed at the dorm until around five when I dragged myself up to find dinner and then went in search of my final walking tour, this time with low expectations.  The only thing is, walking tours could be set aside during the day when I could wander around and explore myself.  In fact, I set aside a Sherlock Holmes tour knowing that it would probably disappoint, my feet were killing me, and I was starving.  But the thing about traveling alone as a woman is that I don't feel comfortable wandering alone at night.  So, either I was to resign myself to a glass of the same wine at the same pub every night of my stay, or I was to do walking tours.  So I did walking tours.

This was a pub walk, and as it happened, it was held by a woman who was the daughter of the man who runs London Walks.  So naturally it was about eighty million times better than the previous two tours.  Plus, alcohol.

We started in London proper, then crossed into Southwalk (say "Suth-uck"), where we learned about the Blackfriars and many other things forgotten in beer fog later on.  I had a fun moment where I explained why a man had exited the Globe theatre in full regalia, blew on a trumpet six times, and then ran back in.  I got a round of applause, it's cool, I'm kind of a big deal.  Then we stopped at a pub on the Thames where I had a reverse hobbit moment and got extremely excited that "it comes in half-pints", and then promptly realized that I needed to pee.  After we'd left the pub.  Oh to be me.

We stopped at two more pubs.  I spoke to several other walkers, made friends with four of them and enemies of one woman who, upon hearing that I was studying in Swansea furrowed her brow and said, in the way of one trying to ask a difficult question without appearing to be a racist old hag, "There are a lot of foreigners around there, aren't there?" When I looked seriously back at her and gave a thinly veiled, "Obviously" (What I actually said was, "well, it would be hard for me to tell, since I basically only hang out with the international crowd"), she clarified that I wasn't to worry, she was referring specifically to Syrians.  "There are quite a few Syrians in Swansea, aren't there?"  I, who hadn't met a single Syrian in Swansea, and even if I had wouldn't have informed her, announced that I'd seen a friend heading downstairs and hurried off only to learn that downstairs was the men's restroom.

Day three I spent mostly at the Tower of London.  I went first thing in the morning, collected my ticket and my audio tour, and then made a bee line for the crown jewels, which I'd heard was the way to do it.  I got in fairly quickly, and they were fascinating, but I think it's one of those things that I'll never be interested in.  I don't really care what Kate Middleton wore or when, and I don't care what jewels belong to whom.  I'm not a diamond person, I never will be.

Anyway, after I was back outside and allowed to take photos again, I found a good spot for my audio tour to begin and gave it a go.  I had thought of doing a tour with a yeoman of the guard, which is what most people do, but I'd read online that it was more trouble than it was worth, and this was pretty much true.

There were at least one hundred people clamouring to get in on this tour... thanks but no thanks.

He looked pretty cool though...

Then I parked it outside, listened to my audio tour, and began the day.  There's quite a bit to see, and I won't pretend that I saw it all.  The bloody tower was by far the most interesting and heart wrenching, where two young boys went in but never came out.  I had an ice cream on the same square where Anne Boleyn met her grisly fate, and watched as the line for the crown jewels stretched to Disneyland proportions.

This was before the crowd, after, the line was forming beyond the metal bars...

Tower bridge!

This is the main castly bit in the middle.

Guardsman station.

After the Tower I spent quite a bit of money on souvenirs and lunch and ate outside watching a man play the bagpipes.  He was quite good, actually.  The rest of the day was really just wandering around and getting my things together and searching for a Paddington Bear that I would't have to sell my firstborn child to buy (turns out this doesn't exist).  I did go to the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, but by then I had had it to there with museums and spent the majority of my time downstairs in the cafe journaling, and I haven't much to say about them.  National Gallery: "They had amazing artwork that I saw and then I left."  And the Portrait Gallery, "they had portraits that I stared at confusedly and then left."  That's all there's to say there.  

Well, hopefully I can get Paris written before I die, but that's all there is for now!  Hopefully it wasn't too spastic.

T-3hrs: On Being Behind

Whooooooa, I haven't written a blog in forever...  And I have so much to write about!

Unfortunately, since arriving back from my trip, I've been focusing on getting ready for the Great Trip Home, which begins in just about 3hrs.  I'm on a bus from Swansea to London, flights from London to Keflavik, KEF to Seatac, Seatac to Sacramento, and then I'm home!  Only a brief 31hrs of travel including the bus, but not transport to bus or from airport.  It's going to be gobs of fun, I can tell.

I do have many many things to report, as I'm sure you know, so I'm going to try to get writing on this ridiculous adventure and queue up a few posts that'll go up once I'm near working internet again.  They will obviously go up long after they're written, so just check back about once a week (but first, check back this Friday!), and you'll be teased with little bits of my journey at a time.  London first, then Paris, then Germany.  And lastly, there will be a post about my trip home.  But don't worry!  That won't be the end of my blog!  I'll come back to tell you what its like being back in the US, what reverse culture shock feels like, and how much weight I've gained from eating nothing but white cheddar cheez-its and peanut butter (not together...).

Until then, my fearless followers, I salute you.

Wish me luck on my flight!

On Easter Candy *Updated

So, I'll admit it's been a long time since I've had an Easter basket.  I honestly can't even remember what I did for the last two easters.  I assume I was home or in Chico, or somewhere... yeah, I honestly don't know.  Which is weird, since I normally have an elephants memory for things.  

Anyway, being so far away from home and seriously SURROUNDED by easter candy here (sorry, "sweets"), I decided to treat myself to a little easter basket of my own.  

THUS, this thing of beauty I created.

 Okay, so I didn't have an actual basket, but to be honest, baskets aren't as much of a thing here anyway, so we can pretend I was being culturally accurate.  What ARE big here, you ask?  Well, for those of you who know I'm a Harry Potter fan, and who are Harry Potter fans yourselves, you may remember a twice in the books it mentions easter eggs.  First, in the fourth book, Goblet of Fire, they each get their eggs from Mrs. Weasley and tear into them.  Hermione, however, gets an itty bitty one because Mrs. Weasley thinks Hermione is playing with Harry's heart.  This always confused me when I was younger because all our eggs are relatively small.  I understood though, that Harry's and Ron's were quite large, at least the size of an ostrich egg.  I can't remember now if that's because JKR described the size, or if I just intuitively understood (I vaguely recall Hermione's egg being compared to a chicken's egg, that might be it?).

Anyway, I've been seeing these "eggs" everywhere, but I didn't buy them because they were expensive and seemed excessive.  I finally decided, however, on Saturday night to go for it.  All they had left were Smarties eggs, which were £1.50, so I wasn't TOO disappointed.    I also got the other things in the photo, a Kinder Surprise Egg (crazy about them), and one each of a cadbury's creme egg and caramel egg.

Let's start with the big egg.  It came in a box, like this (for size comparison, see my hand):

Opened it up to see this:

Hoooooly moly, this thing is huge.  And, as suspected, is rattling and filled with some other goody (Smarties, of course).  So I needed to get into it somehow...

Hey, what's that? Smarties, you say?

Well, I don't know what I'd expected, a big huge handful?  Well, I did pay less than two quid for this so, oh well.  I got other things!

Mini eggs!  Aggie, my roommate's girlfriend said they were good, and they cost about 60p, so I figured why not, right?  I thought they'd be like Robbin's Eggs.  You know, the ones that are pretending to be jordan almonds but are actually malted milk balls? (gag)

So tiny!

Ohmygosh so much better than Robbin's Eggs!  Probably my new favourite easter treat.  I fully endorse this product and think we should begin immediate exports to the states.  I have since gone back and bought FOUR more boxes once they were on sale for 30p each.  Yuusss.  Today I went back, and they were almost entirely sold out.  Three boxes left in total.  I guess that goes to show how popular they are.  Meanwhile, there were still pleeeeenty of Malteasters, which ARE malted milk bars.

And now for the Kinder Surprise Egg!  Yay!  I love Kinder Surprise, they're my favourite, semi gross chocolate AND a useless toy? I'm a sucker for these things.  It's probably for the best they cost 85p on a normal day.

Is that supposed to be.... Loki??

Well, that's terrifying.  I may have nightmares tonight.

****UPDATE:  I have just been informed that we do in fact have Cadbury Mini Eggs in the States, and now I feel like my life has been a lie.  My whole life.  A LIE.  That is all.