Parisian Adventures- Continued!

Day 2

On Friday, Christina and I struck out on our own. We enjoyed breakfast then headed straight to the Louvre. Once inside, we popped over to the Mona Lisa (obvious stop) then saw the Venus de Milo and Winged Victory. We took some funny pictures then tried to get out to get some food- we followed "sorti" (exit) signs for EVER until we finally found our way back to the entrance. I spied the inverted pyramid that shows up at the end of The Da Vinci Code so I made Christina go look at it with me. We were starving so we were elated to find a food court just beyond it. I sat down and Christina promptly spilled her entire drink on my lunch! We got a replacement, but they didn't refill Christina's drink or give me a new lunch for free- those French fast food workers! After we downed our lunches, we decided to hit the streets and spend a little dough. I only got postcards though we were both searching the souvenir shops for "Paris" bags, but only Christina was successful.

We decided to see the Eiffel Tower up close, since we had seen it in the distance earlier. Once we got there (it took a while!) we had a little nap in the grass at the base. It was very lovely, since the weather was great- no clouds! We had dinner at a little cafe that was right in the neighborhood over from La Tour Eiffel, and I had a view of it from my seat! We had some tuna quiche which was actually pretty good. We went back to the grass and laid in the sun with the intention of watching the tower light up and sparkle after dark, but we realized at about 8 that it was still very light out and that wasn't going to happen any time soon. At that point we decided to head back to the hotel and navigated our way successfully back, passing the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Élysées .

Day 3

I felt very tired when I woke up but still managed to motivate myself to get to breakfast before it ended! (they had some good croissants!) Christina and I were on our own again and our first stop was Moulan Rouge! It was pretty anti-climactic; I don't know what I was expecting, but all there was was the giant windmill thing on the roof of one building. Christina thought there was some souvenir shop or something, so we tried asking the guy standing outside where (if any) it was, but he spoke no English and I forgot the French word for "shop" so we just kept on going. Sarcre Coeur was the closest famous thing, so that was our next stop. We snagged a baguette and a block of brie along with some fruit and finally managed to make it to the top! We had pretty much perfect timing-- lunch time, that is! We sat on the steps and had a very inexpensive, very yummy meal in the sun! One weird thing happened... some guy walked by us talking on his mobile and after he hung up, sat down pretty much on top of me. Christina and I thought he was going to ask for food or try to do something to us but thankfully all he did was ask us stupid questions ("Did you buy that food in Paris?" ...no, sir, we brought it with us from London) and then wished us 'bon appetite' and left us alone.




After lunch we did some shopping and I bought my Paris bag (woohoo!) and we decided to drop our shopping stuff off at the hotel. We saw a little pastry shop a block or two before we got back, and decided we needed some dessert-like food. I saw this huge chocolate thing in the window and decided that was what I wanted, so I got it! It ended up being two big meringues pieces, frosted together like a giant cookie, then frosted all on the outside then rolled in chocolate pieces- It. Was. Amazing! This is me eating it:


After making a slight dent in my chocolate and sugar ball of delight (which lasted me ALL DAY), we decided that the Champs Élysées was where we wanted to go, so we did with the intention of spending some €€€. We held onto our money and did some window shopping instead and ended up walking along the river. At this point Christina was possessed with the desire to do a river cruise so we immediately jumped on a waiting boat and it left right away! It took a little over an hour and was very nice. We saw Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty. Yup, it was a mini version!

pondering the river cruise

Once we go off, we made our way back to La Tour where we met two girls from Regents and ended up chatting until it lit up! It was pretty cool- it was like a giant sparkler! We took pictures of it for the whole 10 minutes it was lit up, then since there was a crepe stand right there, bought ourselves some crepes. I got jambon et fromage (ham and cheese) and it was mighty tasty. We took a few more pictures then went back to the hotel for the night.


Day 4


After waking up at 9:30AM we panicked because we didn't know what time check out was but we soon found out it was at noon (whew!). After eating, we packed our stuff up and since we had about 7 hours or so until our train left, Christina and I headed back to the Eiffel Tower. We took a road that led us to an overlook point where we proceeded to take many ridiculous pictures:





We then headed down to the base and did 2 laps (on the inside) because apparently, as Christina related to me, if you do so you will find and marry your true love. Unfortunately, no rich, available, good-looking men bumped into/ proposed to us but I'm not sure how long we have to wait for the effect to kick in!

action shot while we did our Eiffel laps

We then headed back to the hotel, and I bought another block of brie for dunch. We got our bags and tramped to the metro (with my huge backpack) and got ourselves to the train station. I still needed some bread to go with my cheese, and Danielle was nice enough to come with me around the streets by the train station while I searched. Eventually we were pointed in the direction of a boulangerie (bread shop!) and I found my baguette (and it was only 80 cents!). We went thru the Eurostar security then had a nice long sit down because we were wicked early!! By the time we got back to London, there was no baguette and no brie... yes, I ate the ENTIRE 3 foot baguette and slice of brie. (It was my late lunch /dinner /snack)

Parisian Adventures - The Beginning

On Thursday after a normal day of classes, Christina and I (along with 3 friends, Danielle, Adina andNatalie) took the Eurostar to Paris, a very fantastic city! I totally over packed- a fact I realized after lugging that monster over to the tube. The train ride to Paris was about 3 hours long. The seats were nice and roomy; I definitely prefer trains to commercial planes! PLUS we got cool little train stamps in our passports! (It's the little things that amuse me.) Once we arrived in France, we asked a bunch of information guys how we should get to our hotel, which was an hour away from the Eiffel Tower. They equipped us with little maps and told us to take the Metro and switch over, then walk to the hotel from there. We got to our tiny 2 star hotel and found that the room Christina and I stayed in was a little bit strangly set up- it was at the end of the hall and once you walked in, the bathroom was on the right (normal so far) but to the left, there was a long, skinny hallway (it must have been the wall around the room next door) which led to the the rest of the room! Weird!
After checking in and dumping our stuff, we decided to stop some place and get dessert. We finally found an open cafe with only 2 people in it and sat down. The waitress brought over a huge board with the menu on it and we choose our desserts. The only problem was that they only had 2 of whatever dish we had picked out, so I switched to strawberry ice cream and Christina decided to be daring and get the "very French" dish that was described as bread, eggs and honey. We almost lost our minds when she came out and handed Christina a plate of FRENCH TOAST! We all had a bite of The Toast and felt very special- we had French toast in France!

The 2 Weeks Between Awesome Weekend Trips...

I had quite a full 2 weeks after returning from Germany! Christina's cousin came to visit her for a week, the weather was smashing and I had several picnic lunches in the park! I also had a rather large paper due, which I worked on til the wee hours of the morning the day it was due (I have considered changing my major to Procrastination).

The best part of my week was probably going to the theater- I should have definitely taken advantage of one of the theater classes they offer here, but alas! the semester is practically over and there is now nothing I can do! I saw the comedy The 39 Steps and it was fantastic! I didn't really know anything about it except that it was supposed to be funny and interestingly, it only had a 4 person cast! I ordered the ticket online the day before and for £10. (The best part about it was that it was actually free- UNH has a "cultural challenge" which we get reimbursed up to £20 of "cultural" events and things- that can't be done back in the states.) So I got myself to the theater which was right in Piccadilly Circus and then enjoyed the play IMMENSELY. It was about a man who was framed for murder and on the run in England and Scotland during WWII- and the 3 other cast members played all the people he met and/or evaded into while on the run. The staging was very creative- for example, to indicate they were moving through rooms, one of them simply wheeled a door around stage and the characters just walked thru it like it was a new room! Ahh... what a great play- I really enjoy the theater!!!!

Easter Weekend part 3

Easter Sunday

Corey and I spent the first half of the day by ourselves. She went off to Dachau which was the first concentration camp and I decided to stay in the city and explore a bit. It was a great decision because Sunday was the highlight of my visit. We were up early and after breakfast I walked over to Marienplatz intending to stop in at church. I ended up not making it to church, but spent my morning pretty much just going wherever my feet took me. I ended up walking along Maximilianstrasse towards what Ozzy told us was the parliament building and once reaching it, decided to stroll along the river since it looked lovely. It was! There were lots of people jogging, riding bikes and just walking like me. I ended up at a little beach which was mostly made up of rocks (kind of like Nice!) and found a stump that was on fire. It was strange as well as the fact that a man joined me on the beach and lit a newspaper on fire. Apparently this was the fire beach. I kept walking back on the path and came to a tunnel. I was going to head back towards town on the bridge but decide to go thru the tunnel, just for kicks. It was AWESOME! The entire inner surface was completely covered with a mural. It was really detailed and I must have spent 20 minutes just walking back and forth admiring it.

After I was finally done in there, I decided I needed lunch. I found some discount bakery place and got an enormous pretzel. I ate my pretzel in the sun and then went back to Marienplatz where I met up with a free bike tour group and proceeded to have the time of my life.

The bike tour was the absolute best thing I did the whole weekend. I didn't particularly care for the guide (he reminded me of a college guy who never grew up) but the bikes were so awesome and old school- they didn't have hand breaks; they were the back pedal ones like on our old Huffys! They were also silver and we called them California Cruisers. Our guide did a 10 minute history of Munich and then we got our bikes and started cruisin'! We rode by the Hofbräuhaus then over to Maximilianplatz (on the corner of the expensive street and the royal residence) and then to the English garden. It was so nice over there- flowers were blooming, the sun was out and the clothes were off-- of some people! Yes, we stopped by the nude part of the English Garden (which is an enormous park) but thankfully it was still early in the season so there were about 3 people with no clothes. We cycled by them and over to the Chinese Tower which is the second largest beer garden on earth! It can hold 9000 people! We had an hour to eat or do whatever and since I had already eaten, I just sat and chatted with my new friends. They served 5 types of beer and a bunch of different food- including giant pretzels (pretzels are really big in Bavaria/Munich (pun!) since they invented them).

some action shots...

After the break, we hopped back on our bikes (which was pretty funny since I think I was the only one who didn't have a beer) and rode back thru the park. I pretty much stopped listening to our guide the rest of the ride since he was being crude and just enjoyed riding my bike and the beautiful weather. One cool thing we stopped and watched for a few minutes were the river surfers- there was a point in the river right past a bridge that had basically a continuous wave and these dudes in wets suits took turns surfing!

We cycled back to the starting point and I dropped my bike and jogged over to meet up with Corey since we got back almost an hour late (oops!). Since it was still early in the afternoon, we walked over to the city museum, but it closed about 10 minutes after we got there, so we just looked around the gift shop (which was awesome). We were close to the painted tunnel, so I took Corey over to see it (she wasn't as impressed as I was) and then we walked in a direction neither of us had been in yet. Eventually we decided it was dinner time and I had the BEST German dinner ever. I wanted to try something traditionally German so I ordered Leberkäse. It's like a mini meat loaf and it was excellent! It came with potato salad (which was cold!) and I got what I thought was the German version of Sprite, but turned out to be a million times better. It didn't look like much, but when we were done I was so full!

It was getting cold at that point so we went back to pick up our jackets at the hostel. Before we left, we decided to cash in our complimentary drink coupons at the hostel bar. I got a 'rattler' which is half beer, half "lemonade" (which = Sprite). It came in a little glass and reminded me of Anheuser-Busch. After that little experience, we snagged our jackets and headed out for a taste of the night life! Basically Munich was pretty quiet but we did find a lion dressed as a monk holding beer (what possibly says Munich more than that?!). We headed back and were the first ones in bed.

I have to say that this was the best day of my trip, probably since I got to do what I wanted and also the amazing bike tour. I want to ride a bike everywhere from now on!

In Munich for Easter Weekend part 2

Saturday

Today was the day I was most looking forward to- the tour of Schloss Neuschwanstein, an amazing castle! Before our tour left, we wanted to go see the famous giant market (Viktualienmarkt) when it was actually open- since it was Easter weekend, everything was closed of course except on Saturday, the day we were not even going to be in the city! The market was pretty large and organized- all the meat was in one section, the cheeses in another, fruit, herb, flowers etc all together in their respective areas. After wandering a little while over there, we headed over to the train station to meet up with the tour.

I loved the castle, but the tour ended up being terrible for a bunch of reasons. #1- there were 60 people. #2- we had to wait for a wicked long time for everyone #3- after we were finally allowed to go, we had to RUN everywhere. They made us wait until about 5 minutes before the train left til they let us on to try and find a seat. We had to speedily walk up the hill to get to our tour. We had to sprint right into the entrance to get in line for the castle tour. The tour was designed to go right thru the castle at a fast pace. We went to a bridge over a gorge to get a good view of the castle- and had to run back down the mountain to meet back up with the group to catch the train. Overall, it was over rushed and I was not a happy camper, especially since we were waiting for 45 minutes in Füssen (the town) for no apparent reason.

Anyway, I will now highlight the good parts of the tour. How about the castle itself?

There is a lake nearby...

And it was in the Alps...

This was the gorge over which there was a bridge...

I loved the castle- but if I go back I will NOT take Radius tours, and neither should you. You can do the same thing we did, but spend more time at the castle and enjoy the view- all you need to do is check out a book about Mad King Ludwig and go down by the lake. By the way, Ludwig was pretty strange- he was very into swans; he was engaged to his cousin (they never married); he had a fake grotto built behind his bedroom, and he was found dead in a lake with another man (who was his doctor who was interviewing Ludwig to find out if he was mentally fit to rule). Anyway, that castle came out great- thanks, Ludwig!

Pondering the Germany countryside- on the way back to Munich, an older lady sat with us. She yelled at me and Corey (separately! while the other was in the ladies room) not to put our feet on the seat! We were in Germany now, not at home!

München is German for a Great Weekend

I spent my long Easter weekend in Munich with Corey and it was fantastic! The food was great, the city was nice and the tours were FREE!
On Thursday last week, Corey and I left London for Germany. Of course, we had a problem getting to the airport (missed the bus again, then there was traffic) but we ended up getting on the plane just about dead last after hurrying thru the airport (at least we got on the plane!). We arrived in Munich around 8PM or so then took the train into the city. What a great ride... (I had some pretty memorable instances on the train... read on) We sat down and a couple graced our presence in the seats across the aisle from us- and as luck would have it, it was the Most Annoying Couple of 2007! They canoodled, took pictures, cooed at each other... then took out an ipod and both listened to it together. The lady tapped her loud, clicky boots to the beat for about a half hour and the guy sang along with some of the song (for our benefit, I'm sure). We finally escaped them at the central station and found our hostel, which was only a 5 minute walk and actually pretty nice. We stayed in an 8 person room which had it's own little bathroom. The room was nice, but our roommates either snored (at one point I think 5 people were snoring at the same time!) or chatted about their wild night (when they got back at 3AM).

Friday - day 2
We got ourselves up early and after the free breakfast of toast and tea, went on a free walking tour of the city! Our guide was funny, really enthusiastic and named Ozzy. He took us over to the Glockenspiel (the famous clock), which is on the side of the new town hall building in a plaza in the center of the city called Marienplatz. It was under construction, plus it was Good Friday, so it didn't go off. In fact, we didn't see it go off the whole weekend, but Ozzy told us that we weren't missing much- apparently it's out of tune and not that exciting to watch! We took some pictures then walked over to Hofbräuhaus, the famous beer hall. We walked all over the rest of the city too, including Maximilianstrasse (the most expensive street ever- has tons of designer stores) and the royal residence, which was my favorite part of the tour. Ozzy took us to the courtyard and told us a little bit about how it was damaged in WWII then rebuilt and showed us some pictures. Then he told us that it cost 9 euros to get in. "But," he said, "since you guys are with me and this is a free tour we get to see the palace thru those FREE windows right over there!"

Like I said, he was funny. It was a good tour, I learned a lot about the city, including the fact that it became rich thru the salt trade (hmm, interesting) and the 2 symbols of Munich are the child monk and the lion. I started noticing a lot of monks and lions after that. After our nearly 3 hour tour, we decided to head back to Hofbräuhaus for lunch. I had sauerkraut and sausage and it was pretty darn good.

From there, we decided to head up one of the church towers to get a panoramic of the city. It was something like 300 steps but as always, worth the climb!


It was mid-afternoon by then and Corey suggested we go visit the Olympic park where the 1972 games were held. I thought this was a great idea so we consulted my little map inside my European guide book and headed out. It felt like the longest walk ever! I think it took us over an hour to get there but all we had to do was keep walking straight. (I took this picture of the deserted streets of Munich about 45 min into our walk) Finally, we found it. It looked like the set of the Teletubbies- very green, massive hills (it was surprising because Munich is very flat). We strolled thru the Olympic park, which was very strange looking- there was this plastic looking tent thing over parts of it. They must have thought that looked cool in the 70s... We climbed to the top of the highest hill (mid-climb, my camera decided not to work!) then rested for a while (my camera decided to work again) the we caught the U back to Marienplatz got dinner then bedtime.

YAY MY CAMERA WORKS AGAIN!

Pondering München

On top of the teletubby hill