Pictures

• Day 6: Paris

Goal: To take a picture of a McDonalds in every country. Not sure if it can be done with the cities we’re going to, but I’ll definitely try!

Woke up in the morning to get some of the breakfast, which was decent. Baguette with butter and jam with some cereal and milk. After we checked out, we decided to go to the Palace at Versailles. Went to one of the main train stations and ran into the language barrier. We have a Eurorail pass, but there were really no instructions on how to use it. We had to ask several people where we could get our pass stamped, and then asked how to even get on the trains to Versailles after that! It was quite crazy. We did make it though, and the train ride wasn’t even that long. Maybe 20 minutes.

The Palace was quite impressive. Very large and gilded with gold all over the place! We got some good pictures but didn’t get to go inside because it cost quite a few Euros and we only had a little bit of time there before we needed to head back. We did walk around a little bit though. It was a rather large place for a royal family to live!

We then discovered the train stations there had pay toilets, which was not cool. They also had no water fountains, which meant we were quite thirsty! We headed back both having to potty and quite dry. Came back, checked internet, got our bags, and you would not believe how loud some of these french kids were! I don’t think they were from Paris, because they were staying in the hostel, but they were running all around, blaring music on a boombox, yelling, slamming doors, and just being retarded! I can’t believe they let people like that stay there. Gah! We then went to a corner store for some food. The trains to Gare De Lyon were insanely packed. Combine that with no air conditioning and no deodorant and you’ve got a very hot, cramped, stinky train ride. I’d rather not do that again.

We hopped on and rode our way to Geneve (Geneva), where we switched trains to the one to Bern. I slept a lot of the way. For some reason, whenever I sit down to ride a train, I pass out! We then arrived in Bern, talked to some people who told us where to go for our hostel (and we met a couple of girls going the same way), and walked over. The hostel was actually really nice and it’s a shame our stay there was so short.

Oh yeah, while in France we did go to one nice restaurant. The menu was very cryptic, so I ended up ordering what turned out to basically be a burger with an egg on top along with some fries. And when I tried to order the Creme Brulette (sp?), they ran out… damn!

Pictures

• Day 5: Paris – Part 1
• Day 5: Paris – Part 2

Our fifth day in Paris was a good one. We woke up a bit late, but we needed the sleep. We’d been hanging out with three people we met our first day in Paris. Chris is from Chicago whereas Brittany and Chelsea were from Ottowa, Canada. We had been up until something like 4 in the morning hanging out in the streets (they were drinking, but I’m not a fan of wine, so I wasn’t), and then back in the hostel just talking and having fun! That night we also met Travis, who was from Australia. We also met a Spanish man, but I didn’t catch his name. I had a lot of fun discovering the cultural differences. We say “pissed” to mean angry, while Australians use it to mean drunk. Canadians really do say “eh” and “soorry”! Chicagoans really do like the Cubs a lot. Chelsea says we have an accent, but then again, I think that’s all relative!

Chuck and I went with Chris, Brittany, and Chelsea to see more of Paris. We headed out toward the Hopital d’Invalides which was built by Napoleon for injured troops, where we grabbed some breakfast. We then headed across a bridge toward the Louvre. We walked through the gardens there, which were quite impressive! We even went down inside the glass pyramid, but tickets were more than we wanted to pay, and none of us are really artists. I’ve heard from friends/family that the Mona Lisa isn’t really that great anyway. So we left there and headed off to Notre Dame.

For some reason Chuck and I seemed to be the only ones interested in seeing it, so it took us a while to convince the others to continue toward it. Once there, we met another group of Australians who took pictures of us in front of Notre Dame and we took theirs. Chuck and I headed inside to see what it was like, to take some pictures, and to look at the stained glass windows (which really were impressive). The other three just hung out at a cafe across the street. There was a little line to get in, but walking through was free, which was nice.

After that we rode the metro to get to the Catacombs! We had to wait in line for quite a while and then had to pay to get in, but it was worth it. It was something like 127 spiral steps to get down to the tunnels. For a while you just walk through a regular tunnel (just tall enough for a person my height), until you get to a sign saying the next area is consecrated. You walk through a door and boom there it is. Thousands of feet of tunnel with bones for walls. Millions of people were buried there. It’s a bit hard to think it’s even real. I have never seen so many bones in one place before. And what was even more impressive was how they were arranged. What were probably leg/arm bones were stacked several high, then a row of skull bones, then more leg bones, then another row of skulls. This repeated until it reached the ceiling. And it was like this for a long distance. There were some areas where the bones didn’t reach all the way to the ceiling, or the skulls were even in patterns. Some places you could tell where someone had tried to take bones (which they checked bags at the end for this). It was very surreal and humbling. More impressive than I imagined it would be.

Afterward, we headed back toward the hostel. While on the metro, Chris went a different way because he was staying at a different hostel for that night. Shortly after we got back Brittany and Chelsea left for a sleeper train to Barcelona. They will actually be in Rome during one of the days we’re there, so we might be able to meet them at the hostel we’ve got booked. That would be very cool!

Then Chuck and I looked at the information for the train we’d take the next morning to Bern, Switzerland. And what do you know, the train out of Paris needs a reservation, which we did not have. We hustled over to the metro and rode to the Gare De Lyon station. We talked to one of the people there and found that the earliest train we could get would be the 6:10pm train the next day. This also meant the furthest we’d be able to get that night would be Bern. So we booked the reservation and went back to Aloha Hostel to figure stuff out.

We sent an email off to our hostel in Grindelwald because we wouldn’t be able to make it there to stay the night like we had planned. We booked the Bern Youth Hostel instead. Luckily, it had availability and wasn’t too highly priced. We then headed to bed, and admittedly, I was rather frustrated and annoyed because we’d lost a day in Switzerland, which is the place I was looking forward to most. Losing a day was irritating, but I guess it wouldn’t be backpacking if something unexpected didn’t happen.

Pictures

• Day 4: Paris

Had to wake up at 2:30am today to head to the airport. We got there, had to wait until 4:30 to check our bags, and then we had to wait until 6:10 to board the plane. It was supposed to take off at 6:30 but it didn’t actually leave the ground until 7:30. Ryanair is super cheap, and I don’t know if I really liked it. But they did get our bags over fine, which was nice.

So we landed in France at the BVA airport, got off and had our passports stamped with visas, then  bought a bus pass to downtown Paris. It was an hour long ride, but the countryside was nice. Once we got here we had to take the metro to a stop near our hostel, the Aloha hostel. The metro gates ended up rebooting, so we got our fare for free! The metro wasn’t as nice as the NYC metro though. We met some people in the lobby and are actually still hanging out with them right now!

We walked and saw the Eiffel tower, the Arc d’Triumph and loads of other stuff! We’ll try to do some more stuff tomorrow, but there is so much to see, it’ll be impossible. The French people have actually been really helpful in giving directions and helping with food choices. We did eat some good food tonight too! They haven’t been rude like I’ve heard from a lot of people!

After that we walked around, found some places to get some wine and then found a random square and sat down and the other people drank some of the wine. I’m not a big drinker, let alone wine, so I had some water.

We’re sitting in the lobby now talking about how Michael Jackson is dead and where all we’re going to be going in the future.  It would be awesome if we could meet up with them again and tour another city!

We’re in a group with Australians, British, Spanish, Canadians all here right now in the lobby! Geting to talk about all the differences in culture and where we’re all going! Alright, need to head off so I can socialize more!

Update: I forgot to mention the Gypsies before! We ran into quite a few Gypsies at the Eiffel Tower, Metro, and other places. They usually came up to us and asked “Speak English?” but they dressed in such stereotypical Gypsie ways that t was easy to avoid them. Needless to say, we did not get pick pocketed by them. Either Brittany or Chelsea said they had someone come up with a 20 Euro bill and want to make change. I suspect that they either try to see how much money you have and then take it, or get you to give them the wrong amount of change some how. It was good to see quite a few Police around the Eiffel Tower who literally ran the gypsies off! And on the cops note, we saw several cops around the Gare De Lyon metro stop walking around with automatic rifles. I wonder if they have ever used them…