I'm BACK!!!

Hi David is BACK!!

I know you all missed me!

Right?

Anyway the hostel we're in HAS QWERTY KEYBOARDS!!!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

To celebrate I'm putting up a very long overdue post. Since Derek's pretty much recapped everything, I'll just post a few thoughts.

Toulouse

Frankly not worth the effort. It is a cool little town, but there's really not much to see. It's far more expensive than we thought, and we ended up wandering pointlessly with heavy packs and nothing to do. Our experience was not helped by the fact that my travel book mixed up the phone numbers for the hotels, and we ended up hiking to the wrong one. Lesson learned: confirm the name of the hotel when you call!!

Pyrenees

If you're willing to sit through the train and bus rides, this is definately worth the treck. I should note our lesson learned from the Pyrenees: websites are not always accurate. The campsite closed ten days early, so we ended up in the refuge Derek mentioned. We could have had quite a night with the huge quantity of beer they left sitting around. We didn't, but we could have...

The area is beautiful. There are spectacular mountains cliffs and waterfalls. We arrived in the quitest of the down season, too late for hikers and too early for skiers. Nevertheless we picked a mountian and conquered it. It was a long treck up. We passed more cow pies than most people see a lifetime. At some points the climb was almost vertical, and the false peak had us convinced we were nearly there at one point, when in actuality we had a ways still to go. The views at the top made it all worth it.

Thoiry

Thoiry is a great side trip from Paris because of its excellent safari park. Check the feeding schedules of the animals when you come in. When we went through the glass tunnel in the tiger's exhibit, the smaller tiger tried to attack Derek. Whenever he turned around it pounced at him, only to be foiled by the glass. Apparently Derek looks especially tasty to big cats.

At the safari park there is a play area with tunnels and slides and things designed for people approximately half our height. Needless to say, we explored it thoroughly. We also played Marco Polo in the extremely muddy labyrinth. This resulted in a need to rewash our freshly cleaned clothing. Totally worth it.

As Derek mentioned we stayed with my second cousin Mark and his family. It was a lot of fun meeting everybody!!

Versailles

Versailles was a pretty cool place to visit. My European citizenship got me in for free, so to make up for the gloating that followed I treated us both to ice cream. The palace itself isn't all that worth-while, but the gardens were fantastic. We were very surprised by the japanese anime-style figures that appeared throughout the palace. While I can appreciate a pretty anime girl in a tiny maid outfit as much as the next guy, I had the strange feeling it didn't fit in with the palace's architecture and other contents. The giant, golden, two-faced frog-on-LSD thing seemed far better matched to the surroundings.

On a side note the gardens are beautiful, but are also mainly populated by couples. I feel Derek and I are being mistaken for a couple a lot.

Paris

Nevermind. This post won't be short. Yeah I know. I lied. But you know what? I don't care. Paris is worth it. :P

Ok this one is a no-brainer. If you go to France and skip the tourist capital of the world, then I'm afraid you are not welcome here. I LOVE PARIS!! PARIS IS AWESOME!!! There is so much to see, so much to do, SO MUCH TO EAT!!! Have you ever tried a fresh, warm croissant from a true Parisien bakery? IT'S THE MOST DELICIOUS THING ON THE PLANET!!!!!!

We climbed the Eifel Tower at sunset, and saw the Louvre for free. We had the most delicious croissants in the world (have i mentioned those?), visited Paris' oldest patisserie, and devoured chocolate crepes. I drank over ten liters of orangina in less than a week. I like orangina. A lot.

Looking down at the city from the peak of the Eiffel Tower is amazing. Expecially at night. You can see the entire city, from the Louvre, to the Arc de Triumph, to EuroDisney. It's called the City of Lights for a reason. The Eiffel Tower also looks its best at night, and the lights covering it flash on and off at the hour.

When you go up the Eiffel Tower you can buy a tiny Eiffel Tower keychain for three euros. You can buy 6 of the identical keychain at the base of the tower from one of the hundreds of illegal salesman for a single euro. And don't worry about finding these guys. There really are hundreds of them. They nearly outnumbered tourists.

The Pompidou Center is also a cool place to visit. We didn't go inside, but the plaza is full of performers. One guy was in the middle of a gigantic chalk drawing, which was at least 20 feet on a side. It was quite excellent actually.

Our last night in Paris is one I shall never forget. We were staying with a family friend near Versaille. Her daugther invited us to a party in the catacombs. Heard of those? They consist of endless miles of narrow stone passages over 60 feety beneath the city. They were originally stone quarries, but over the past centuries have served as a dumpster for corpses, as well as secret highways for Franch rebels during the Nazi occupation.

A guide led us to the party. After sneaking into the catacomb entrance, we followed him for over a mile through the narrow passages. Without a guide you could get lost for years underground. At times the tunnels were large enough to stand, but sometimes we had to crouch. At one point we had to get down on hands and knees to fit through the tunnel. As a result of the route, there weren't any fat people at this party. The party itself was in a more open area of the catacombs.

I don't know how they got the speakers and strobe lights in, but they were there. I don't know where they got the electricity from either. There was even a DJ board set up! It was the most lively party I'd ever attended. When the French have underground parties, they truly mean underground, and they truly mean PARTY! At one point somebody used a candle and an alcoholic drink to breath fire! Everybody in the party was in their late teens or early twenties. I can't imagine the effort it took to organize it! We didn't know anybody there, but it didn't matter. Evferybody was friendly and having a great time. Usually I'm not all that into dancing, but at this party I must have danced for hours. We followed the same guide out as we had followed in. This was the best party I have ever attended.

Regretfully we had to bid farewall to Paris. Today we travelled to Nice, a beautiful city on the shore of the Mediteranean. I'll hopefully have lots to tell you about that tomorrow.

***EDIT: We were supposed to be meeting someone at the party but she never showed up. We found out later that she was caught by cops trying to sneak into a different entrance! XD

****GENERAL WARNING****

Watch out for beggers and scam artists, which are often the same thing. A group pretending to be deaf tried the same trick as the so-called UNICEF workers. People will shamelessly come up to you and beg for money. We're students people! WE DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY!!! I have little respect for people who beg for money buy offer nothing in return.

On a side note we have just discovered that one person found our blog on a search engine using the keyword search "babes naked". I count this as a total win.

OK That's all for now

David OUT