The Adventures of a Lifetime

The Adventures of a Lifetime

So the past few days have been pretty interesting. I left off my last post at Versailles, which David covered pretty well, so I'll move on from there.

We took day trips into Paris from Helen's house. It only cost about 5 euros each way for the bus/train combination - plus, the train ticket can be used once as a metro ticket. We saw a cool flea market and bought French berets XD. I've been wearing mine everywhere. I think David prefers not to look like a tacky tourist like me though. :P

Helen's daughter Catherine had plans to go to a party while we were in town, and she invited us to come along. This wasn't a normal party though. This was a party in the Catacombs, the 200-mile maze of tunnels underneath the city of Paris. 

We agreed to meet her at midnight outside of a designated metro station. When we got there, we saw young adults and teens climbing down into a grate in the sidewalk - undoubtedly the entrance to the catacombs. We waited until 12:45 and decided that she probably wasn't coming, for whatever reason - or perhaps we had missed her. Either way, we still wanted to go to the party so we followed a group of kids down the rabbit hole.

The grating was thick, solid metal. It had an opening that you had to put your hand into to find the lever to open it. You've probably walked across hundreds of these in various cities. But this one was different. Inside we found a steep, twisting stone staircase. It was pitch black inside once the grating was shut. Luckily I had brought along a headlamp so I could see as we climbed downwards. According to one of the youths we were following, we had gone down 20 meters (65 feet).

Each group going to the party had a guide - someone who had memorized the route through the catacombs by heart. It would be very easy to get lost in the dark tunnels, so we kept up with the guide. It took us a full half hour to get to the cavern where the party was, which was probably so that the police couldn't find it. (This was technically an illegal party, since nobody is allowed in the catacombs. But a police car drove past while some kids were climbing down the grate and didn't stop, so I assume they have bigger fish to fry.)

There were stretches of our journey where we had to crawl through narrow passageways. Good thing I'm not claustrophobic. 

The party itself was nothing like what I expected. It was in the middle of a group of larger rooms with higher ceilings - people hung out and talked in the other rooms if they didn't want to be in the thick of things. The party cavern was hopping, though. They had somehow gotten party lights, booming speakers, and a freaking /mix table/ down into that cavern, and techno was blasting. People were dancing and we joined right in, after promising our guide to meet him every hour. Everyone was very friendly, and they were just there to have fun. One guy used a torch and an alcoholic drink to breath fire - check out my YouTube page at youtube.com/user/phprogrammer to see it for yourself. (Look for Party in the Catacombs.) 

I had a fantastic time down there. When I tired of dancing, I did some exploring of the surrounding caverns. I always kept close enough so I could hear the music, though, since I didn't want to be wandering for eternity. 

When we got back to the top, I saw that my hand had inexplicably turned silver. Someone told me that's what happens if you touch the walls of the catacombs.

Around 3am, everything abruptly stopped. Music and lights turned off. Nobody seemed to know why, but the crowd started to disperse into various tunnels leading off of the party cavern. We figured that there had been a problem with the electricity (where did they get it from, anyways? Was there a generator or something?) so we found our guide and started to make our way back topside. People were still arriving at this point, too. 

When we finally got back up, we had a heck of a time getting back to Helen's house. She had given us a route map for a specific night bus but it turned out that bus was no longer in operation. We found one that went to Versailles but unfortunately we still had a 40-minute walk to Buc. We got back around 6 in the morning and started to pack since we had a 9:40 train to catch. We were exhausted, but we didn't have much of a choice.

The train made it to Nice without any problems at all. We were actually on time for it, which goes against our rule that states "No matter how early you plan to arrive for a train or bus, you will always be sprinting at the last minute to catch it."

Nice was nice. It's on the Cote d'Azur, and the water was a spectacular shade of blue. We checked into our hostel and basically collapsed for the rest of the night. They had a huge collection of movies so it was all good.

Unfortunately it rained for the whole next day. We really didn't do anything of interest since the only things to do in Nice involve swimming. 

We went for a swim on the rocky beach the next day. The water was a bit cold but pleasant, and as mentioned above the sea was beautiful. 

One of the things that caught our eye was a half day trip of scuba diving, organized through the hostel. It cost 42€, which was reasonable. David cleared the trip with his cardiologist and we signed ourselves up! Scuba has been one of the things I've been dying to try ever since I learned about it, so I was pumped.

In the morning we walked down to the port and filled out the necessary paperwork. We got wetsuits, masks, weight belts, and fins, and hopped into the boat with our instructors and another more experience group of divers. On the way to the dive site, we had a quick 10-minute intro to the important skills...how to defog your mask, pressurize your ears, etc. The experienced group went in first with the instructors, leaving us alone on the boat. They were out for 40 minutes or so.

When they came back, the instructors had us hop into the water. My instructor hooked me up to my buoyancy vest, air tank, and regulator, and we swam over to the dive site. He kept his hand on my vest the whole time and pretty much controlled the experience. I put my regulator in and we started to descend by letting air out of the buoyancy vests.

I could hear my breathing underwater. I sounded exactly like Darth Vader XD it was creepy. But it was amazing how clear and blue the water was off the Azure Coast. As we went down, my ears noticed the pressure change surprisingly quickly and started screaming in pain. I equalized the pressure every meter or so though and that neutralized the pain. We descended to about 6 meters. Small schools of fish swam around us, without any apparent fear. I saw sea urchins and exotic varieties of fish. We skimmed over the rock ledge and looked out over the drop-off point. I want to learn to go deeper by taking a class back in the States.

The sights we saw were cool, but the real novelty was swimming without having to worry about coming back up for air. I could take my time looking at everything and just breathe naturally when I needed to.

After about 25 minutes, we came back to the surface. I heard a sound in my ears like air draining from a balloon and figured my ears were equalizing automatically.

We changes back into our dry clothes to be warmer - although it's worth mentioning that the wetsuits were very warm. They had wine for everyone to drink as we relaxed on the way back to the port. (Not the best thing for keeping warm, but the sun had come out and I wasn't too concerned.)

It was a fantastic experience. Worth every penny that we spent, in my opinion.

We said goodbye to France that night with crepes. We had ordered bus tickets to Florence for 4:00am the following morning - basically the only way to get out of Nice. We were in the middle of a transport strike in France and almost none of the trains were running. 

Au revoir, France! We had some great times there - from the Pyrenees to the Catacombs to the Cote d'Azur. 

I'm writing this from our hostel in Florence, Italy. Ciao! The only problem here is that neither of us speaks Italian so the language barrier will be even more of a problem here. Oh well - we're heading out to have lunch and explore the city. 

Edit: Pics added!

Bienvenidos a Madrid

David Here

We made it. We are currently in our Hostel in Madrid in the bar, where the computer´s are. Unfortunately we don`t have any access to the USB ports, so you`ll have to wait on that.

OK first impressions, starting with the metro. We took the metro to a stop very close to our hostel. It was quick and easy to use, surprisingly clean, and appear at every stop (the ones we saw anyway) about every two minutes. They are, however, extremely crowded and stiflingly hot. Also very smelly. That`s another thing, Spain has not caught the memo that cigarettes are bad for you. Everywhere smells of cigarettes and almost everyone you see outside is smoking.

We found our hostel very easily. It´s called Cat´s Hostel and I am extremely impressed. Our room has 5 bunk beds and ten large lockers. The beds are reasonably comfortable with blankets and sheets and pillows and all that. The hostel has a decent bar, free breakfast from 8-10, computers, wifi in the rooms. clean bathrooms with showers, and washing machines with dryers.

To get into your room you have to have this watch-looking thing. Everyone has their own which is specific to their bed. To get into the dormitory area of the hostel, you must hold your wrist-key up to a scanner, which unlocks the doors. On your room door there is another scanner. Your locker has one too. Everybody`s wrist-key works on the first door, but only people from your room can open that door, and only you can open your locker.

One thing though, when you are looking for hostels, sign up in advance. the first two we tried were already full.

Ok so what`s the area like? We`re about a quarter mile from the metro station. Within a few blocks of our hostel we have seen dominoes pizza, burger king, dunkin coffee (which is dunkin donuts), at least 7 other hostels, many bars, an enormous ¨sex shop¨, several farmers markets, tons of cafes, 3 or 4 arcades, and many magazine stands, which aren´t afraid to put X-rated material right out in the open. Industry is centralized around the metro station, and the farther away you get the more the buildings start to become apartments rather than stores.

The streets are so narrow that you have to be careful not to be decked by wide wing mirrors. Oh and water, we´ve been told not to trust european water. So we´ve bought bottled water. Unfortunately european bottled water has lots of things in it, like chloride, salt. calcium, etc. Its not a lot, but to me it makes the water taste foul and undrinkable. In Spain we bought Bezoya water, which isn´t too bad.

I don´t have much else to say for now. I´ll let Derek take over from here

David out

~~~~~~~~

Today has been exhausting but rewarding. For those of you who said tl;dr to some of our other posts, this is the first time that we´ve been truly on our own. We were staying with David´s family for the first bit of our trip. But now we´ve finally realized the extent of our independence!

We took a flight out of Gatwick Airport to get here. It was a very cheap flight, and we got what we paid for. The whole plane was cramped cattle class, we were sitting at the gate for an hour, and they charged us for drinks. Oh well.

...I feel like I overpacked since my pack is damn heavy. Heavier than any hiking trip I´ve ever done, certainly. But aside from a few guidebooks that I decided to leave in England, there´s nothing that I´d leave at home given the chance.

Madrid itself has been wonderful so far. My Spanish is a bit rusty XD but workable. The locals seem friendly and we were able to get around fine. I got a few clementines for 40 cents (that´s Euro-cents, not US cents) and ate them for a light lunch. Our hostel is nice, despite its looks - the building itself is old enough to have been designated a historical monument or something like that. I was very impressed with the key system as well.

I´ve wanted to come to Spain for years - and we´re finally here! I can´t wait to explore the city. Photos will be up eventually.

¡Hasta luego!

‹Derek›

London Raid

Derek: Hey all - just wanted to do a quick post on the trip to London that we took today. It was a fantastic day, even though the weather was cloudy and dreary (typical London weather, actually). The Tube, London's metro system, was fast and efficient, but the trains were small and they ran very close to the wall, giving the impression that you were in a tube. Just another example of simple naming conventions, I guess, seeing as towns are named things like Harrow-on-the-hill.


Anyways, one of our main attractions today was the London Eye, which is a 480-ft Ferris Wheel on the River Thames. It was very expensive, but well worth it, since we were able to see most of the city from the apex. The picture above is of us in front of Big Ben - from a few hundred feet in the air. We also saw Parliament, Buckingham Palace, and various other sights.



We took a walk over to the Tower of London, famed for its past of torture and imprisonment. I'll let David talk more about that, but it was very cool to see the actual carvings of prisoners on the walls.



The independence we have here is wonderful, and I'm sure it'll only increase as we head over to Spain!


<Derek>


Hello! David here! We had a great trip to London today and I've got a bunch of pictures to post! So let's start with the journey to London, the train. Trains in England are fairly inexpensive and easy to catch. They can get you anywhere, but they are fairly cramped and crowded.


















Upon arriving in the city, we found the skyline dominated by our destination; the London Eye. We took tons of pictures from the eye. Blogspot seems to work on and off on this computer, and at the moment the captions feature is not working, so you'll have to grin and bear it, or as the English say, have a stiff upper lip.


Ok so here we have the London Eye. A circuit takes about half an hour but gives you a fantastic view of London. It's well worth the pricey £19 we payed. That's about $31. While riding we calculated that the eye, on a busy day, could rake in as much as £200,000! Next to that is the Houses of Parliment and Big Ben. We'll post more pictures from the eye on picasa.
















Next we visited the Globe Theatre. Unfortunately they were sold out for tickets for the day so we moved onto the Tower of London.



The Tower has been used for many things, but it is most notorious as a prison. It was generally used for high profile prisoners, often bishops, dukes, and rival monarchs. Now before you mock the poor quality of these photos, I should note that we weren't exactly supposed to be taking pictures at all, so most of these images were taken with the camera inside my sleeve.



Here we have the entrance to the Tower. Next to that is the Scavenger's Daughter, which was a notoriously cruel torture device that compressed your body. It was said to crush a person so badly, blood would leak from their eyes, ears, and nose.

So if you want any more pictures you'll have to rely on picasa. Blogspot is, quite frankly, being a major P in the A about getting these pictures up, so this is all I'm wiling to put up with for this post.

Anyways the Tower's been around for nearly a thousand years, with various parts being torn down and rebuilt every few hundred years. It's pricey but worth it if you can afford the £18 entrance fee, or about $30. If you ask for student price they may give you £2 off, but you might not get this without a student card. Also, the cost includes a £2 "voluntary donation" that most people are unaware they are making. To save a little extra coin tell them you're a poor college student and can barely afford the expensive fee without a hidden "voluntary donation" thank you very much... or something like that anyway.

OK I'm going to load photos to picasa.

Tomorrow we probably will have nothing to report, but Thursday we shall truly be on our own in Europe, as set out for Madrid.

Stay tuned! And if you're bored in the meantime, check out my girlfriend's blog about her gap year in Taiwan!

http://michelle-taiwan.blogspot.com/

Thanks for reading!

Follow comment and do whatever else people do on the internet...

actually...

just follow and comment

David out

Edit: The link to our Picasa Web Album is http://picasaweb.google.com/103364498072441154285/Eurotrip?feat=directlink

3 DAYS LEFT!!

David Speaking
It's September 9th and commence our invasion in 3 days!
Needless to say I'm ecstatic! I've been busy contacting the relatives of mine we shall be bunking our travels. For the most part though, we shall be relying on youth hostels. I don't have time for a long post so I thought I'd post a quick itinerary of the first few days of our trip.

We are arriving in London on the afternoon of the 12th. For we will be staying until the 15th just outside of London with my Grandmother. We'll probably have a few raids on London, but nothing too brazen yet. On the 15th we report to my uncle's house, further south. On the 16th we depart for Spain and will be landing in Madrid, where our journey truly begins.

Well that's all I have time for right now!
Thanks for reading! Get ready for the trip of your lives... well of our lives anyway.

About the Author: David

So I figure we need an intro to what exactly is going on.
To tell a bit more about ourselves. So here's a start.

Many of you may be wondering why a pair of teenage guys are going to be wandering the expanse of Europe in the middle of the school year. The reason is that we are both in our gap year; our year off between high school and college. After our year off, we will both be attending Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering as part of the class of 2015. We decided to utilize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and explore the great beyond... of Europe.

Just to make sure this is clear, there really are two of us. I am not schizophrenic... In case you were wondering...

Anyways, after 3 months in Europe I (David) will be rounding off my gap year with an internship. I'll be working with a research group that focuses on tissue engineering located in Boston.

So who am I? I am an 18-year-old originally born in the UK, but who has lived in Massachusetts for 16 years. I am a complete nerd; I love science, math, gadgets, computers, etc. I live in a town with less industry than the average pineapple, who's claim to fame is that the poem, "Casey at the Bat", took place in herein. I have a passion for biomedical engineering, and will always be a fan of the Fire Emblem series. I am unbeatable at Super Smash Brothers (and if you want to test that I'd be happy to take you on online).

I love food of any kind, and am rarely without a good book. I am also a cancer survivor (Leukemia) and a lover of animals. I live at home with my mother, step-dad and adorable cockapoo (that's a dog). I also have a pet bearded dragon named Kira. My sister attends UNCW in North Carolina. I have a wonderful girlfriend named Michelle. Anyone interested in Asia should check out her blog, as she will be spending her gap year as an student in Taiwan. She just arrived this morning. I miss her terribly.
Here's the link: :


Well that's a brief summary. Feel free to ask any questions you like; you'll find I'm a very open person.