Hey look I got shot. and a sphinx.
The last place you'd check for a security camera. And Look! I found a new setting on my camera!!!
Eiffel Tower pic. Couples like to put locks with their names on them on this bridge.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Pyrenees PIcs
A cool peak and a cool view from a peak
Don't you love the hole-in-the-ground toilets? Also a cool view
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Thoiry Pictures
Wolves are my favorite animal. It was really cool to see the pack hierarchy during feeding time.
Well hello there tiger!
Awesome.
Up close and personal!
My second favorite animal! (yes ladies and gentleman, that was a joke)
Sleeping snow leopard. They're so cute!
Snow leopards are one of my favorite animals in the world! They're so elegant and beautiful...
Why are there so many ostriches? (technically this isn't an ostrich, but i don't care)
Now there's a cat I'd like to bring home.
Such a cute Tamarin! I wish I could keep it!
Some Pictures from Paris
The Eiffel Tower looks amazing at night
Pretty good view, huh?
The Arc du Triumph as seen from the Effel Tower
There was probably something good behind Derek's face...
I'm BACK!!!
Hi David is BACK!!
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.
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
Toulouse
I'm going to let David tell you about Toulouse since frankly there's not much to tell so two posts would be redundant. He'll append his section to this post once he writes it.
Edit from Derek: I don't feel like prodding David to do blog posts so I'm just going to write this one before it's too late. :P
We crossed into France by way of a bus from Barcelona. The first thing I noticed was the crisp, clean mountain air. Toulouse isn't in the middle of the Pyrenees but we did have to cross some fairly rural territory to get there. I also noticed that I couldn't communicate with anyone (since I only speak Spanish and English) and that the price of water had gone up. Oh well.
Toulouse was fairly easy to navigate - although it's not that large, it has a helpful metro system. After attempting to find an open hostel, we eventually decided to save some money and set up our tent at a local campsite. We got real French baguettes and settled down for a cheap night of sleeping on the ground.
The first order of business in the morning was to find a hostel for the next night. This objective was quickly superceded when we passed a nearby bakery and decided it was mandatory to purchase a croissant and a pain du chocolat. Mmm!
After the bakery, we used Skype in a cybercafe to book a night at a cheap nearby hotel we had found in David's travel book. When we arrived at said hotel, they didn't have our reservation. In fact, they said the number we had called wasn't theirs! Turns out his book switched around the names and numbers of a few hotels, so we walked back across town to the hotel we had actually booked at.
We dropped our bags at the hostel we found and set out to explore the city. As it turned out, Toulouse was more of an introduction to France than an actual attraction in and of itself. We walked around for a while and admired some of the architecture, then headed to a shop and got baguette-sandwiches. (By the way, the food in France is awesome!)
The next morning, we hopped on a train to Lourdes, where we would start our trip into the Pyrenees. Ok, so Toulouse wasn't all that interesting, but it was a great jumping-off point for the rest of France.
Au revoir!
< Derek >
Edit from Derek: I don't feel like prodding David to do blog posts so I'm just going to write this one before it's too late. :P
We crossed into France by way of a bus from Barcelona. The first thing I noticed was the crisp, clean mountain air. Toulouse isn't in the middle of the Pyrenees but we did have to cross some fairly rural territory to get there. I also noticed that I couldn't communicate with anyone (since I only speak Spanish and English) and that the price of water had gone up. Oh well.
Toulouse was fairly easy to navigate - although it's not that large, it has a helpful metro system. After attempting to find an open hostel, we eventually decided to save some money and set up our tent at a local campsite. We got real French baguettes and settled down for a cheap night of sleeping on the ground.
The first order of business in the morning was to find a hostel for the next night. This objective was quickly superceded when we passed a nearby bakery and decided it was mandatory to purchase a croissant and a pain du chocolat. Mmm!
After the bakery, we used Skype in a cybercafe to book a night at a cheap nearby hotel we had found in David's travel book. When we arrived at said hotel, they didn't have our reservation. In fact, they said the number we had called wasn't theirs! Turns out his book switched around the names and numbers of a few hotels, so we walked back across town to the hotel we had actually booked at.
We dropped our bags at the hostel we found and set out to explore the city. As it turned out, Toulouse was more of an introduction to France than an actual attraction in and of itself. We walked around for a while and admired some of the architecture, then headed to a shop and got baguette-sandwiches. (By the way, the food in France is awesome!)
The next morning, we hopped on a train to Lourdes, where we would start our trip into the Pyrenees. Ok, so Toulouse wasn't all that interesting, but it was a great jumping-off point for the rest of France.
Au revoir!
< Derek >
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Meeting David's Family
When we left Paris, we took a train to a small town called Thoiry about a half hour north of the city. We were met at the station by David's second cousin, Mark. He and his wife, Leslie, had generously agreed to put us up for a few nights while we explored the surrounding area. That night, we met their children - Jamie, Lauren, and Hannah - and found out that Leslie was a fantastic cook (dinner included salmon quiche, which I loved). We also did laundry, which was a relief since I had run out of clean clothes the day before!
In the morning we took a walk down to a nearby safari park. This was almost impossible, though, as we were quite unable to get out of the house. Try as we might, the front door would not unlock. On the verge of climbing up to the roof from the back courtyard, I finally realized that the door was probably warped and suggested lifting the door while turning the handle. It would've been ironic if two Olin kids had been unable to open a door :|
So we finally got down to the safari park. It was a dreary day, but that worked to our advantage since we were basically the only ones there. We saw all the normal animals: various small animals, reptiles, ducks that made a noise like a vibrating wail. I can't describe it any better than that but I'll put up a video of it at some point.
We saw both the wolves and tigers being fed. The tigers were especially cool since there was a clear tunnel running through their enclosure that you could walk in. They were being fed beef hearts, and the trainers made are to throw them right on top of the tunnel so that the tigers would bound over, or stand on top of, the glass tunnel to eat the hearts.
There were ostriches in the safari park. Unfortunately, there were WAY too many ostriches...and the brochure said there would only be a few ostriches! This is a terrible vacation!
Obscure joke. If you didn't get it, you should probably just move along.
The animals weren't the main attraction at the park for me though. What I enjoyed even more was the labyrinth that we found. It was a giant hedge maze, with wooden bridges interspersed within the trails to make it more confusing. Since nobody else was around, we had a grand time playing tag and Marco polo in the labyrinth. We got very muddy, since it was hard to run around the tight turns in the mud without falling. Oh well. ^_^ we just did an extra load of laundry when we got back.
That evening, I was introduced to the TV show Dr. Who by the kids. I know my sister likes the show, but I had never watched it myself. I did enjoy the episode we saw though. (Note: I justify including this in the blog by saying that Dr. Who is a British show.)
We left Thoiry and continued on to Buc, just outside of Versailles. Helen, another of David's relatives, picked us up and drove us to her house where we would be staying for a few days. Her house was unlike any I'd ever seen - the front gate was set into one of the walls surrounding a main courtyard. Two of the walls were actually the house itself, and the last wall had a path that led to a greenhouse and a small yard. All in all, it would be one of my top picks for an ideal house design - just below that cool house with turrets and such on Maple Drive. It's really a very nice place!
We ate dinner with Helen and her two children, and she proved to be a fantastic cook as well by making Moroccan chicken. We never eat as well as when we're with David's family I guess XD
We slept reeeaaaally late that morning. I guess it was good for us to sleep in, since we needed a little extra rest. Once we finally dragged ourselves out of bed, we took a bus into Versailles to see the chateau.
The palace itself was very impressive - ornate and generally fit for a king. *shot*. Unfortunately it was ruined by the addition of some obnoxiously colorful and cheery Japanese statues. Seriously, they were worthless pieces if junk. I was like "I didn't pay 15 Euros to come see rainbow sunflower faces smile at me." Oh well, I guess. I hear the exhibit is controversial so you can probably find some pics online, and I'll upload some pics to my Facebook soon.
The gardens were HUGE! We could've spent all day wandering around in them. All I have to say is that I'm glad I'm not the head gardener XD the huge hedge patterns must take forever and a half to prune.
After some croissants, we headed back home to Helen's house, and that's where we are now.
Phew! We're finally up to date on our blog. Sorry about the gap in the updates - we hit a small section where it was hard to get wifi and it set us back a bit. We'll try to keep the blog current from here on out.
Oh, I forgot one important bit of information! We received a package containing the SPOT when we got to Helen's house. That's the GPS tracker that we were supposed to have from the beginning. Now, you'll be able to follow us in real time when we're traveling on an interactive map. I'll post the link to the map in the next update. But it's good that we have this since it'll make our parents less worried...especially with the recent terrorist arrests and such in France and Germany. Everyone's a little uptight....but I'm sure we'll be fine.
< Derek >
In the morning we took a walk down to a nearby safari park. This was almost impossible, though, as we were quite unable to get out of the house. Try as we might, the front door would not unlock. On the verge of climbing up to the roof from the back courtyard, I finally realized that the door was probably warped and suggested lifting the door while turning the handle. It would've been ironic if two Olin kids had been unable to open a door :|
So we finally got down to the safari park. It was a dreary day, but that worked to our advantage since we were basically the only ones there. We saw all the normal animals: various small animals, reptiles, ducks that made a noise like a vibrating wail. I can't describe it any better than that but I'll put up a video of it at some point.
We saw both the wolves and tigers being fed. The tigers were especially cool since there was a clear tunnel running through their enclosure that you could walk in. They were being fed beef hearts, and the trainers made are to throw them right on top of the tunnel so that the tigers would bound over, or stand on top of, the glass tunnel to eat the hearts.
There were ostriches in the safari park. Unfortunately, there were WAY too many ostriches...and the brochure said there would only be a few ostriches! This is a terrible vacation!
Obscure joke. If you didn't get it, you should probably just move along.
The animals weren't the main attraction at the park for me though. What I enjoyed even more was the labyrinth that we found. It was a giant hedge maze, with wooden bridges interspersed within the trails to make it more confusing. Since nobody else was around, we had a grand time playing tag and Marco polo in the labyrinth. We got very muddy, since it was hard to run around the tight turns in the mud without falling. Oh well. ^_^ we just did an extra load of laundry when we got back.
That evening, I was introduced to the TV show Dr. Who by the kids. I know my sister likes the show, but I had never watched it myself. I did enjoy the episode we saw though. (Note: I justify including this in the blog by saying that Dr. Who is a British show.)
We left Thoiry and continued on to Buc, just outside of Versailles. Helen, another of David's relatives, picked us up and drove us to her house where we would be staying for a few days. Her house was unlike any I'd ever seen - the front gate was set into one of the walls surrounding a main courtyard. Two of the walls were actually the house itself, and the last wall had a path that led to a greenhouse and a small yard. All in all, it would be one of my top picks for an ideal house design - just below that cool house with turrets and such on Maple Drive. It's really a very nice place!
We ate dinner with Helen and her two children, and she proved to be a fantastic cook as well by making Moroccan chicken. We never eat as well as when we're with David's family I guess XD
We slept reeeaaaally late that morning. I guess it was good for us to sleep in, since we needed a little extra rest. Once we finally dragged ourselves out of bed, we took a bus into Versailles to see the chateau.
The palace itself was very impressive - ornate and generally fit for a king. *shot*. Unfortunately it was ruined by the addition of some obnoxiously colorful and cheery Japanese statues. Seriously, they were worthless pieces if junk. I was like "I didn't pay 15 Euros to come see rainbow sunflower faces smile at me." Oh well, I guess. I hear the exhibit is controversial so you can probably find some pics online, and I'll upload some pics to my Facebook soon.
The gardens were HUGE! We could've spent all day wandering around in them. All I have to say is that I'm glad I'm not the head gardener XD the huge hedge patterns must take forever and a half to prune.
After some croissants, we headed back home to Helen's house, and that's where we are now.
Phew! We're finally up to date on our blog. Sorry about the gap in the updates - we hit a small section where it was hard to get wifi and it set us back a bit. We'll try to keep the blog current from here on out.
Oh, I forgot one important bit of information! We received a package containing the SPOT when we got to Helen's house. That's the GPS tracker that we were supposed to have from the beginning. Now, you'll be able to follow us in real time when we're traveling on an interactive map. I'll post the link to the map in the next update. But it's good that we have this since it'll make our parents less worried...especially with the recent terrorist arrests and such in France and Germany. Everyone's a little uptight....but I'm sure we'll be fine.
< Derek >
The City of Lights
We arrived in Paris having had little sleep because of the aforementioned train. After a lot of confusion over the fact that there is both a Rue de Vaurigard and a Boulevard de Vaurigard in close proximity, we navigated to our hostel and arranged for them to keep our packs until check-in time.
We had plenty of time before we could check in, so we went exploring. Paris has an easy to use metro system [albeit in French] so we had no trouble getting to the Eiffel Tower. We noticed that as you got closer to the tower, the average density of scam artists increased dramatically. We saw hundreds of vendors trying to sell knock-off souvenirs to tourists (and they all had the exact same merchandise so I can't imagine any of them were very successful). At one point, a guy came up to me and asked me to "model for him" while he started to draw me in a sketchbook. I refused, saying that I didn't have any money to pay, but he was quite insistent that I didn't have to pay unless I liked it. Eventually we just walked away.
The Tower itself was great. We took the stairs up to the first floor (308 or something like that by my count) and admired the view. Look on my Facebook for pics if you want to see what we saw. We then took the stairs to the second floor (around 320) which is the highest you can go on foot. We identified all the important monuments - the Louvre, Arc de Triomph, the Obelisk, etc. Then we took the elevator back down since we didn't feel like walking.
After that, we went over to Notre Dame, home of the famed Hunchback. We didn't go inside because there was a huuuuge line, but it was cool to see it from the outside.
While crossing a bridge near Notre Dame, we noticed that one side of it had hundreds of padlocks affixed to it with the names of lovers on them. I had never heard of this tradition before, but I figured it was to symbolize their everlasting love or w/e.
We went back to the hostel and crashed for the night. Nuit Blanche (literally "white night" but actually means "sleepless night") was that night but David didn't have nearly enough energy to go out. Nuit Blanche is a citywide celebration of the arts in Paris, FYI.
The next day, we went to see the Louvre. It happened to be the first Sunday of the month, which is the only day the Louvre is free. How convenient! We saw the famous glass pyramid and the matching inverse pyramid before navigating to the Mona Lisa. The painting was surprisingly small - since Guernica in Spain had taken up an entire wall, I had expected this famous painting to be a bit larger.
Aside from the Mona Lisa, I don't have anything else to say about the Louvre. I'm not an art person :P
When we exited the Louvre, we noticed that the Louvre, the Obelisk, and the Arc de Triomph were almost perfectly in line with each other, so we decided to walk towards the other attractions. The Obelisk was interesting, but far more worthy of note were the people who approached us. They told us they were from UNICEF and needed our signature on a petition for handicapped rights or something like that. We signed just to make them go away - and then they started asking for money. Loudly. The Donation column had been covered up when we had signed, but now we could see that each person had donated 20€. They got quite agitated when we refused, and tried to tell us that we had to give them something. Deciding enough was enough, we walked away, figuring that they were definitely not from UNICEF.
The Arc de Triomph is a lot farther from the Louvre than it looks. We walked for a good hour before we got there. We crossed under the world's busiest intersection (8 main roads opening onto a rotary) to get to the Arc. There was what looked like an eternal flame lit, surrounded by flowers. We weren't quite sure what it was for though.
This is a good place to tell you about the food in Paris. I've really enjoyed waking up every morning and getting a warm croissant and chocolate bread from a nearby bakery. And the crepes are great. I've had one with Nutella, one with butter and sugar, and one with a hazelnut spread. The only one I didn't like was the hazelnut - all the others were great.
We went up to the top of the Eiffel Tower for sunset that evening and watched the lights of Paris go on as the sun went down. It was a beautiful sight, and eventually the Tower itself was lit with lights.
We went down to the bottom and waited for 9:00. Every hour, on the hour, the Tower sparkles with thousands of small white lights. You really have to see it to appreciate the sight, though.
That concluded the interesting portion of our trip to Paris. The only other noteworthy event was the discovery that there were even more types of meat chips in France! In Spain, we found ham chips. In France, we found bacon, chicken, chorizo, and steak chips. :D I tried the bacon and steak ones and loved them both. What a fantastic idea.
We said goodbye to Paris and continued on to meet some of David's family...which I will talk about in another post.
Overall, I enjoyed Paris. Especially the food. :D
< Derek >
We had plenty of time before we could check in, so we went exploring. Paris has an easy to use metro system [albeit in French] so we had no trouble getting to the Eiffel Tower. We noticed that as you got closer to the tower, the average density of scam artists increased dramatically. We saw hundreds of vendors trying to sell knock-off souvenirs to tourists (and they all had the exact same merchandise so I can't imagine any of them were very successful). At one point, a guy came up to me and asked me to "model for him" while he started to draw me in a sketchbook. I refused, saying that I didn't have any money to pay, but he was quite insistent that I didn't have to pay unless I liked it. Eventually we just walked away.
The Tower itself was great. We took the stairs up to the first floor (308 or something like that by my count) and admired the view. Look on my Facebook for pics if you want to see what we saw. We then took the stairs to the second floor (around 320) which is the highest you can go on foot. We identified all the important monuments - the Louvre, Arc de Triomph, the Obelisk, etc. Then we took the elevator back down since we didn't feel like walking.
After that, we went over to Notre Dame, home of the famed Hunchback. We didn't go inside because there was a huuuuge line, but it was cool to see it from the outside.
While crossing a bridge near Notre Dame, we noticed that one side of it had hundreds of padlocks affixed to it with the names of lovers on them. I had never heard of this tradition before, but I figured it was to symbolize their everlasting love or w/e.
We went back to the hostel and crashed for the night. Nuit Blanche (literally "white night" but actually means "sleepless night") was that night but David didn't have nearly enough energy to go out. Nuit Blanche is a citywide celebration of the arts in Paris, FYI.
The next day, we went to see the Louvre. It happened to be the first Sunday of the month, which is the only day the Louvre is free. How convenient! We saw the famous glass pyramid and the matching inverse pyramid before navigating to the Mona Lisa. The painting was surprisingly small - since Guernica in Spain had taken up an entire wall, I had expected this famous painting to be a bit larger.
Aside from the Mona Lisa, I don't have anything else to say about the Louvre. I'm not an art person :P
When we exited the Louvre, we noticed that the Louvre, the Obelisk, and the Arc de Triomph were almost perfectly in line with each other, so we decided to walk towards the other attractions. The Obelisk was interesting, but far more worthy of note were the people who approached us. They told us they were from UNICEF and needed our signature on a petition for handicapped rights or something like that. We signed just to make them go away - and then they started asking for money. Loudly. The Donation column had been covered up when we had signed, but now we could see that each person had donated 20€. They got quite agitated when we refused, and tried to tell us that we had to give them something. Deciding enough was enough, we walked away, figuring that they were definitely not from UNICEF.
The Arc de Triomph is a lot farther from the Louvre than it looks. We walked for a good hour before we got there. We crossed under the world's busiest intersection (8 main roads opening onto a rotary) to get to the Arc. There was what looked like an eternal flame lit, surrounded by flowers. We weren't quite sure what it was for though.
This is a good place to tell you about the food in Paris. I've really enjoyed waking up every morning and getting a warm croissant and chocolate bread from a nearby bakery. And the crepes are great. I've had one with Nutella, one with butter and sugar, and one with a hazelnut spread. The only one I didn't like was the hazelnut - all the others were great.
We went up to the top of the Eiffel Tower for sunset that evening and watched the lights of Paris go on as the sun went down. It was a beautiful sight, and eventually the Tower itself was lit with lights.
We went down to the bottom and waited for 9:00. Every hour, on the hour, the Tower sparkles with thousands of small white lights. You really have to see it to appreciate the sight, though.
That concluded the interesting portion of our trip to Paris. The only other noteworthy event was the discovery that there were even more types of meat chips in France! In Spain, we found ham chips. In France, we found bacon, chicken, chorizo, and steak chips. :D I tried the bacon and steak ones and loved them both. What a fantastic idea.
We said goodbye to Paris and continued on to meet some of David's family...which I will talk about in another post.
Overall, I enjoyed Paris. Especially the food. :D
< Derek >
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
In the Heart of the Mountains
Having said farewell to Toulouse, we travelled by train to Lourdes, the closest train station to our destination: the Pyrenees, a fantastic destination for hiking. We discovered that we had some time before the next bus left so we found a supermarket and stocked up with very cheap food, especially on sandwiches (an inexpensive way to stay fed).
A series of three buses were required to bring us all the way to Gavarnie, totaling about an hour and a half of riding. We had a layover in Luz and took advantage of a library thingy there to access the Internet. That's where the previous teaser post came from.
Gavarnie was a small town. No, really. A shop or two, a few small hotels and hostels (closed until the ski season), and one or two farms made up the whole place. There was supposedly a campsite as well, where we planned to sleep. We found that it had closed a week ago after some investigation. Unfortunately, as mentioned before, the other hotels were not open yet. On the brink of deciding to camp in a random field, we came upon a rustic hostel that was unlocked yet had absolutely nobody inside. Not even a manager or housekeeper. We waited for a good 40 minutes until a man showed up. He let us inside (not like it was difficult or anything; the door was unlocked), gave us a short tour in French, and told us we'd pay in the morning. Then he left.
I really thought it was interesting that he would do that. For all he knew, we couldn't stolen anything we wanted. There was plenty of beer on the cabinets in easy reach, and probably food in the cabinets. I hate beer anyways, and we're the honest type of travelers, so we behaved. But the trust amazed me. That's not something you'd find in America.
After we paid in the morning, we left our main packs in the hostel and decided to take a hike. Being an avid hiker and outdoorsman, I was ready to go back to where I belong. We climbed up a ways to an angel statue on a steep hill, which turned out to be a shrine of some sort. Then we set our sights on a nearby mountain - our goal for the day.
The first obstacle we faced was a fence. When you think of an electric fence, you think of humming metal wires. Right? This fence was just one strand of a material that looked synthetic. After joking about getting shocked by it, I went to push it up to climb under and got a small jolt. It felt almost like static. Being a scientist at all, I decided to test whether it was just a bad static charge or if the fence was electric by touching it again. Long story short: Electric fences aren't always metal.
We climbed quite a while. There was no trail on this mountain, but there no trees so it was not hard to navigate through the long grass and shrubs towards the top. I will say this: Cow pies were everywhere. This was a very tall mountain, and eventually we started wondering how the he'll the cows got up there XD since we found them all the way to the top.
There were points where it got steep enough to institute a 3 points rule - in order to stay balanced, you had to have three points of contact with the mountainside at all times. This was mostly only because it was wet and there were loose rocks. But falling would have been bad.
We got close to what we thought was the top several times. I warned David about false peaks, but he didn't listen until we got to "the top" and found still another slope.
It was amazing when we reached to top. It was not the hardest peak I've climbed, nor the highest, nor the longest climb, but it had the best views I'd ever seen. 360 panoramic views of the valley below and sheer rock and ice walls of surrounding mountains. Cliffs stretching in all directions. Clouds rolling in BELOW us. Snow covering nearby peaks. It was fantastic. We added our stones to the cairn at the peak and started down.
Nothing much interesting about the climb down, except that it was much quicker than coming up. :P
We took a bus back to Luz and slept in a hotel there. Again, we were the only guests, although the owners were there this time.
Once we got back to Lourdes, we had 10 hours to wait until our train. And we couldn't even explore because we had our packs - not that we'd want to anyways, since there's not much to see in Lourdes. It's a place of pilgrimage for Catholics since some farm girl saw the virgin Mary appear, but neither of us are Catholic - and although I'm vaguely religious, I don't put any faith in ghosts popping up everywhere.
Our train arrived after 10 hours of mind-bending boredom. I'm surprised I didn't go insan-AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Sorry. Random fit of maniacal laughter. Those are normal, right?
The train to Paris was an overnight one, and we figures we could sleep on the train and save a bunch of cash. We also miscalculated how comfortable the seats would be. I slept for 6 hours or so just because I can sleep under any conditions, but it was not a restful night either way. When I woke up, though...we were in Paris! :D
A series of three buses were required to bring us all the way to Gavarnie, totaling about an hour and a half of riding. We had a layover in Luz and took advantage of a library thingy there to access the Internet. That's where the previous teaser post came from.
Gavarnie was a small town. No, really. A shop or two, a few small hotels and hostels (closed until the ski season), and one or two farms made up the whole place. There was supposedly a campsite as well, where we planned to sleep. We found that it had closed a week ago after some investigation. Unfortunately, as mentioned before, the other hotels were not open yet. On the brink of deciding to camp in a random field, we came upon a rustic hostel that was unlocked yet had absolutely nobody inside. Not even a manager or housekeeper. We waited for a good 40 minutes until a man showed up. He let us inside (not like it was difficult or anything; the door was unlocked), gave us a short tour in French, and told us we'd pay in the morning. Then he left.
I really thought it was interesting that he would do that. For all he knew, we couldn't stolen anything we wanted. There was plenty of beer on the cabinets in easy reach, and probably food in the cabinets. I hate beer anyways, and we're the honest type of travelers, so we behaved. But the trust amazed me. That's not something you'd find in America.
After we paid in the morning, we left our main packs in the hostel and decided to take a hike. Being an avid hiker and outdoorsman, I was ready to go back to where I belong. We climbed up a ways to an angel statue on a steep hill, which turned out to be a shrine of some sort. Then we set our sights on a nearby mountain - our goal for the day.
The first obstacle we faced was a fence. When you think of an electric fence, you think of humming metal wires. Right? This fence was just one strand of a material that looked synthetic. After joking about getting shocked by it, I went to push it up to climb under and got a small jolt. It felt almost like static. Being a scientist at all, I decided to test whether it was just a bad static charge or if the fence was electric by touching it again. Long story short: Electric fences aren't always metal.
We climbed quite a while. There was no trail on this mountain, but there no trees so it was not hard to navigate through the long grass and shrubs towards the top. I will say this: Cow pies were everywhere. This was a very tall mountain, and eventually we started wondering how the he'll the cows got up there XD since we found them all the way to the top.
There were points where it got steep enough to institute a 3 points rule - in order to stay balanced, you had to have three points of contact with the mountainside at all times. This was mostly only because it was wet and there were loose rocks. But falling would have been bad.
We got close to what we thought was the top several times. I warned David about false peaks, but he didn't listen until we got to "the top" and found still another slope.
It was amazing when we reached to top. It was not the hardest peak I've climbed, nor the highest, nor the longest climb, but it had the best views I'd ever seen. 360 panoramic views of the valley below and sheer rock and ice walls of surrounding mountains. Cliffs stretching in all directions. Clouds rolling in BELOW us. Snow covering nearby peaks. It was fantastic. We added our stones to the cairn at the peak and started down.
Nothing much interesting about the climb down, except that it was much quicker than coming up. :P
We took a bus back to Luz and slept in a hotel there. Again, we were the only guests, although the owners were there this time.
Once we got back to Lourdes, we had 10 hours to wait until our train. And we couldn't even explore because we had our packs - not that we'd want to anyways, since there's not much to see in Lourdes. It's a place of pilgrimage for Catholics since some farm girl saw the virgin Mary appear, but neither of us are Catholic - and although I'm vaguely religious, I don't put any faith in ghosts popping up everywhere.
Our train arrived after 10 hours of mind-bending boredom. I'm surprised I didn't go insan-AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Sorry. Random fit of maniacal laughter. Those are normal, right?
The train to Paris was an overnight one, and we figures we could sleep on the train and save a bunch of cash. We also miscalculated how comfortable the seats would be. I slept for 6 hours or so just because I can sleep under any conditions, but it was not a restful night either way. When I woke up, though...we were in Paris! :D
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