Europe, Part Two

Hello again :)

This is the second instalment of my Easter Break, which includes the last city we traveled in Europe, meeting my family back in Ireland, and then just some thoughts at the end.....

So, to get straight to it:

PARIS
Ahh, Paris. I'll say right off the bat, the Eiffel tower is cool. And other then that, I didn't like Paris.

Gasp! It feels so weird saying that.... how can someone not like Paris?! It's Paris! The city of lights, love, and crepes!

But while their crepes were delicious, their macarons even moreso, it was just a big city, full of people, super touristy, and old tall buildings without any charm. Even the Eiffel tower, which I admit was stunning - especially lit up at night - is really just a big piece of metal. I do recognize that Paris was the last stop, and by this time, I was exhausted, dehydrated, and severely missing home-made food. However, even with that in mind, I can strongly say that I will be okay never going back to France.

I still had some pretty cool moments though, one of them being: seeing the Eiffel tower for the first time (I think that's a given), and I really loved walking across the Love Lock Bridge. My friends are all cynics and were talking about how at least 70% of all those couples have probably broken up, gotten divorced, etc, and after I punched each of them in the shoulder, I sadly had to give them some credit, because they're probably right. It's such a touristy thing now anyways. Most of the bridge is panelled up now as well to prevent any more locks being put on, since all the added weight has caused damage to the bridge. But it was still pretty cool, and provided some really awesome pictures.

Other big things we did included going to the Louvre, walking through both the Sacre-Coeur, and Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, Moulin Rouge, Champs-Elysées, a couple museums, and Mont Parnasse. Pretty cool stuff.


It was interesting walking through the Louvre, seeing an astounding amount of beautiful art work, and then coming across the Mona Lisa. You can see it's encased in glass, is bordered off so you can't get close to it, and it even had a guard to the side - and obviously no other painting was safeguarded to that extent. Compared to many of the other paintings, I thought it was small and ... well, uninteresting. It's just a painting of a woman. If it wasn't famous, it would just be another painting to glance at and walk past. Yet here we all are, lining up and taking selfies. How easily we are all fascinated with things just because society convinces us they're important.





The view of Paris from Mont Parnasse. We didn't climb to the top of the Eiffel tower since all the tickets were sold out, but we did this instead, which I think is just as cool. We went up 56 (or something like that) stories, and got to see the entire city. We timed it perfectly, and got to see Paris slowly transition from day to night. It was very, very cool.





The Eiffel tower! Our second, and our last, full day in Paris we literally just spent the whole second half of the day looking at and taking pictures hahaha. It was awesome.

Ah, the love lock bridge. How picturesque.

Every hour for five minutes, the tower sparkles. It must waste a ton of electricity, but it's pretty....








DUBLIN
After Paris, I met my parents and brother back in Ireland for the next three days! We met in Waterford, where I showed them my apartment, my school, and my Dad showed me his left side of the road driving skills haha. Since he kept us all alive, I deem it a success! It's a different view from the front of a car, and I was reminded again how narrow the roads are here. Everyone also drives like they're on a mission. Needless to say, I'm okay with not driving here myself hahaha.

We were only in Waterford for half a day, since there's not much to do here. I think the main reason they came was cause it's where I'm living, so thanks guys! After that we headed to Dublin. To be honest, those three days were kind of a blur for me, filled with catching up on sleep, revelling in the chance to not make any decisions, and being incredibly thankful that I was staying in a hotel instead of a hostel.

Nevertheless, from what I remember haha, in Dublin we obviously went to the Guinness Storehouse. We got to see in detail each of the ingredients, how they make it, and how their advertising escalated, among other things. It was neat! Even though I don't really like Guinness, it's such a big part of what Ireland is known for that it was a really cool thing to experience.  We didn't really do much else in Dublin - for being the capital, there's not as much to do as you'd think. We walked around, saw the Dublin Castle (which is undeserving of the title "Castle," if I do say so myself), and I pointed out stuff I'd gone to or seen on St. Patricks Day, which was cool. Dublin overall was extremely crowded and busy, like claustrophobically so. It makes me very glad that I'm residing in a smaller, much less touristy part of Ireland.

We also went on a trip to Wicklow and Kilkenny! I hadn't yet been to the Wicklow Mountains, and it was great. It's been somewhere that I have wanted to go from the start, and though I would've loved to spend more then just an hour or so there, I'm just glad I got to see it. Trees, lakes, and mountains - it was stunning. Probably the closest thing to Canadian landscape that I've seen too, since I otherwise have not seen any mountains. From there, we continued on to Kilkenny, where I have been before, but obviously the rest of my family hadn't, so that was cool. Kilkenny is such a quaint, small city, so I think my parents really enjoyed it. It was a good end to the day.

And that was it! I said goodbye to Samuel and my parents at the airport the next morning, and then headed back to Waterford. It's crazy to think I'll be back at the airport to leave myself in just five weeks. Five weeks! I'm starting to think about coming home more often now, and I have mixed feelings, like I figured would happen. But before then, I still have three more days of school, and exams to get through - blech.


Mom and I on the streets of Dublin. It was ridiculously warm that day actually. I'm not sure how that happened. I think I've forgotten what heat felt like, but it was amazing haha.

We each got a complimentary pint of Guinness at the Storehouse. And I totally drank all of mine, what are you talking about?...... (if my sarcasm wasn't thick enough there, I definitely did not drink the whole thing. In fact, I only got through like 1/5th of it. If that. Twas a sad, sad day).

The Wicklow Mountains. Pictures don't even do it justice; it was amazing.







OTHER NOTES
- I think those two weeks, I literally took every type of transportation imaginable. We went on planes, trains, buses, trams, a boat, the metro, the underground, and we also used our feet a lot haha. I think the only thing we didn't do was bike. Biking was actually something I really wanted to do in Amsterdam, but it didn't work out. So instead, we just looked at bikes, because they were everywhere. Like piled on top of each other, spilling into the street, you're about to get run over by a massive herd of bikes, everywhere.

- Speaking of walking everywhere though, one of the guys has an app that told us how many km's we walked per day. I don't know what we averaged, but in Paris, in one day, we walked close to 20km! We were only a couple km's short of a half marathon distance! We didn't believe it at first hahaha.

- So, now that I've gone backpacking for close to two weeks, here are my views on it, if I'm not to arrogant to think that you'll want to read my views haha.
I think that traveling this way, with the right people, and with a good balance of planning and winging it, was simply freaking amazing. Poetic, right? ;) We had really good experiences with most of our hostels, so I have no complaints there. If nothing else, they remind you to never take for granted having a place to actually call home. Walking as much as possible allowed us to actually see the city - not just wave at it through a window, or just take pictures of tourist attractions. You get the creepy streets, and you get the amazing random views - you get it all. Waking up early, and staying out every night for as long as we could, not only made us feel like we weren't wasting our money haha, but gave us the chance to see and accomplish an incredible amount. Every night I just fell into bed, so tired, but so astounded at the world and what's out there. I felt so small, but in the absolute best way possible.

- On the flip side, I also think that backpacking is romanticized, perhaps too much. There is a difference between the glorification of travel, and what actually happens. The glorification is eating crepes, having full camera's, and feeling full of life. And while all those things are true, there is also the constant headache from the lack of water and proper food, ever accumulating dirty laundry you can't do anything with, and constantly feeling lost and vulnerable, like when you're stuck who knows where in France, with no idea where to catch your train that leaves in 10 minutes. It's not like every second is wondrous. Simply transporting yourself to a different country does not automatically change the way you think. Worries do not disappear, and when you're hangry (yes, hangry), and lost, looking at a map on a random street in a random city is not that fun. Maybe that's all knowledge that just comes with experience, and most of you already know all this, but it was an intriguing concept for me.

- To put it all in perspective, I would without a doubt, do this whole trip over again and change nothing, but it also was shocking how relieved I was when it was over. Twas an interesting enlightenment.

And with that, the European adventure is done! I have about a million more pictures that haven't made it to this blog, so I found one more (the best one, obviously) to end off with hahahaha. Have a good rest of the week everyone :)

They don't know I posted this picture..... shhh.....

Europe, Part One

I'm back! It's weird writing a blog again actually, even though it's only been a few weeks. Forgive me if I sound rusty ;)

So, during our two week Easter break off from school, eleven of those days were spent traveling to five different cities in four different countries. I went with three very cool people: Julie, my roommate; Carlos, who is from Spain; and Bert, who's from the Netherlands. It's weird to think that I've only known these people for three months, but here I went traveling around Europe with them. Yay for circumstances that create really fast friendships! hahaha. We actually accomplished a lot in that week and a half, so I've tried to narrow it down to the interesting stuff - in other words, this will won't be very detailed. Even so, it's still too much for one post, so I'll be writing two. A couple of cities today, a couple later.

So, here we go, with city numero uno:

LONDON
London was huge. It looks exactly like you would think it would look like, with these massive, white, majestical, old buildings surrounding you almost no matter where you go. Telephone boxes were on every street, double decker buses were a constant sight, and the entire city sparkled at night. In fact, we didn't arrive at our hostel until later our first night, so when we finally got out to explore, it was already 8pm. Our first view of London was when everything was lit up, and needless to say, that was probably one of the best moments on the trip.

Mostly, our adventures in London consisted of just walking around, seeing as much as possible. London is as expensive as everyone thinks, so there was no way we could possibly do all the touristy things without going broke in the first three days. We did choose one touristy thing though - the London Eye - and it was exceptionally cool getting to see the city from that high up.

My favourite London experiences were probably that first night, seeing everything in the dark, and our last day, when we went for afternoon tea. (Ugh - that sounds really lame doesn't it? haha). We had just spent a whole day walking, and it was really nice to just sit down in a cafe, drink English Breakfast tea in London, and look out at the city. It was one of those moments where I thought, "Holy shit! I'm in London drinking tea! How cool is this?!" This whole trip was very surreal, so any moment where the gravity of what we were doing or where we were was actually apparent, was very welcome ;)

London at night! The London Eye was the first thing we saw, followed by Big Ben. Obviously, pictures don't do it justice, but nevertheless, it's still pretty cool.








The famous London Bridge. We took far too many pictures, and then slowly meandered our way across it.













The guards in front of Buckingham Palace! We didn't get up close to any of them, but we actually lucked out. Without planning it, we showed up just in time to watch them change!








The Canada gate! This is right close to Buckingham Palace, and at first, none of us had any idea what it was for. Upon closer inspection, each of the columns had Canadian provinces on it, basically stating when each joined the country. It was cool! Obviously, we had to take a picture.

The Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey from the London Eye. It started raining about halfway through our ride, but even so, we still got some pretty cool pictures.







AMSTERDAM
Ironically, out of the four of us, I was really the only one who wanted to go to Amsterdam haha. Bert is from Holland, so it's analogous to me visiting Vancouver, and Carlos and Julie were interested, but not particularly excited. For some reason, I had it in my head that Amsterdam was going to be this quaint little city, beautifully lit up at night (I think I have a thing for cities at night hahaha), and there were going to be tulips everywhere, in front of all the characteristically tall skinny buildings. I think I'm too much of an idealist - though, except for the tulips, which were out of season, all of that was pretty much true.

We went on a canal cruise, walked through a flower market, and ate some strange, probably really unhealthy, Dutch food. Croquette was the first thing, and I didn't particularly like it. It's a fried roll filled with some sort of meat. Secondly, we tried frikandel (no, I still can't correctly pronounce it), which is basically a type of hot dog, with curry, mayonnaise, and onions on it. It sounds disgusting, right? Well, I tried it anyway, and surprisingly enough, very surprisingly, I actually kind of liked it. Who knew?!
We tried to go to the Anne Frank house too, but there was a two and a half hour wait, and at that point, it was windier then it was in Ireland, so with a unanimous vote, we went to a wax museum instead.... what a historical substitution, right?

I guess I should also mention that yes, we did walk through the red light district, and once was enough.
All in all, Amsterdam was beautiful, and I'm glad we chose it as one of our cities to visit.







The canals! And tall, skinny buildings! Oh, behold!










There is no escape from the bikes. No escape.

The I amsterdam sign! Both days we saw it, it was aswarm with tourists - so we took pictures from far away, and went back at night when it was quieter. I don't have any of those pictures yet though haha, so this'll have to do.






BRUSSELS
Brussels is the capital city of Belgium, and I loved it. If I were to go to any of these places again, I would come back here. Perhaps that's because I really love waffles, or perhaps that's because we only got to spend half a day there. Probably both, but whatever the case, Brussels was fantastic. Though, if I ever go back, I might want to learn French. Apparently, studying it for six years throughout school gave me nothing.

We decided to go on a walking tour of the city, which ended up being led by an Irish guy! We talked to him a bit about Waterford and Ireland, after he educated us on the history of Belgium. It's a small world, I guess. We also drank Belgian beer, and ate chocolate, waffles, and fries. Honestly..... I think chocolate is just chocolate. Maybe I didn't try the right stuff? I didn't taste anything particularly different between chocolate from home and Belgian chocolate. The fries were good too, but since I don't really like fries, I can't say much on that front either. Everyone else loved them though, so they must've been good. And the waffles, you ask? Let's just say I will always be disappointed with Belgian waffles at home from now on. They were melt in your mouth, diabetes on a plate, absolute deliciousness. The streets literally smell like chocolate and waffles all the time too. It's great. Unless you're walking through them hungry.

As a city, Brussels had a bit more of a modern twist to it, but since we only had one day here, we spent most of the time in the older, quainter section. (I know I overuse the word quaint, I'm sorry haha).
Favorite moment: obviously eating waffles!


Our hostel in Brussels was super cool. The whole common room was decorated with old ... artifacts, for a lack of a better word. They had planes, bikes, an old typewriter, etc.
Generally speaking, we lucked out with all our hostels. As long as you keep the expectations low, then it will always be better then you thought haha. We didn't spend a lot of time in any of them either, which helped.



One of the main buildings in the main square. One of the things we learned on our walking tour: this building was constructed improperly. If you look at either side of the building, they're actually unequal. The picture may not be the best to see it, but there's a pretty big difference. None of us noticed it at first, but once pointed out, it's literally all you can see. Even more, the door isn't centre in the column. It's significantly off to one side.
Consequently, if you ever want to insult someone Belgian style, you call them a drunken architect ;)

Mmmmmm.











BRUGES
Bruges is the second city in Belgium that we visited. We went here because everyone that we had talked to who had visited Belgium, said that Bruges was actually much nicer then Brussels. Since the two cities are close enough to each other, we decided to go. Weirdly enough though, all of us agreed that we liked Brussels better. This may have been due to the fact that Bruges was a smaller town (though more medieval, which was cool), and after the excitement of three big cities right before, it was kind of underwhelming. Bruges is also known for it's canals, and while impressive on their own, they were nothing compared to the canals of Amsterdam. And while seemingly meaningless, the weather was much nicer in Brussels then Bruges, so that might have had something to do with it as well.

We decided to go on a walking tour here too, and needless to say, it also may have coloured our glasses in an unflattering light. In the first two minutes of the tour, our guide must've sworn at everything and everyone five times. His jokes were incredibly uncomfortable & inappropriate, especially considering the fact that we were basically strangers. It was weird. We all sort of wanted to leave actually, but weren't sure how to execute it without being rude. All in all, just a tip then: if you want to go to Bruges, just explore it on your own hahaha.



Windmills are a big thing here. So we walked for ages (not really, it was like 20 minutes), and got to see some windmills up close.














Canals, medieval buildings, and boats.

















The main square. It was substantially smaller then any of the other cities so far. Still pretty amazing though, especially when you consider that nothing like this exists where we live.








According to the tour guide, this is the most beautiful spot in Bruges. Why, I do not know haha. But here you go.









And, that's it for today! I have most of my next blog written already, so that should appear within another couple of days or so :)