Day 8: Italy (Final Day)

Oh hey, Italian keyboards are a wee bit irritating. Have been having to use a local internet "shop" to get online since getting here. So here's continuing the events of my journey.

Day 3:

Free tour of Paris using the New Europe tour thing. Fantastic walk, visited a large number of major sites without going into any of them (saw the tour eiffel at a distance, found out the egyptian obalisk is also an active sundial with numbers on the ground and everything). 3 and a half hours of walking in Paris makes for a looong walk. :) Met Connie from St. Louis as well as Brittney from Canada, and Del of England on the tour.

Connie and Brittney were convinced by my excitement of the pub crawl to join me and Nenette for the Parisian drinks night. Not as good a deal as London, and apparently we were supposed to take metro to the last place, but no one told us till we were several drinks in, so staying in Montmartre was the better idea.

Day 4:

Wake up, check out of Andre-Gill, and ran into Connie on our way to the metro to drop our stuff at Gard du Lyon for the day. Connie joined us, and thus our drunken pact of going to the Louvre together was fulfilled.

Between the two of us, we managed to see everything we'd wanted to see in less than 2 hours. Pretty good for the Louvre, it's massive!!. Took 20 minutes to escape though.

Met N at D'Orsay. Saw some William Blake, Monet, Manet, Cezanne and Picasso. I definately was way too excited about the awesome show of L'Opera and the stage's fantastic mechanisms.

From D'Orsay, N and I took of running and managed to make it to both the Eiffel Tour and the Bastille in an hour before grabbing our stuff at Gard du Lyon and running to B? (forgot the name of the station). We had an over night train to Rome leaving at 6. On the overnight train, we shared a compartment with four members of a family from India traveling around Europe for a month. They had a rather hyper little 3 year old with them, so N and I took the top bunks once beds started being pulled down and stayed out of the way.

Day 5:

Woke up at 9:15 to being given back passports and tickets by the conductor, thought we had an hour to get ready for getting into Rome...LIES!! Really just had 20 minutes. But we made it, got into Rome with no idea of where we were staying, some how we'd both forgotten and they never e-mailed us confirmation. Found this internet terminal place, same one I'm using now. Rather convenient. From there, the hostel was just on the other side of the train station, which became the center of our little neighborhood v. quickly. The hostel was easy enough to find a couple blocks away (Hostel Beautiful, Beautiful Accomodations, and Hotel Beautiful were 3 names, if you know more, I'd love to know them).

I took a 2 hour walk around Rome and found my way to the Colosseum rather quickly, then the major shopping streat. All streets lead to Nationale, just so you know. Met back up with N. checked in, and took off to explore the Colosseum and the Forums. Very interesting, and totally doable as a late afternoon enjoyment (though a large number of the smaller more intricate paths get closed at 1.30 in the afternoon just incase your planning a late afternoon jaunt but want to use those paths).

Dinner at a small family style place recommended by the receptionist. V. tastey, but a bit costly and waaay too big portions. Met our dorm mate at the hostel, Dan from NJ and another guy, Alex from Buffalo, got some bottles of less than 3 euro wine at the grocery in the train and took them back to the hostel till they told us it was closed at midnight. Took our bottles to the street and spent some time consuming at the trevi, before searching for pizza and killing the last two bottles on the walk back to the hostel.

Day 6: (Sunday)

Breakfast at the hostel really wasn't even worth having, so after some internet time to get the rest of this trip all planned out, Dan joined N and I for some semi-planned wandering through Rome. Everywhere you go, there's a piazza or monument or ruin of some sort, so plenty of breaks.

There's this awesome thing in Rome called "nozzi", which are nozzels that are constantly spouting water, which comes down from the Alpes. So no matter where you go, there's always a place to stop and get a drink of water. Sadly this is not also the case for bathrooms. So a stop at Burger King led to ordering french fries and nuggets...with Hines curry sauce for dipping...all in all, totally worth the stop.

A nap and some reading time later, starting the sightseeing all over again with dinner in mind this time. The three of us headed out west of Piazza Republica (which became another central landmark) and found a piazza with a street off of it of restaurants with outdoor seating. They all had the exact same menues at varying prices. The ones with glass structures or covers were expensive, while the ones that were simply tables were nicely priced. So picking one of these, we stopped and enjoyed much better portion control than the night before. Also, I wanted tagletelli, but pretty much everything came with a meat sauce except one of the stuffed pasta, so I asked for tomato sauce and lucked out that the waiter was nice enough to mix things up for me. "Only for you." When the plates were served, my plate definitely came from the restaurant next door. Oops.

Headed back towards the hostel and stopped at this lovely little pastry shop (where I plan to stop after finishing this post) for absolutely fantastic dessert and some burned espresso. The hostel had closed the common room, so we got our 4th roommate, Harry, in on the movie we all wanted to see and put on "The Invention of Lying."

Day 7:

Up late, lazy morning, while trying to get stupid things finished. Didn't leave for the Vatican till 11, but took the very very long way and ended up there sometime around 3. On the way saw the Trevi Fountain again, Piazza Navoa (?), and so many other Piazza's I can't even start to tell them all.

Made it to St. Peter's and got turned away. While we'd both worn skirts, we had neglected to bring something to cover our shoulders. Had to go several streets away to find cheap pashmina scarves and go back. It was absolutely beautiful.

We didn't make it to the Sistine Chapel, as the Vatican museum cost 14 euro, and we had 20 minutes in which we might attempt as much as possible. Didn't seem cost smart.

Headed back to the hostel via Villa de Medici, which is apparently not something you can tour and is just the French Academy now...lame. Split up. I tried to take the metro, but just as I got there, it closed, so I had to walk back to the hostel with decidedly painful feet and a terribly slow pace.

N obviously beat me back. We chilled out and took a rest after meeting our new 4th dormmate, Tom from England. After a couple hours, Harry came back and enlisted us all into going to his favorite restaurant way back east over by the Piazza Navora (? still can't remember it's real name, will fix later). Bussing it this time, for sanity and non-painful feet, we got there pretty quick.

It was a fantastic restaurant, who's name I can't remember, because I'm decidedly bad at that part of traveling. Biggest menu options I'd seen the whole trip. Tom and I went big and ordered both pasta and salads. Sicilian salad had the best sun-dried tomato I've ever had on it, and the spegetti with muscles and clams were fantastic. Accedentally ordered waay too much wine, but it was mostly consumed....no wine ever went to waste in our travels. :)

Wandering from there ended up at a small bar for espressos and saw six or so more piazzas having crossed the river to the east/south parts of the city. Nice wanderings, and night busses do exist. Made it back and attempted to watch "Alice in Wonderland". Obviously I failed in the attempt and from what I've gathered, so did everyone else. Falling asleep tired is good.

Day 8:

N. woke up early this morning to catch her flight to Madrid. I'll follow here this evening. Due to some accidents of booking, this and our return are the only times we're not traveling together. So I'm about to be off to find pastries and chocolate, once James and I have figured out meeting up in Madrid for some friend hanging time.

Day 3: Paris (Day 2 ici)

Day 1 (cont.): Went on the Royal Tour. Apparently there are free tours in every major European city provided by New Europe Tours. So we took the Royal Tour. Saw "Not one, not two, but three royal palaces" (to quote the tour guide Smith, who made exaggerated hand motions upon announcing three royal palaces). It rained the whole time. He told us when he picked us up at St. Christopher's Inn on the West Bank that it would rain through the whole tour. Except it wasn't a bad rain, just consistent. My shoes were soaked, they've only just now started to dry. Thank goodness for back up shoes.

After the tour, went back to the hostel, repacked suitcases and tried to get to the airport. Took the wrong train. Oops. Finally boarding the right train, we only barely made it to the airport. Security took my cellphone and took forever checking it. Apparently my turned of American phone instigates security concerns (good knowledge for future flights of which we still have a number). Ran for the gate. Literally. Took off my shoes and everything for a full on run to the gate. Made the flight no problem and had a short jump talking to an adorable French boy who giggled a lot.

The hostel was just off the Place du Republique, which looks like a beautiful little square. The hostel was just a little bit ugh, and one of my doormmates was a little bit of a bitch when I came back later to go to bed, but the lock has to be locked.

Had pizza and wine at a cute little place. "Minced meat" on a pizza is essentially a meat sauce (i.e. pasta meat sauce), good though. There was a nice man Oliver who sat at the table next to us (after a couple you girls who had a depressing conversation about marriage, which we picked up post their departure). Oliver was able to tell us how to get to Versailles, so that we could get there even if we didn't have wireless to look it up. Then we had a nice little chat about the benefits of a city such as Philadelphia vs. New York. Philadelphia was winning, btw.

Day 2: Bright and early, my roommates all started departing (between 5:30 and 7). I wasn't due to wake up till 7:30, lack of sleep *sigh, oh well. Grabbed a roll (more like a mini baguette), our bags and headed for Guard de Nord to leave our bags (also grabbed a chocolate croissant at a tiny little place just before the metro). Then on to St. Michelle to pick up the RER C to Versailles.

Versailles is huge, massive. Not the main palace, which is essentially only the royal family, that's decently grand of course. I always forget that the "wings" are also several large buildings to either side of the building, which housed the court. We didn't tour those. But the gardens were the killer. Seriously, they never ended. Pictures show the canal disappearing into the horizon. Can I have a backyard like that please? Grand Trianon is pink. No one told me this. It was adorably pink. And had an open walkway between the two sides of the building. The weather was absolutely perfect for the whole thing and they sold ham sandwiches (read: ham, butter, bread) and San Palagrino, which cost the same as a bottle of water. A nice lunch. Hit all of the estate except some of the massive gardens and the village (it was already a v. long day at that point and all we could handle was the v. long walk back to the chateau and the train station) Fell asleep on the train, because I do stuff like that. N. woke me up to tell me we missed our stop and would just get off at the next one. The next one was our stop. Lol. :)

Back to Paris (and Guard de Nord) to grab our bags and get over to Andre-Gill where we stayed last night and will stay tonight. It's an adorable budget place in Montmartre. Went to a bar on the corner to get internet. Was convinced into buying a mojito that was so filled with mint I really couldn't even be bothered to fight with it to enjoy the actually good taste of the drink itself. Internet at the bar is good though, I charged up, did research, freaked about funds, and headed back to the room for a mini-nap while N. got lost in the neighborhood just a bit. (Tons of cute little souvenir shops, will have to buy some pictures and a scarf, good prices, lots of market competition around here).

The neighborhood is still awake enough that we could go out for a "traditional" French meal at 10:30 or so (got back to the room close to 1, so possibly later, but people were still being seated at 1). A small bottle of wine, some escargot and a lovely little salad made for a good dinner.

Day 3: Good morning. It is now 8:14. I've been up for a while (time for a shower and getting dressed). Our window overlooks a lovely start of a road thats been cut off from road traffic. The building connects all around and the apartments across the way seem pretty nice. Stood at the window for ages last night and took a few minutes to enjoy the crisp air. The air definitely smells and feels different. It feels wet without being humid (I'm convinced there's a ton of water in the air, since my shoes just really wouldn't dry).

Back to the bar for a cafe au lait and some internet access. I now understand how they do the artful designs in the milk froth. Will grab breakfast at an adorable bakery, and maybe a bit of the complimentary breakfast to put in bags on our way back past the hotel.

Plans for the day: I'll be going on the free tour of Pairs, then running over to the Louvre to see the Mono Lisa (non-debatable). N. and I will meet up near the Eiffel Tower maybe, to do a bit of window shopping and wandering. I'll pick up our pub crawl tickets, because awesomely, besides free tours, this company offers pub crawls in all cities for a cheaper fee than buying drinks ourselves. Already got tickets for our return to London. Lol.

Places I'd like to hit:

- Notre Dam

- Champs d'Elysee

- Bike rental (get lost on a bike for a while)

Day 1: London

First Day abroad. 9:08 am London time. 4:08 Philly time. Fuck life.

But not really. Headache, but last night's celebratory "We're Here!" pint hit me just a bit (not food except plane food doesn't make for a good drinking base, *sigh). Other than that...IT'S MORNING!! My usual fake get ready for the day fake out is ftw, I'm definitely down that it is a morning.

Last night was pretty crazy, the train line we were supposed to take to get to the West Side, where our hostel is, was totally shut down. Damn Bank Holidays being awesome construction days. Lol. Transfers and whatnot, eventually we found where we were going.

The hostel (St. Christopher's Inn) has a pub. Wireless internet is better accessed at this pub. Obviously you know what we did as soon as we got our bags settled. PUB! :)

Got a couple pints of Tiger Lager then went and sat in an alley trying to get a connection...no connection. Moved inside and spent two hours trying to get on, but eventually I found a way and I'm down.

Now, here I am, day 1, 9:16 (4:16) am. Bar becomes breakfast place...bread and jam (and some damn good marmalade) makes a nice morning.

....

And this post is delayed due to conversations with strangers (Philip of Australia) and needing to get going for the walking tour of Royal London. Yay!

Later,

Sarah