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.
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