Final Moments in Paris

We visited a few more stops before we left: Sacre-Coeur & Montmartre and Moulin Rouge. We only got to see the outside of Moulin Rouge. It looked like a fun way to spend an evening.

The walk to Sacre-Coeur was charming. The streets were full of shops and bakeries and cafés. We walked up the tourist street, where we bought some matching scarves and some other small souvenir items.

The Sunday afternoon welcomed locals and tourists as they relaxed and enjoyed the sights from Sacre-Coeur.

Because it is on a hill, the view was incredible. You could see all of Paris. On the way, we were accosted by Africans who forced their friendship bracelets on us. We listened humouredly as they wove the bracelets within minutes and wished us "well-wishes."

"You have boyfriend? Is he black or white? Ooooooh. Very good." We laughed until he wished, "When you're married to him, may you have FIVE BABIES!" Aaaaah. No no no. No child birth. This is now an accursed African friendship bracelet!

The cathedral was also beautiful: the candles were lit and people prayed as the gloriously painted icons looked down. It was so very peaceful.

We walked the streets of Montmartre and picked up some food for our bus trip. Finding the bus was stressful for a moment because there weren't any signs to show the way, but we found it with plenty of time to spare.

The view from the bus (France-->Belgium-->The Netherlands) was beautiful. Unfortunately, the sun set and most of the trip was in darkness, but what we did see was nice: horses grazing in a misty field, castles casually situated in the countryside, white brick houses with smoke streaming from the chimneys, soft hills with autumn colors, rivers with the white bark of birch trees reflecting in the water...mmmm. Savory sights.

It was amazing that only an hour out of Paris we were seeing farms, castles, and chapels, which were always the tallest building, overlooking the towns.

We arrived safely in Amsterdam, but all the public transportation was closed, so we took a taxi to our hostel. Our driver was hilarious and super nice. He offered the trip for 15€, but at the end he said 10€ because he liked us. That's a pretty good deal. :)  He spoke great English and joked around with us, saying I must be a Russian spy since I speak Russian and that we must be from Seattle or San Francisco because I look like a hippie. But we're at our hostel now, and we're comfy and ready to rest.

I can't wait to see what Amsterdam has to offer us!

The Louvre and Notre Dame

We packed bread with brie and salami, filled the water bottle, and went to the Louvre. We ended up being satisfied with a shorter visit (4 hours). It was so huge and there was so much to see!

We got to see the Mona Lisa and some wonderful Greek statues, but my favorite exhibit was the artifacts from Mesopotamia. One of the pillar tops from Darius' palace was there. It was enormous and the gravity of how much wonderful ancient architecture we have lost weighed very strongly on me. I would give so much to walk through the palaces and gardens of Babylon and Persia. Just seeing the meagre remnants made me teary-eyed. In its completeness, I would I have been flooded! Really, I have never seen anything that could have been as grand. Even the jewelry on the busts of women looks like it was incredible.

Let's hope we never lose the Louvre, as the libraries of Alexandria.

After dinner, we walked along the Seine with ice cream, (the most delicious and expensive I've ever had), until we reached Notre Dame. The cathedral was beautiful.

Nearby, we listened to a lady singing opera on a bridge. I got emotional again (was a trend today). To make it worse, a little boy gave the opera singer a pretty leaf he found on the ground. She accepted it so graciously, and it was just such a precious moment.

We sat by the river and just took in the sights. The weather was so nice and the atmosphere so pleasant! We are in France!

And everything is perfect.

To conclude our evening (after a bizarre adventure trying to figure out the public toilets), we bought a bottle of wine and a pack of cigarettes and sat on the stone edge on the Seine. We laughed and talked about our boyfriends: a conversation which got sillier as the bottle got emptier.

Eventually we got back to the apartment after asking a few people for directions, because our abilities to navigate the city of Paris got a bit muddied.

That being said, I strongly suggest sharing a boutteille de vin avec votre bon amie en le Seine.

The Eiffel Tower and Versailles

After we had some sufficient rest and a breakfast of French pressed coffee and baguette, we headed out to see the Eiffel Tower and to visit Versailles.

At the tower, a man tried to sell us a miniature Eiffel, and he would not relent. He heckled from 7€ to 3€, and we still walked away without a mini Eiffel and five free even mini-er keychains.

We took a train to Versailles. Each individual car had a theme. Ours had decorative ceilings, and the part below us (it was a double-decker train) looked like it had antique books on the walls.  It was lovely getting out of big Paris to the suburbs. The streets and rows of houses were so quaint.

When we got to the Versailles station, we purchased our entrance tickets and went to get food at the Brasserie across the way.  We got our French fine dining in, ordering escargots (which were absolutely delicious), duck terrine, steak with onions, and red wine. It was all delicious, and I was kind of freaking out the whole time about the experience. I really love food, and this was actually pretty affordable in comparison to downtown Paris and Reykajvik.

We then made our way up the hill toward the Palace of Versailles.  We walked through a corridor of trees with golden leaves, and there, at the end of the walk, was the beautiful palace I've longed to visit since I was a small child looking at my mom's books with pictures of Versailles from her travels at my age.

Gabi and I got a little giddy as we walked across the cobblestone lot up to the ornate walls and never-ending gardens of the palace.  The day was pleasant and warm, and we were more than satisfied and exhausted when we ended our tour and hopped back on the train to Paris.

Paris!

We arrived in Paris around noon and meet Adeline, our Couchsurfing host, at the Gate du Nord Metro station. She is so sweet! Her apartment is small and charming and has a beautiful view of the Parisian roof tops.  To get there, we walked through one apartment building and through a small courtyard full of plants.  Her apartment awaited us at the top of 6 flights of spiralling stairs with big white paned windows facing the courtyard. We were out of breath at the top, but Adeline had prepared a quiche for us, so we set down our luggage and relaxed in the arms of French hospitality!

After we got our bearings, Adeline took us downtown and showed us the highlights and her favorite places.  We saw the Arc de Triomphe, walked down the Avenenue des Champs Elyseés, caught a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, had coffee & crepes avec ganache in the Jardin de Tuileries, and took pictures around the Louvre.

The architecture is so consistently beautiful; it's almost overwhelming. There are also so many people here! Gabi and I agreed that it is too crowded and stressful to live in Paris. It's too bad we don't have time to go to smaller cities.

We plan on relaxing the next couple of days and enjoying Paris at a slow pace.  We are already overloading ourselves and we still have two cities to go!

Iceland, pt 2

28 Oct

We woke up before the sun and took Bus 11 to our destination. We got to see the morning commute of the local school children and some workers. Even the children are beautiful ans sweet, (usually well behaved.)

Our tour bus picked us up at Harpa, a massive, state of the art concert hall. The architecture was perfect. The outside was covered in illuminated glass panel, that shimmered colorfully, and the interior was spacious, friendly, and new.

We were greeted by our tour guide, Anna, and began our bus tour of the "Golden Circle." We were accompanied by a couple Midwest Americans, a Norwegian couple, a Spanish lady, and two couples from Britain: an older couple the south and a younger from the north.  The older couple's accents were deep and difficult to understand, but we all got a kick out of them.  The man solely referred to his wife as "sweetie," but he was a bit obnoxious. He insisted that we had Canadian accents, even though we told him we were from the US. He had some snarky remarks, saying Americans can't stand on their own two feet when we skipped on some mud walking down a sleep decline (for which he stayed in the bus, mind you).  We learned of his idiosyncrasies a bit more when he would request something to be in English instead of Icelandic when it was inappropriate and state that there was something the matter with a place if English is not widely spoken.

The younger couple just smiled and was friendly and laughed at my jokes. I liked them.

Our first stop was a geothermal/hydroelectric powerplant that harnesses the heat and hot water near a volcano to power and heat all of Reykjavik and the surrounding areas.  The society has really benefitted from this clean energy. The roads are geothermally heated, which keeps ice off the roads in the  winter. The hot water also helps power greenhouses that provide the country with fresh produce, like bananas! Most of their food is local and organic, which is impressive and delicious.

Next, we visited some waterfalls, a crater, a geyser, and the national park.  We had a lunch of fish soup and lamb soup, both of which were delicious, but overpriced like most food here.

The sights were amazing. I can't really put it into words, so we'll have to suffice with pictures.

Back in Reykjavik we got some coffee and visited the Phalloligical Museum, which, for decency and the same of my readers, I will spare the details. I will say that it was an interesting and laughable experience.

We found a shoddy little corner store and ordered "hot dogs with everything," which had mustard, fresh onion, and french fried onions (or something similar).  They were actually cheap and surprisingly delicious. We also had ice cream. Iceland had mastered the art of ice cream, tell you what.

When we finished our budget meal, we searched out the Hallgrimskirkja Church and then went home to pack. We leave for Paris at 6:30am.

Iceland, pt 1

27 Oct.
We arrived at the Keflavik airport, and we were immediately amazed by the sleek architecture and cleanliness of everything. The bathrooms were actual rooms with their own sinks!

Our bus driver welcomed us with a sign that read my name. I felt fancy and a little famous. As he drove us to our bed and breakfast, we got an education. He was hilarious, giving us all sorts of pointers and comedic and well-meaning advice.

He warned us that there was a serious disease spreading in Iceland: everyone who visited gets infected and always wants to come back to Iceland. I told him that I was already infected.

He was from Lithuania, so we chatted in Russian. He referred to Putin as "Putlin," drawing a comparison to Hitler and told us all about Icelandic bananas, some WWII barracks, and the one and only McDonald's burger in Iceland. Apparently this burger has been televised online for the past four years. He said he would never eat one now that he's seen how long this one has lasted.

When he dropped us off, he said (in Russian), "Thank-you for speaking in Russian! I'm going home and telling my brother!"

Our room at the Blue Guesthouse B&B is in a side house they call a bungalow.  We get breakfast in the morning, but this night/morning we just had some cereal. We were exhausted, so we went to bed.  The beds are so comfortable, warm, and smell welcoming and delicious. I don't know how to make a bed smell delicious, but Iceland does!

We slept until 4pm, which is a bummer, but at least now we're well rested!  I woke up with a headache, but a quick walk up the hill with a powerful wind and misting rain. Cleared it right up!

The air smells like sulfur and the ground is soft to walk on. Ascending the hill, we jumped over volcanic rock and puddles of melted snow. At the top we could see the city of Reykjavik to west, mountains to the north, and the Arctic Ocean to the southeast.

We walked back down the hill and happened upon Bus 11, which took us to Laugaveger Street, which is a long brick road with cafés, bars, boutiques, souvenir shops, hostels, and everything in between. The walls are painted with intricate and bright graffiti.

Everyone speaks English here (95%!), so travelling was easy. We stopped at a place called 73 Restaurant and ordered Icelandic beers, Arctic cod, and lamb steak. Everything was delicious! The potato fries were especially yummy.

We ended the night at a coffee shop to use some WiFi and update you all about our trip...

...and to eat waffles. Tasty tasty waffles...

Boston ✈✈✈ Reykjavik

26-27 October

Our trip has officially begun!

We decided to fly cheap as possible. It's uncomfortable, but we're saving at least $1000! Brief overview of "travels to:"

I nearly forgot my coat in the car at Detroit. That would have been bad.

Boston was mostly uneventful as we spent most of the time trying to find socially acceptable places to nap.  We ate breakfast at Dunkin Donuts listening, humouredly, at the almost elegant Boston accents of workers in their mid-morning coffee break.

We walked with the light, chill breeze into downtown, under bridges and by the bay. We watched tourists mockingly defy the power of Great Britain by enthusiastically throwing fake boxes of tea into the river.

To our great luck, we happened upon a park full of red lounge chairs and took a 3 hour nap in the company of other weary travellers and Boston-ers.  The park had community gardens on the edges and delicious, seemingly healthy food carts that lit the air with yummy scents.

The city, from what we briefly saw, seemed clean bright, and beautiful. Maybe I could live there, but I'd feel snobbish and pretentious. Perhaps it's too clean.

We ordered food and got bussed back to the airport where we waited 6 exhausting hours for our delayed flight with WOW airlines, "Iceland's most punctual airline." Our reaction turned from "wow!" to "wow..."

We've already met some interesting people: a family of Ukrainians (who I of course practiced my Russian on), a 1950s BGSU alumni (small world!), and a pair of 30 year olds who looked like they were 20 because they had "good Asian genes." The latter two were interesting until I realized they never were going to stop talking and their seats were so pleasantly and coincidentally right behind ours on our 5 hour flight.

But enough of the griping. We're on the trip of a lifetime! We are about to make our descent to Keflavik airport. We will be welcomed by a beautiful, stark chill and  50 minute bus ride to our B&B in Reykjavik.

So far, every Icelander is perfect and blonde. If the countryside is as beautiful as the people, we're in for a real treat.