Alrighty, so it's pretty busy and fun over here all the time with everything I'm doing so for now, gonna throw a top lists post that I made on my train ride today.
It's a nice highlight of the 1st half of the trip.
**Drumroll please**
Top 15 Events of Trip (so far)
Random fun: Putting my hand in famous bodies of water (Thames, Seine, Grand Canal, Danube, Cote d’Azur/Mediterranean, Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, Trevi Fountain), Singing “London Bridge is Falling Down” on London Bridge, Riding all 13 metro lines in Paris
Best Looking People
Favorite sights/monuments
Honorable Mention: Heroes’ square (Budapest), Winged Victory of Samothrace (Paris), Grand Canal (Venice), Westminster Abbey (London), National Gallery (London)
Dishonorable Mention: Tower of Pisa, Mona Lisa
Things I’ve eaten a lot (too much?) of
Day 2 in Paris - A more beautiful touristy day
So the day started with meeting back up with the 2 girls and going up the Eiffel Tower in the early morning. It's definitely a nice experience to see the city from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Then, went back to Notre Dame to actually go in this time as the day before was a holy day with the cardinals and bishops walking through the streets near Notre Dame.
After that, I traveled alone as the girls had to take the train back to Germany where they had their summer abroad job. We did discuss possibly meeting up in Prague the next weekend.
I took the opportunity to attend mass in Notre Dame. It was a cool experience to do so in such a well known church. A beautiful ceremony.
After that was a visit to the Musee d'Orsay. I almost instantly became a fan and admired the works of Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Caillebotte and others. It's a well laid out and serene type of museum with a lot of nice open air, which makes it relaxing and pleasant to walk through.
This was a good lead-in to going to Versailles. The palace itself was average on the scale of palaces. However, the gardens were amazing. It spanned several acres and was extremely well maintained. It even had a "lake" in the middle where you can rent a rowboat. Here, while relaxing, I met a few local Parisians who were there to relax for the weekend. Wandering the gardens for 3 hours got me about halfway through everything. I had to call it a day though and take the train back to Paris. I'm gonna agree with everyone else who recommended it to me and say Versailles is a can't miss for anyone going to Paris.
Bright and early for my 5:30 am train to Paris! I'm excited about seeing the many things in Paris, seeing the people, and trying the food.
The Chunnel (channel tunnel?) train going across the English Channel was a cool first train ride in Europe. As my planned mode of travel for a lot of it, hopefully it'll all be as nice as this. I was served 2 breakfasts, a cold one followed by a hot one. I think I'm going to like traveling by train!
Immediately after getting to Paris, I dropped off my bags and off to the free tour by Sandemanns, this time in Paris. I got instantly good at the metro system and made it in 15 minutes to the meeting point when the receptionist said it would take 25.
While walking along the Seine with Pont Neuf, Ile de Cite, and the Louvre, I met 2 Australian guys, a young German couple, and 2 American girls. Since it is a 3 hour walking tour, during the 30 min lunch break, I ate with the German couple where the guy turned out to be a recent EE grad and hapa. Lunch was at a little French cafe where I had salmon and salad. I've already decided that Paris will be much better for my taste buds than London.
For the rest of the tour, we walk through several gorgeous gardens by the Louvre and conclude at the foot of Champs Elysees. The tour guide recommended those who want to go to the Arc de Triomphe to take the metro. I thought to myself, "no way, who the hell takes the lazy way to the Arc de Triomphe"? I was pretty jazzed in general having seen the Champs Elysees on the Tour de France. As the group dispersed, the 2 US girls came up and asked where I was headed. I told them what I thought about Champs Elysees, the Arc, and how walking up is the way to go. They had the same thought and so asked to go together.
The street was way commercialized. There's name brands from all over, though the only things of real note are a few car showrooms. The Arc itself was spectacular and really like how it looked and the power it conveyed in its structure. Crossing the roundabout in front of the Arc is like a human game of Frogger. It's pretty fun to do (though not how you're supposed to go - I later found that there's an underground).
After the Arc, the 3 of us decided to get food together. It ended up with us traveling the rest of the day together. I guess it is true that it's easy to meet other young travelers. These 1st days in cities have been pretty great so far in terms of meeting new people.
So this 3rd and final day in London was supposed to be a very chill day as I had thought that I had seen everything I wanted. However, with the way the museum closing times worked on Friday made it a fun and long last day/night.
I did decide to join Contiki's "Road to Rome" tour which goes through Paris, Switzerland, Munich, Venice, Florence, and Rome. I figured it may be interesting to try for 10 of my 35 days in Europe. It did mean that I will have to circle back and adjust to hit up the cities. Hence, the updated trip map itinerary zig zags a bit more.
A cool place to go is up St Paul's which is around 500 steps to the top. Inside is a whispering wall where whispers from 1 end of the huge round room tavels along due to acoustics to be heard from the other side. I did also hit up about 5 different museums. The natural history museum was full of stuffed dead animals and the coolest was the science museum which had things like a plastics area and telecom area. Maybe its the engineer in me talking that loved this stuff!
Also of note, I stopped by a McDonald's for a quick drink and also used their WiFi for a phone interview via Skype. McDonald's in London is more like a Starbucks. It is very nice on the inside with colorful walls, lounge chairs, internet, and people just relaxing in there. Food is about the same though.
Other highlights: singing London Bridge on the previously mentioned rather unimpressive London Bridge. Joining in on a party of young people by the Thames. Also, finding a little spot where I could walk down to the river and put my hand in next to the sand. I decided then that I will touch as many rivers/bodies of water in Europe as I could. I like water in general and having been "in" famous rivers like the Thames makes me happy.
People in London are pretty friendly. An example is a nice man who walked with me for 5 minutes as my next stop was along his route home from work. Turns out he's moving to the states soon.Turns out I roomed with 3 girls who were from TopDeck, which is like Contiki, for 18-35 year olds only. Talking to them combined with talking to Samee, who had been on Contiki and Luke who also had gone on 2 previous Contiki tours swung me towards joining for at least a part of my trip.
Other exiting bit of the morning, I moved hostels to YHA which was much nicer and cleaner than the Generator. It still had a good atmosphere for meeting other travelers.
Otherwise, it was a pretty relaxing day while figuring out more of my trip. Once that was done, it was time to head out and explore more. First stop: Eastern part of the city to London tower which is a large castle with many cool medieval artifacts including the royal jewels. Near there is also the Tower Bridge which I happened to be on as they raised it to let a boat pass through. This bridge is the one on ALL of the postcards. The bridge named London Bridge is far less impressive.
On the Southern bank of the Thames River, I sat and relaxed to soak it all in a bit. It was nice to just take in the view for a while before heading off to rie the London Eye in the late afternoon. The London Eye is the world's largest ferris wheel and offers a great view of the city including Westminister Abbey. As the sun set, the view from up top of the city was gorgeous.
I also happened to find a neat little rectangular solid glass souveneir with the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, and Tower Bridge on it. It's a clear little thing with 3D monuments inside. Now to decide what to do with this thing.....I guess display it with disco lights. =P
One thing I have noticed is that there are no big chain supermarkets around and the UK seems slightly lacking in selection of food and hygiene products.