In a blitzkrieg movement, I jumped at the opportunity to do a round of Western Europe. It had its ups and downs, and definitely gave me a chance to see and experience something different from North America and/or Hong Kong. Below, you’ll find a day by day recap, and possibly some links to pics and vids (as they are uploaded).
Day 0: We Count From 0
Essentially the flight to Paris itself is a day. Day 0 it shall be called. But look, Toronto police on Segway lookalikes!
Day 1: En route to Paris and its honeys
We were delayed by about 1-1.5hrs due to heavy traffic at Pearson (when is it NEVER heavy?) and, fittingly, thunderstorms. The Air France Airbus we were on was pretty disappointing — ancient touchscreen media centres, somewhat sloppy male flight attendants (I had Pepsi spilled on me), a general sense of uncleanliness and, worst of all, a urine odour. Somewhere during the 6-7 hour flight the piss smell went away (or we got too used to it), and upon arrival we were tasked with trying to navigate the Paris CDG airport.
Seriously, that airport is pretty massive and impressive; I wouldn’t be surprised if someone got lost before. They also let their drug-sniffing dogs run loose (with the controller somewhat close-by).
We immediately get thrown and stuck into Paris life: traffic grid-lock. Its around 9am local, its a weekday, we’re heading into the core…what did we expect?? Our bus putts around the Champs Elysees over to the Arc de Triomphe and we get out to do a little picture taking and to walk along some of the shops close by. We didn’t get a chance to actually cross the bloody busy roundabout to go UNDER the Arc, or even go to the top of it for that matter, but hey…we had fun anyway. One of the older guys (by older, I mean the dude is 80 but looks 60 at most!) decides to venture off a bit on his own and forget the time; Group Separation Count (GSC): 1.
We grab some lunch at a Chinese place (where else!?), stock up on some water at a Carrefour supermarket, and continue our journey off to first pick up our local tour guide Christine and then to the Palace de Versailles. The Garden is pretty immense, and the Palace itself is as well. One thing I was completely paranoid and fearing about Europe was the rampant pickpocketing. Sure enough, thieves would definitely make a small investment to get into the attractions and make quite a profit while there…and thats what a couple did! One of our tour mates, Gary (the man with a pro camera, as you may have seen from the Mobile Uploads gallery), had his pocket opened…and he was swift enough to notice and prevent his wallet from getting taken. Anyway, the Palace was exhausting, as it was tres grande.
After that, we hop back over into Paris to go on a Seine River cruise; see some of the other scenic landmarks while traveling in the main canal! And we did just that…with nothing too exciting to say. Ha. For dinner, we were graced with the chance to eat escargot and foie gras.
Hopped over to the Novotel Paris Est afterward and communicated with a couple of you whilst on their free wifi (supplied by Orange)! Its a good hotel, by the way! One thing I can really, really, REALLY complain about are the incredibly stupid water taps. For the sink, the handle faces upwards, so when you’re trying to rinse your face you can (and probably will) stab your eyes and/or face. For the shower, you HAVE TO pull the tab out BEFORE and while activating the water…trying to do it the other way round is impossible since the little tab is all metal and wet hands are useless on that little metal tab.
Day 2: More Parisian girls
After an interesting breakfast (incredibly watery scrambled eggs) we headed off to the Louvre museum. This place is HUGE, and everything cannot be seen in one or two days, let alone 1-2 hours. Whilst in the museum, there was another pickpocketing alert, and we fully saw the dude who was pwning someone. Fear Level increased by at least 10. The Louvre is definitely a reason for me to come back to France though (with a girl who ISN’T related by blood next time? Eh? Eh?? Gen 2:24, son.) Anyway, a lot of nudes over in the Louvre…I am beginning to understand that art means nudity and nudity means art? No, thats totally not it. IT WAS A JOKE. I’M JETLAGGED. HAHAAAAA.
Anyway, after the Louvre we did something, like probably going to a huge high-end store called Lafayette, then went to the Eiffel Tower. Being the intrepid, smart, good-looking young man I am, I brought my jacket anticipating the cold…and promptly decided to leave it on the bus as it was raining. Why I did that, no one will ever try to find out. For dinner, we had duck (at least I think it was duck) and rather than go to the Lido nightclub, I met my uncle for the first time ever. No, seriously, I met my uncle who lives in France! We didn’t do too much other than lounge in the Novotel reception looking at pictures, but hey, we all had a long day and parking is a bit of a pain in Paris as well…so its all good.
Day 3: To the Leaning Towers of Honeys!
After breakfast we took the TGV high speed train (it didn’t feel that high speed) to Marseilles, where we had an authentic Marseilles Fish Soup lunch. It wasn’t that great.
I think we headed over to Nice afterward to check out some beaches. The beaches at Nice were large stones, rather than sand. Sure enough, we got to see quite a few tits and asses — some looked pretty good, some were…not to my liking. From my tourist perspective, the beaches were kind of boring since I wasn’t there to get buff, get tanned, or even take my shoes off. However, if I was there to do ANY of those things, I’m sure I’d be ecstatic.
After doing some eye-humping, we set off to the incredibly rich land of Monte Carlo, Monaco…where, of course, we can do more eye-humping with all the luxury cars that are there. All them rich peoples had smiles on their faces, but they weren’t Happy Smiles. Rich people have problems too, y’know. They just want somebody to truly love (and to be truly loved by). Somebody was a bit too hardcore with eye humping, I guess, and got “lost”; nobody had any idea where they were…but it turns out they stayed at the bus after getting off it and went to a washroom and couldn’t find where anybody went after and…and…and… GSC: 2.
Genoa…is forgettable, but we stayed at the San Biagio. It was OK, I think.
Day 4: The Leaning Tower of Pisa
So Pisa is this small, obscure little town in Italia…which wouldn’t be significant without the help of its Leaning Tower. We ventured to this significantly insignificant town to see its insignificantly significant tower (as well as all the merch like a pair of boxers that head an ultra leaning “tower” become not to leaning; get it? get it?)…and that was one day.
Then, we got on over to Roma, and stayed at the hauntingly abysmal Eurohotel. Our hotel room smelled of smoke, even after leaving it to air out. APPARENTLY any rooms above the 5th floor were already renovated to look as nice as the reception. Sadly, none of those nicer rooms were available to us. Frankly, my reviews of hotels are based on the room I get, not the rooms that may/may not exist. Dinner was at the hotel, but consisted of take out. Yes, a hotel needed to order take out to serve dinner! We had incredibly cheesy large penne (which has a different name, but I forget what it is), some salad, and lots and lots of ice cream. Seriously, lots of ice cream…cause they didn’t want to use fridge space (or maybe they didn’t have any fridges), so they went around with their tubs emptying their ice cream to everyone. We had to live here for another night tomorrow…gah.
Day 5: Roman Babes getting down in the Colosseum
No, we didn’t actually see any babes in Roma getting down, but we DID go to the Colosseum, where countless souls have perished for the sake of Roman entertainment. Don’t worry, in the future they’ll probably introduce these kinds of death sports again to reduce the human/inmate population, right? (a la Tron, Gamer, that movie where they drove cars and killed each other to survive…)
Pickpocketters come in all forms and sizes. Pregnant women, for instance, are quite useful as a pickpocketting technique…since you’re not really suspected, and if you get arrested you’ll get released anyway cause you’re pregnant. Sure enough, we saw a pregnant woman trying to do her thing. Its totally NOT evident you’re a pickpocketter when all you do is look at our pockets, bags and pants as we walk by. Totally not. Also when we notice you’ve walked to the opposite side’s bus stop, down the street, in a quicker pace than we were walking at…lulz. But around this area, we were also able to see “The Wedding Cake”, which is a large, marvelous white marble structure. Close by is the balcony where Mussolini announced World War 2.
We trekked over to Trevi Fountain, where people throw coins to have wishes granted (IF YOU’RE SUPERSTITIOUS LIKE THAT, I GUESS). Throwing one coin with your right hand over your left shoulder grants you cheap passage back to Italy in the future. Throwing 2 grants you love. Throwing 3 grants you divorce. I was convinced/begged/chastised/nagged to throw 2… I feel silly. I felt less silly enjoying a pistachio gelato afterward.
At some point we went to The Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica (and…the Vatican Museums). Largest [Catholic] church in the world, lots of nuns around…etc. After seeing this, going to the rest of the churches on this trip seemed like a bore. Seemed boring, too…lololol.
…back to that blasted Eurohotel. This, of course, is where my mom’s respiratory system got all messed up. Everybody complained, and I think the tour guide had to call back home to tell them it was a shit storm. OK, more like it was a complaint storm, but you get the idea… EMPHASIS AND DRAMA, PEOPLE. EMPHASIS AND DRAMA. IT MAKES THIS POST INTERESTING.
Day 6: Firenzia
I don’t remember much about Firenzia…other than seeing the Il Duomo, which you definitely climbed on in Assassin’s Creed 2. Maybe pictures will jog my memory…*glances* No, actually thats about it. Got to see a semi-sunset on Florence though, which was very pretty. Its one of those moments you can’t help but make-out to, I’d imagine. Oh boy, what a horndog 😛
That night we stayed at the First. Room was good…but pretty damn small, and being on the ground floor with paper thin walls meant you could hear when people were screaming in Mandarin dialect down the hall (or in another room).
I did, however, get a massive sun-hickey near my cleavage…
Day 7: Gondola, Activate!!!
We headed over to Venezia, the city with water everywhere. Each building is actually built on a pile of wooden planks on a small island; there are over 400 bridges (or was it buildings…) in Venice. Ferried over to Piazzo San Marco, and did our damage on the streets and gondalas.
All I could really think about at the time was Assassin’s Creed 2… Urge to climb buildings, jump off, and assassinate: RISING! Apparently we also checked out a glass-blower shop, but it was really only 5mins. The sales pitch was way longer, OBVIOUSLY.
After a day of being in a place that could submerge at any second, we went off to a town called Verona, where a tale of two star-crossed lovers were. Of course, we didn’t do anything in that town except sleep at the Holiday Inn there. Wasn’t bad, but the free wifi was a scam and didn’t work at all.
Day 8: Little Unknown Places
We headed over to Innsbruck, which has some 2012 Olympic stuff…in addition to a Golden House Roof, which is supposed to be significant, but I don’t remember what the tour guide said 🙂 The rain started coming down, and some of the washrooms were filled up…so some people went to a different one while the tour guide had no idea where they went; GSC: 3.
We then set off to the small independent country of Liechenstein, which is best known for their stamps. Sadly, we got there a little late, so the Post was closed. However, their most memorable stamps were supposedly placed all over the floor in giant form! There was also a Team China, Tag Huerer-branded Tesla on display! Good stuff!
We later set off to beautiful Lucerne, Switzerland and enjoyed some of the night scenery as we walked around in the rain. They had a lot of swans, and they were pretty big too! There was also a lot of shit everywhere on the…boardwalk/pier(?). A lot. Some people wanted to do a bit more photo taking with the swans than the others…and stayed back while we moved forward. GSC: 4.
Staying in the Hotel Europe was nice. The one main thing which wasn’t nice was having to carrying our luggage up the front steps. Merciless. It also didn’t help that taking the elevator to my room required a full loop around and a flight of stairs…while taking the stairs directly resulted in instantaneous transportation to said room. Dinner here was nice, and I think we were all under the impression that the servers here were all students on co-op. One of the girls was pretty tall (think my height; there you go). Easy on the eyes too.
Day 9: Beautiful Morning With You
We started the morning’s excursion with a tranquil boat cruise on the Lake at Lucerne. There wasn’t much too see except for some man-made beaches and ultra beautifully blue water and skies, with green hills to compliment. Its refreshing like walking on a sunny day, hand in hand, with a beautiful girl who is wearing a beautiful dress.
The beauty continue as we journeyed to Mount Titlis, accessible by cable car. Its not the tallest in the world, peaking at just over 3000m, but I’m pretty sure if you fell off it you’d feel the pain (and eventually black out). I walked around and managed to get my shoes and socks completely wet. Reminded me of walking to school on a snowy day. Woooooooooo.
We then headed off to Zurich to live in the Moevenpick Airport hotel, which is hands down one of the best hotels EVER. SERIOUSLY. You will not be disappointed! Of course, before this we tried to find where our dinner restaurant was, and I turned out to be having a fever. I definitely grew a millimetre or two though, much to the demise of all my family, friends, acquaintances and future acquaintances.
(PS: If you didn’t catch the reference, the day title was referencing “Beautiful Morning With You” by the pillows. Check it out!)
Day 10: What is German for “I don’t get it, i am so bored…”?
You wouldn’t think one would get bored in Germany, what with the Autobahn andBerlin (SEE WHAT I DID THERE??), but when you’re apart from those you might have to get a little imaginative. That, and probably NOT visit bridges and churches as we did. Heidelberg is where we were at, and apparently its a university town, with one of Europe’s oldest universities. We didn’t visit it though…hrmm.
We did, however, visit the Rhine afterward. To go on a cruise. A pretty boring one for that matter. The Rhine is currently 2 metres below its normal level, due to an entire month devoid of rain! BUT in April, it was about 8 metres ABOVE (I think that was what the guy said) and there was a pretty bad flood. Interesting!
This night, we ventured to Bonn and stayed at the President, which is staffed by some nice looking staff. However, the room is meagerly OK, with a lot of road noise around. We ate dinner at the hotel, and there was some strange fries-looking thing which I did not finish nor like; perhaps it was called goulash. Perhaps I should google what it is.
Day 11: Red Light Cologne Smells Best
After a night of sleep (or there lack of, because my cough started getting pretty disgusting), we awoke on Sunday to our bus being externally vandalized by some locals. They were probably some university students; thanks y’all…you do the darnedest things 🙂 The tour collectively felt the pain, anguish and anger the driver had, as he tried to wash it off.
Our first destination today? Koln (Cologne) and its Cathedral! Being a Sunday, most stores in the immediate tourist vicinity were closed. NBD; I’m not exactly interested in buying many things. There were a couple music stores though! An Epiphone Les Paul Custom could be had for 299 Euros!!! Thats around $449CAD!! AND, you don’t pay taxes in Europe! Transportation, however, would be a pain in the ass. A royal pain. I’ll pick up a bottle of 4711 Cologne instead.
We then headed over to Amsterdam to check out the Gassan diamond factory after cruising the water ways and admiring the views of some buildings from the 1500’s. Of course, across from the ferry was Amsterdam’s HEINEKEN BREWERY EXPERIENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111oneoneone.
We didn’t have enough time for a tour, so the next best thing is to get some swag! But yeah, after floating around, we saw some pretty shiny stones, as well as learned a bit about the classifications of them. I’m pretty sure none of us stayed for the sales pitch. Leaving this scene, we marched off deeper into Amsterdam and its Hazy Green Streets. Come on, its Weed Central, why wouldn’t the streets be hazy? Left, right, right, left…we walked and walked, gawking at the wide selection of bongs and self-growing material. Then we did a quick round of Amsterdam’s esteemed Red Light District. Walking past the numerous sex shops and DNW-to-not-bad-looking working girls, I began to feel a tinge of sadness.
Why sadness? While these girls are working in a “licensed” and “legal” industry in Amsterdam, I’ve a feeling they are still working as slaves. Slaves to the world, slaves to whatever they might be addicted to…working in this biz with no escape but death (maybe; I have a feeling you can’t just retire like in the ‘professional’ AV industry). But yeah, knowing that there are beautiful women who will be stuck doing this for the rest of their lives, with no chance of escape, should have anybody feeling a little drab?
That night, we stayed in the Park Plaza Amsterdam Airport hotel, which is, like the Moevenpick, AWESOME. It also had free wifi, which is always a plus wherever you go!
Day 12: Seriously, A Kid Pissing Like This?
After parting with such a beautiful hotel we moved on to Brussels, Belgium…to see the Manneken Pis, which is a statue commemorating a kid who foiled a Nazi bomb plot by pissing on it, thus saving the town and sparking a movement. A movement to piss on bombs. Hell yeah. Every souvenir shop (including chocolate and waffle shops) were selling their variation of the Manneken Pis. You got the MP grabbing a waffle and his dong, you got the MP just grabbing his dong, you got the MP grabbing his pissing dong, you could buy and eat your very own MP…the list goes on. Dong as a screwdriver, dong as a corkscrew…over-compensation was everywhere!
I guess this made up for the mussels lunch we had, which wasn’t bad…but from now on I think I may take heed the instructions and teachings of how shellfish are bottom feeders and are, literally, full of shit. I guess we all ate a little shit that day. HAAHAAAAAHAAAAAA. Regarding the beer selection, Jupiler is a local brand!
And I tried it at Bier Market before! Therefore why would I get it again!? No! Instead, I called up a Faro…which is incredibly amazing. Most beers are bitter. Most alcohol is a bit bitter. This Faro, however, was deliciously sweet! which led me to wonder if it was actually a cider. Google will help me, no doubt.
But amazingly, there isn’t much left…we headed off to London via the Eurostar train! The Eurostar is immensely dirty, by the way. It was so very, very, very, very disappointing… In order to board the train to London (which passes through France first), you have to go to a border crossing to immediately be on British soil. A little confusing, but whatever…
That night, although we had a wonderful Chinese dinner at Phoenix Palace (I think thats what the place was called?), we get dropped off at the Ramada Jarvis…formerly known as the Ramada Ealing London. The room was abysmally small. I mean, come on…if you already have a small room, why the dickens would you put not one but TWO large chairs in the room!? Just…its so rage worthy.
Day 13: London Bridge Better NOT Friggin Fall Down While I’m On It!
A London day trip with our local guide Suki. Or maybe its spelled Soo-kee or Soo-ki. Whatever. One bad thing about my brief stint in London is that I didn’t exchange any of my precious Canadian pennies into British Pounds; I stayed primarily Euro. Exception is Switzerland, who gave me change in Francs cause they only roll that way. Anyway, because of this we didn’t do any exploration on our own with the Tube, and had to resort to our tour bus, which had to deal with the bloody disgusting traffic. Congestion everywhere, no doubt about it.
We did get to see most of the highlights of London, including Westminister Abbey, London Eye, London Bridge (the original one has been sold to Arizona. Huh.), the Tower Bridge, Harrod’s…and the London Dungeon. I might have missed something. I might have not. We DID briefly go to the London museum though, and checked out an Egyptian exhibit which was, I am sure of it, at the Canadian Museum of Civilization at least a decade ago. Yawn. Oh, and we saw the changing of the guards. Due to the bloody traffic, we couldn’t grab a nice spot to see the new guards come in, but we did manage to get a great spot watching the old ones leave. I’m pretty sure the location is known as…Buckingham Palace. The Queen was in the building though, for her flag was raised. When the Queen is out and about, the British flag is raised. You win some, you lose some, I guess… We also went to the London Chinatown! Closeby was the Picadilly Arcade and M&M World London! We had a lot of fun at the M&M London, despite running out of time… 🙁
Thus marks the end of the trip, really. I wish I could have gotten on the London Eye, but I’m sure that the 30min ride is something best left for a romantic partner to experience 😉 I hear the view of London is supposed to nice.
Day 14: Fly Away Home!
Wake up early.
Barely sleep cause of bloody kids running around and slamming doors, and street racers vs coppers.
Go to Heathrow.
Pose with Harrods bears…
Get delayed 30mins.
Get to Paris CDG.
Go through security check in which I had to empty my entire bag.
Get to Toronto in an incredibly oldschool Airfrance 747 Airbus which didn’t have a personal media centre, but instead a monitor every few rows…
Eat sushi.
Awww yeahhhh.
Summing it all up…
So, how to recap my trip to Europe? Overall, it was good. I got a chance to see how life was kind of lived by the people in those lands. I got to see the snobby, the rich and maybe-famous, the poor, the needy, the lovers, the loved, the unloved, the lovely, the unlovely. I saw the traffic situations, the mindsets of vehicles and even for a while had my mindset changed toward vehicles (ie. considered a Fiat 500 or Smart, wondered when Fiat Punto would come over…).
I definitely want to visit France and Switzerland again. Paris, since I want to see the rest of the Louvre, and also because I felt a bit more comfortable with whatever Quebecois-french I was able to churn out. Switzerland because it is just so beautiful…and not just because getting a Swiss-Miss is oh-so-damn-alluring. I mean, come on…they’d know at LEAST 3-4 languages…how hot is that?! Of course, I could just go and try to find a local girl who is studying linguistics or languages, right? 😛 ANYWAY.
I didn’t like Italy all that much; it was pretty darn old, the streets were pretty darn dirty, and the people weren’t necessarily the kindest. Of course, there were some who were stellar in the grazies and preggos…but a certain amount of fear (and attraction[/arousal? lulzzzzz] maybe…maybe not) was instilled in me when a somewhat good-looking Italian woman starts complaining very loudly (in Italian) to the ferry operator when there isn’t even much he can do to fix a situation. Eurohotel didn’t help much either.
The people of Monte Carlo, Monaco are rich. They smile. But they’re all fake smiles…so empty and lifeless. Oh well…
One thing I’ve learned is to definitely bring meds as a precaution. This includes antibiotic pills and eyedrops, as you never know what may happen. What happened to my mom and I is first-hand experience. We lived and returned to tell the tale…haha, perhaps much to the demise of one woman who kind of cursed us prior to the trip. It was something like this:
Mom: Oh yeah, I’m going on a trip to Europe for 15 days.
Woman: Going there and not coming back?
Mom: I’m sorry, why am I not coming back? Heaven forbid!
Woman: Oh…cause you’re moving there!
Mom: What? No. I’m going on a trip. My husband lives here…also, I don’t even know French, Italian or German.
Woman: But they speak English!
Lol.
At that woman.
If you’re a contact on Facebook, you should have access to the Europe pictures. If not, maybe we should keep it that way.
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