Quick Update

We met some really cool American guys and are hanging out with them tonight. Full details tomorrow during our trip to Luxembourg!

So Many Chances, But We're Just Too Dumb

Going to Versailles... Got an email from mom that Obama was speaking in Normandy... We wasted 2 hours trying to get a train or rent a car. Completely impossible. Now we hate ourselves, it's raining, and half the day's gone. Hunter says we were stupid cause all our parents told us to go like a month ago, plus we both wanted to... But didn't. Hopefully Versailles is awesome. Oh, and we went to the Louvre yesterday! More info to come...

Bon Apetit!

Lyon is also the food capital of France. (Also, Old Town is the largest Renaissance district in all Europe). Finding a cheap dinner wasn't an option; we were forced to go gourmet.

It took a while to understand the menus, but then realized this: One price included one starter, one entree, and one dessert. French dining is the polar opposite of American. Waiters get to know you, the pace is very slow, and there are at least 3, but usually like 5, courses.

We decided on the 15 euro meal (expensive, but still a great deal for 3 courses). I got a green salad with goat cheese puffs, steak in wine sauce and potatoes, and creme brulee. Hunter got onion soup (REAL French Onion Soup!), sasauge and boiled potatoes, and a tarte+ice cream thing.

The goat cheese puffs were amazing, even though I was afraid to order them. They were very warm and the first taste is shockingly strong. If I was a kid, I would've spit it out. Taking a moment to handle/decipher the taste lead me to realize it was delicious. Hunter's soup was also amazing. I can't believe he'd never tried it before; he ate the whole bowl. My steak was great (I ordered a medium becausw the French apparently undercook all meat, which I think is a good thing! There's no well-done over here.). The potatoes were strange. Hunter's were boiled, so they had no flavor. Mine had a crazy tart taste. As for the dessert: excellent. I was shocked because I think the creme brulee I've had in the US was actually better. I didn't taste Hunter's, but he cleared his entire plate.

We walked home, feeling intoxicated by food. We were so full, yet felt good, and were slightly sluggish. It was so tasty! I think the US is missing out a lot with its fast food and supermarkets.

It's now Friday morning and we're off to Paris. The lady told us they were all full, but we found a backdoor route through Dijon. This time we'll actually see the Louve, and maybe also the gargoyles on top of Notre Dame. We're also planning a day trip to Versailles.

Romans and the Renaissance

We arrived in Lyon at 10:30pm and were shocked to find a modern, dirty, unwelcoming front. We tried to hurry through the metro system to our hostel as quickly as possible. We got hustled numerous times that night, something that hadn't happened to us anuywhere else in France.
We met a cool guy that spoke 6 languages in the hostel. The place was slightly run down, but the atmosphere was great. Unfortunately, the rooms were sex-segregated. Hunter had 3 other roomies; I had 5. It was pitch black trying to unpack quietly. Luckily a girl, Simone, showed me my nightlight.
I slept terribly, but Hunter slept like a rock. Breakfast was actually different: chocolate cereal! It was so delicious. Our hostel had a view over the Rhone and the Old City. We were on top of a huge hill.
The girls in my room were really cool and we ate breakfast together. Simone is from Canada. She is travelling for 1 month, then teaching English in Italy for 1 month, and finishing the the summer with a month of Italian classes. The other two girls were British and were there shopping for a summer flat. Hunter's roomates were Australians touring Europe for 5 months.
The showers were afwul and only stayed on for 3 seconds each time you pushed the button. Still, we got ready and checked out Old Town churches. All the churches are beautiful and there are tons of them. Hunter gets really creeped out in them.
Instead of sitting down for lunch, we ate little goodies we found in various shops. We shared a bread/pizza/bell pepper roll thing that was DELICIOUS, a strawberry crepe, and a chicken/pizza/sandwich. The French know how to cook and eat!!
We also went to a Roman village and museum. It was so cool! It had two ampitheaters still standing and lots of houses/stores. The museum was really informative and fun. The difference from the US is people can walk all over the ruins, wether or not it's safe or damaging.
Next we explored the neighborhood between the Rhone and Seine. It is the New City, even though it was still built in the 18th century (that's Europe for you). New City has tons of modern stores, none of which I could afford. I did, however, find a cute pair of sneakers for only 9 euro!
After a short nap, the best meal ever was had...

Upadte!

Sorry I haven't written! Hunter and I got different rooms so their was some difficulty with having one phone. We're safe on a train headining from Lyon to Dijon to Paris. It's 8:30am here.

Extras...

Hunter now has a French alter-ego, which is arrogant, metrosexual, and loves only France, cigarettes, and croissants. Hunter is also obsessed with BrickBreaker, a stupid game on the BlackBerry. Speaking of cigarettes, we each smoke like 2 a day now, thanks to all the ridiculous second-hand smoke. Hunter needs his tonsils out; he hawks at least 50 lugees per day. I have stepped in dog poo twice. I wore my sandlas for a week straight and almost have 3 blisters. I also bought a fruit drink that turned out to be a drink mix with probably 50,000 g of sugar (and Hunter says he told me not to). We have discovered most all of the stereotypes about French are true: markets, flower shops, everyone smoking, crazy drivers, topless tanning, non-stop wine drinking, pastry obsession, paying to use the bathroom, etc.

Goodbye Sea

Hello all! While we miss you terribly, we might miss the French Riviera even more! As I speak, we're on a train headed for Lyon, France. Yesterday in Antibes was so relaxing. We laid on a small beach (with sand!) outside the ancient walled city of Antibes. As always, we didn't want to put on sunscreen, so we got crazy sunburns. Hunter even put on his shirt while I continued to roast. While in Antibes, we also explored Fort Caree, which was really old and awesome. Unfortunately, our tour guide only spoke French. Most historic sites here only have explanations in French, which stinks. We came home early to pack and figure out our train situation. We discovered that Nimes just wasn't working out. Neither was Geneva. For the sake of our sanity, we settled for a ride to Lyon. We did our laundry by hand and paid 3 euros for a dryer that didn't even work. Then we got Indian food at a little restaraunt. We thought we could share, but the portion was tiny. It was so good, but hardly filling. Feeling poor, we decided to just sleep it off. This mroning we took an early train to Eze, a Medieval city we'd read about. The train dropped us in a beautiful coastal city. Hunter was excited when we found a sign saying "Eze 1hour." I wasn't so enthused. We made the trek anyway and found ourselves on a strenuous path going up a huge mountain. It soon became very tropical and we even found an old house and waterfall. Finally we reached Eze. It sat on top of a hill and was so awesome!! It looked almost like a movie set. It was filled with shops, restaraunts, and hotels that probably cost 1,000 dollars per night. It was an awesome day. We ate our sack lunch and explored. Now we're on the train writing postcards, stuffed from our grocery store finds.

:(

I never want to leave the Cote de Azur! I love you, Antibes and Nice.

The Tragedy

After swimming and tanning for an hour, the rain clouds started to appear again. We packed up our stuff and started for home. We stopped for the regional specialty, paella, but it was a major letdown. It's rice with mussels and shrimp (I didn't eat any nasty mussels) but it didn't really taste like much. Along the way home we found a whole narrow street filled with sweet shops. In one shop there were a hundred types of homemade candies, cookies, and chocolates. We got 2 cookies and 2 candies: it cost 4 euros! We laid out our towels in a park and ate them beside a fountain. After cleaning up at home we decided to run to the train station. After almost 2 hours looking at schedules and almost getting ripped off by ticket guys, we got tickets for a round trip to Cannes, the beach city where all the movie stars come each May. We booked our same hostel for tonight and went to Old Nice. We ate at an Italian restaurant where we'd seen some awesome rigatoni pasta. After we oedered, we realized we only had 27.20 euro between us; we were at a nice restaraunt. Hunter got a trofie pesto and I got the rigatoni al forno. They were both absolutely delicious. There was enough rigatoni left over for lunch for the both of us. Then tragedy struck: THERE ARE NO TO-GO BOXES IN FRANCE!! We ate until we felt sick, but there was so much that got thrown away. It was horrible. Theb, to make matters worse, we were 30 cents short on the bill. We left our money on the table, ran home, only had 20's, got gelato to make change, and gave the guy 2 euro to keep, all before the restaraunt closed. Then we went home (the Finnish were already sleeping) and slept. Today we woke up and rode to Cannes. It had a tiny beach and nothing really historic. We left immediately, got another train, and are now headed to Antibes, which has a castle! Here is past tidbit I forgot to mention: Hunter got a coke at a restaraunt and it cost 4 euros, which he's still mad about.

Yes, They're Topless

Everyone, be jealous. Hunter and I are laying on a Mediteranean beach, surrounded by historic buildings, blue water, waterfalls, and naked old women. We spent the morning walking through the antique markets and exploring Le Chateau, the ruins of a castle and church up above Nice. Now we're sunbathing on the rocky beach; there's absolutely no sand. The water. And temperature are perfect. We plan on exploring, shopping, and eating our way through Nice for the rest of the day...

The Best of Old Nice

Hunter and I spent all night walking the streets of Nice. We thought the city was dead, but we found Old Nice around 8:00pm and it was more than alive. All the people eat later here and all the restaraunts spill out into the cobble stone streets. There's live music and tons of people. It's funny because people here are always eating. In the morning people eat pastries, then drink cofee out of doll-sized tea cups, then there's lunch, then afternoon drinks, late dinner, and late drinking. We ate gelato in the rain and went home. Our Finnish roomates were already asleep.

Nice is Nice

We are now in the South of France and realizing that we have been on fast forward, when we really need to slow down! We had nowhere to stay and tried a few places with no luck. We decided to run over to a hostel with no vacancy to ask for advice. Lucky for us, they had space! We are now staying in a hostel here. It is 5 floors, traditional on the outside, and Ikea on the inside. We are sharing a 4-person room with 2 sisters from Finland. They are 17 and 18. We took a bus up into the hills of Nice where we stumbled upon a beautiful church (with a dead body!), an amazing hillside park with olive trees, little dogs, and people under umbrellas, the Musee Matisse (art museum), and a whole excavated Roman city! Everything was free and we felt like we hit the jackpot. Also, being on a hill, we had an amazing view of Nice and the Mediteranean (I know, that's probably spelled wrong). We rode the bus back down and somehow ended up a mile in the wrong direction. The bus driver kicked us off but told us he'd come back and give us a free ride in 15 minutes. That's where we met the sweetest old lady. She reminded me of my grandma Betty and was so cute! We began talking to her in French, with the help of our dictionary, and found out she knew absolutely no English. Actually, I do think she said "New York," but that hardly counts. She taught us words and we were all laughing together. It was definitely one of the best experiences thus far. When the bus driver finally rescued us we began looking for some cheap food. My goal is 3euro for breakfast, 5 for lunch, and less than 10 for dinner. Hunter, on the other hand, just eats whatever. We ate at a little Italian place with awesome pizza and paninis. We're going back tonight for gelato. We haven't gotten to the beach yet, but we're shooting for tonight and tomorrow. Hunter is still passed out, but I'm ready! We'll be in Nice tonight (and I'M hoping tomorrow).

continued...

Sorry, I'm back! Hunter is napping and I already showered and did my laundry, so it's back to blogging about Paris! So we left our bags at the hostel and hit the market. There was a market for every type of food: pastries, meat, fish, bread, produce. There were also many antique anf thrift stands. It was a dream come true! And unlike America, where only old people and weirdos go to markets, all the Parisians come out to shop. Everyone buys all their food and pulls it around in little shopping bags with wheels. Almost everyone you see at any time has a long piece of bread under one arm. We decided to buy a boat ticket, which allowed a full day of cruising the Siene, hopping along all the tourist spots. I thought I'd seen a lot of Paris beauty, but I hadn't seen anything. Notre Dame is huge and so beautiful! We want to go back and see the roof and gargoyles. The Louvre is even bigger, and I never knew that Napoleon once lived there. It was late, so we decided to visit another time and headed to the Arc de Triumph. Along the way was an awesome obelisk. We'd bought a train ticket and decided to get ready to leave. We didn't want to but every place we tried was totally booked. We bought a couchette bed in a ten-hour train to the South Coast. We were dead by the time we boarded. We shared with an old French man and a young couple. I fell asleep quickly, but Hunter tossed an turned all night. We woke up eaely and met a nice family of 6 from Queen Creek, AZ who traveling Europe. So far, the South is beautiful. All the houses are pink with red roofs and swimming pools. The beaches are rocky and the water's clear blue, like Florida.

Paris: Take Two

I woke up early and showered while Hunter slept in. We had a yummy breakfast at the hostel and headed out in search of a new placw to stay. We stumbled upon a whole street market. My backpack was already killing me so we decided to head back to the hostel and watch our bags (Right now we're sitting on a park bench talking to the coolest old lady who speaks NO English! She's so sweet!)

The City of Lights

Paris was our first night in a hostel and our first chance to catch our breath. We slept in a room with 6 bunks. Hunter and slept head-to-head on the top. All the kids were *merican in our room: Philly, Brooklyn, and Kansas. There was also a girl from Australia who's been living in various hostels for 6 years! Everything was clean and we even got free breakfast, which was bread and jam, and cereal with warm milk. The only downside were the showers, which turned off every 30 seconds and were extremely tiny. (It's Sunday and Hunter hasn't showered since Thursday haha) That night we walked to the Eiffel Tower and watched it light up. It's beautiful and a lot bigger than I'd imagined. What was awesome was the people. Hundreds of young Parisians sat in the grass around the Tower, riding up on mopeds, drinkning wine, smoking cigarettes, laughingN singing, and eating. It was something you'd never see in the US. We decided to save going to the top of the Tower for another time because we were exhausted. Oh and I forgot the drama: our phone wouldn't work in Paris, we were both tired/grouchy, couldn't get to Nice, and were starving. We got a good Indian meal and felt a little better. Then Carol got a hold of her French customer who really helped us out. It was a good night in Paris.

Paris, hostels, and overnight trains

I am writing in the darkness of a couchette on an overnight train headed for Nice, France...

French Trains are Tricky

So apparently you need reservations to ride high speed trains and main lines. Since we didn't know, we are now stuck on an incredibley slow train headed for Paris. Oh and our situation wasn't helped by the fact that our phone was an hour off local time, meaning we slept in until 8 instead of 7. Once we get to Paris we don't know what to do. We were supposed to be in Nimes tonight, but that probably isn't going to happen. That means we lose 32euro on the hostel we booked, since we wouldve had to cancel at 6pm last night.Maybe we'll get to Nimes, maybe not. Maybe we'Ll do Normandy instead. We're bummed but trying to keep our hopes up.

30 Minutes in Dover

Now I've seen the cliffs of Dover. Ecerything is Great Britain is GREEN! On top of the cliffs is an amazing castle and tunnels are cut under it. You can see little windows carved out. I want to tour it on our way back. We would've missed our ferry if it hadn't been 15 min late. Yikes! We were 2 of only 6 foot passengers. Most others drove cars or freight trucks. We met a guy named Josh who was from Texas. He was a little different, but a really nice guy. After the ferry we walked to Calais with him, when suddenly a woman pulled over in her car to help us. Her name was Nancy and she gave us a tiny tour of town as we drove to our hotel. She was so sweet she even took Josh back to her house so he could use her internet. Our room was tiny, yellow, and had bunk beds. We were happy to shower and sleep... But we should've looked at the train schedules...

continued...

We were running late to the train station but managed to meet Brian's family. They live in a really cute, traditonal home. It's made out of flint and brick. Everything was colorful and embellished. Brian's wife made us homemade quiche and salad. It was amazing. On the way to the train station we drove through downtown London, which I think was the West End. It was filled with many colorful people and beutiful old buildings. When Brian parked the car he paid with his cell phone, so interesting. Also, you never seen big trucks or SUVs likw you do in the US! The train station is confusing, especially since we tried to get on the underground one. Finally, with less than 5 minutes to go, we made it on our train to Dover. We are both really excited to spend our last few days with Brian's family. :)

Travels so far...

Our plane was amazing. We had 70 movies to choose from and tons of tv to watch. We even got cute little gift bags with socks, eye masks, and blankets. Even the food was surprisingly good: Chicken, pasta, a salad, roll, and dessert. The ride was smooth and actually pretty quick, though the seats were way too small to sleep in. We arrived on time but were delayed by the airport, they didn't have a terminal for us. When we got off we were given some trouble by the immigration officer for not knowing Brian's address. We just crossed everything out and went through another lady who didn't ask so many questions. Brian was waiting for us outside and took us home in his tiny Toyota. It's so weird driving on the wrong side of the road! Plus, people from London drive so differently. Everyone tailgates, speeds, and never stops, everything is roundabouts.