The Chunnel, Big Ben and the rocky coast of Wales

We continued our journey early Friday morning with a ride on the Chunnel over to London. It was a two and a half hour train ride and I slept most of it. Public transportation never fails to lull me to sleep.

British Museum

It was rainy when we arrived and navigated our way to the British Museum. I was supposed to meet my pen pal there but unfortunately we never found her and I had no way to get in touch with her. So, we wondered around the museum a bit and then decided to find our hostel because it was getting dark at this time. It was a shady hostel on the East side of London and I am convinced that the owner was most definitely part of a crazy London gang at one time in his life. Out of hunger, exhaustion, and no desire to risk a venture to find food, we went to bed soon after arriving.

Tower Bridge

London Eye & Big Ben

Apple Strudel

We spent the next day walking through the city and enjoying all of the main sites: London Tower, Tower Bridge, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Big Ben and the Parliament building, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, Trafalgar Square and Borough Market where we shared our first Frankfurter with sauerkraut, an apple strudel, and the most fantastic brownie I think I’ve ever had. It was awesome to see all of the famous monuments and appreciate the hidden cobblestone streets and the architecture of the centuries-old buildings. Hearing the sound of Big Ben ringing was pretty surreal and seeing the tower and massive clock up close was my favorite part of the day. Unfortunately, we arrived at Westminster Square late in the afternoon and we didn’t get to spend as much time exploring that area as I would have liked. We did, however, spend a bit of time in Trafalgar Square where we saw the countdown clock for the Olympics and wandered around the National Gallery searching for a painting of one of Whitney’s relatives. Looking back at it now, we really saw quite a lot in just one day. We calculate it later and determined that we had walked nearly 20 miles with a week and a half worth of travel necessities crammed into one backpack on our backs! It’s no wonder we were so exhausted and hungry when we got to our hostel. 

Yummy pub grub

We dropped off our bags and went up the street to a pub we had seen on our way called The White Swan. The sample plate of several different bar-type foods (sausage, potatoes, nachos, onion rings, garlic bread and chicken wings) and my delicious beer, were a perfect way to end the day… well that and the hot shower at the hostel that relieved some of the muscle aches from the long-days walk.

Sunday started with a visit to Buckingham Palace which, I regret to inform you, was quite disappointing. We just barely missed the Changing of the Guard and the building overall was really nothing special. Most of the rest of the day we spent walking through the many enormous parks and enjoying lunch by the Serpentine lake in the middle of Hyde Park. It was nice to have a day of leisurely wandering up the paths of the parks, surrounded by trees, flowers and green grass. We were sad to find that when we went to King’s Cross station to get our tickets to Wales for the next day, it looked nothing like in Harry Potter. I think this was mostly due to the fact that there was construction being done on the front of the station and we didn’t have access to platforms 9-11 without a valid ticket. We took the Tube back to the hostel to check-in and then saw a bit of the city by night and made our way back to Big Ben to see the area lit up.

On Monday we boarded the train to Holyhead, Wales where we made the decision to spend a little extra money to have a real hotel room for the night instead of a hostel. I must take a moment now to point out that even the sandwiches from the train stations and little corner stores are better than what you could find in some restaurants in America. Whitney and I pretty much lived off of these for most of our travels and I encountered the best one yet in the train station in Wales– hard-boiled eggs and bacon. I digress…

Holyhead, Wales

We arrived at dusk so we didn’t have a lot of daylight to explore in but we took advantage of what we had and made our way down to the dock after dropping our things off at the hotel. It stayed light for quite awhile after the sun went down behind the hill so we ventured through the streets and made our way back to the hotel, picking up some meat pies for dinner and Coco Puffs for breakfast the next day.

The next morning we got up a little earlier to take advantage of our half day in Wales and enjoy the quaint neighborhoods and muddy paths up the coastal hills. It was pretty cold but the scenery was worth a runny nose, wet feet and muddy shoes.

Around 12:30 we headed toward the station to board our ferry to Dublin, Ireland…

Paris and a short trip to Vichy

As promised, here’s a little more detail about the places I have been so far. I won’t go into excessive detail about every experience of my travels, only share with you the most wonderful places I’ve seen and the most important and significant lessons and discoveries. Because I am writing about two weeks of travel and four countries, I will break it up into shorter installments to avoid a ten-page long blog that no one wants to read in one sitting anyway. :)

…

Paris was the beginning of my adventure here in Europe and I have since been there four more times– mostly as a stop on my way to somewhere else. As I mentioned before, my first few hours there were not ideal but it got better after a little sleep and less luggage to carry around.

After finding our hostel and dropping off our luggage, we went up the street to the Sacré-Coeur. We bought a chicken baguette-sandwich at a small street-corner vendor and sat on a bench at the base of the hill of the Sacré-Coeur to enjoy our first, simple but delicious meal in the sun. Though it was freezing, the sunshine, swarming pigeons, and children playing on the stunning little merry-go-round and yelling “regardez-moi, papa” made the whole scene a perfect French movie cliché. As we made our way up the stairs to the cathedral, I had a breath-taking panoramic view of the city. Though cityscapes aren’t this country-girl’s favorite sight, it was still amazing to see the huge span of the city and how completely perfect the location of this cathedral is. From the steps, we also caught our first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower off in the distance.

The interior of the cathedral, marked by ancient architecture and masterfully crafted stained glass windows, created an overwhelmingly sacred atmosphere. After a slow walk around the inside, we made our way around the outside and to the back where the sunshine was hidden behind the massive domes of the building. The cold was unbearable in the shadows so we wandered back to the steps in front to listen to the calming sounds of a man playing the harp. After about 45 minutes we decided to keep moving before we either fell asleep or froze. As we made our way up the street toward Moulin Rouge…well, let’s just say that it was very obvious we were heading in the right direction. The kind of shops you find in this neighborhood are definitely nothing like any store you would (easily) find in America- and certainly not with such shockingly indiscrete and risqué window displays. After a few pictures of the building we decided that we would go to Starbucks for a warm drink and to wait until we could check-in to our hostel at 4. It was almost painful trying to stay awake after being up since 6:00 am the morning before, experiencing an eight-hour time change, and only sleeping for about two hours on the plane. Needless to say, when we finally checked-in at the hostel, sleep was priority and came effortlessly as my head hit the pillow.

The next day was spent walking from the Notre Dame to the Louvre, through the Tuileries Gardens, up the Champs-Elysée, climbing the stairs to the top of l’Arc de Triomphe and finally making our way to the Eiffel Tower. While trying to find our way across the massive roundabout to l’Arc de Triomphe we met another gentleman who was also searching for the underground tunnel. Long story short, he was incredibly generous and gave us a free pass to the top and €10 so that all three of us (Whitney, myself and a Casey, a girl we met at our hostel) could go to the top of the Arc. The city sparkled with millions of lights and it was a fantastic 360º view. We had originally planned not to go to the top and to just move on to the Eiffel Tower but we were so glad we didn’t pass up the opportunity. Being at the right place at the right time and helping out a nice stranger definitely worked out in our favor.

 

After about an hour or so at the Arc we then found our way over to the Eiffel Tower in hopes of getting another great view of the city from the top. Unfortunately, it was closed for visitors that day due to what we gathered to be a private party taking place on the first level– complete with multi-colored lights and loud party music. After enjoying some hazelnut white chocolate while planning ways to obtain an invitation to this party and finally admitting defeat, we decided to go back to the hostel.

The next day we got up early and took the train to Vichy, the small town where I am studying this semester. We were happy to be able to leave our luggage in my apartment in order to make the next week and a half of traveling much easier and cheaper. Whitney and I joined Alex, my roommate, and one of his friends, Samuel, for dinner at a nice French restaurant where we all shared a meal of several typically French entrées: soupe à l’oingon, salmon in a regional plume wine sauce, a beef plate, a ham plate, and fois gras. It was all tasty but nothing that made my taste buds dance in gastronomic pleasure. In all honesty, I will probably not be having fois gras again. However, the night was wonderful, complete with a delicious wine and walking around the town in good company. It is with slight embarrassment that I have to admit that my sense of direction is completely shot here without the help of my familiar Rocky Mountains. Clever me decided to attempt to lead us home from the restaurant but instead, completely unaware, ended up leading us in a wide circle. In amusement and a little disbelief, Alex took pity on me and led the rest of the way. In my defense, there is absolutely no organization or logic to the way the streets are set up here and street names are not clearly market like I am used to. I’m happy to inform you, however, that after a month here I can now find my way around quite well.

 

Whitney and I headed back to Paris the following day, Thursday, and spent the night at the same hostel we had stayed at Monday and Tuesday. We were thrilled to find ourselves in a room of just the two of us with a magnificent view of the Sacré-Coeur illuminated atop its hill.

It is this image I will leave you with for now before we head to London…

 

Just a Taste

It's been almost three weeks since I stepped off the 12.5–hour flight from Colorado to Paris– and what an exciting, enlightening and exhausting three weeks it has been! Four countries and 1,071 pictures later, I now have a bit of time to relax and reflect on my trip, the people I’ve met and the lessons I’ve learned.

The fact that I was leaving the country for five months didn’t hit me as soon as I thought it would. As I said goodbye to Kristin at DIA and boarded the plane to Washington D.C., I felt some sadness but it was as if I only subconsciously knew what was happening but couldn’t yet comprehend it all. When you look forward to something so much for so long, it seems impossible that it will ever actually happen. When the flight attendant greeted us over the PA system and continued, in French, to give the usual safety speech, my seven years of anticipation was replaced with one moment of overwhelming realization. The taste of the delicious, buttery, flaky, truly-French croissant they served us for breakfast evoked the second wave of realization, this time mixed with a feeling of pure elation.

I won’t lie and say that every moment has been as blissful as that croissant and strawberry jam, but I’ve learned so much from the more trying aspects of travel. For instance: public transportation. Navigating the multi-line metro system of a huge city of roughly 2.2 million people for the first time in a foreign country at 6:30 in the morning…well, it’s a bit challenging, to say the least. In all reality, the system in Paris isn’t that difficult to figure out, however, patience runs out much quicker when you have your entire life for the next five months packed in two suitcases and a backpack, walking for hours up and down flights of stairs trying to find the right train platform. (I must give Whitney (my travel buddy J) a lot of credit for getting us where we needed to go because it took me a little longer to understand how the trains work.) Three and a half hours looking for our hostel was not the way I wanted to spend my first day in Paris but looking back, I realize that it is these kind of moments that I need most in order to truly fulfill my goals while I’m here. I never expected every moment to be completely perfect and I think that was an important part of preparing myself for this trip. I’m less inclined to be caught up in the pretenses of the initial bliss that comes with being in a foreign place. There is, most certainly, a feeling of awe every time I see a new monument or famous place, or when I try a new food, or see the street signs in French. Though, I think it’s interesting how fast the “new” wears off. That is not to say that I lose the appreciation for the little differences, only that differences have become the norm.

For now I will leave you all with a few of the most important lesson I have learned so far (compliments of my room mate): eating jelly on your toast with an omelet is not normal; Austrian is, in fact, the language of love, not French; only in Austria do chickens come in white, brown AND black and fly south in the winter; and, in general, Austria is the best. Thank you, Alex!

I will write in more detail about my trip in the next few days but I wanted to at least put up a little something to appease my faithful audience. :)

Love from Vichy!!