Shopping!

Today was a fairly leisurely day.  Kevin and I woke up fairly early to pick up our tickets to Antwerp, leaving one of the four of us to slumber on at the apartment.

We took the metro over to Gare de Lyon, where we got into a super short line to buy tickets out of the country (there were approximately 5 groups in front of us).  Almost immediately one of the two ticket windows closed leaving us with out person helping out.

Shortly after this happened, a group of Spaniards made their way to the single ticket counter and proceeded to spend a full hour booking their entire trip.  After about 45 minutes, the other ticket window reopened.  This window was quickly blocked by two Americans who stood there for 30 minutes.

When the Spaniards finally left the ticket counter, Kevin and I clapped them off because we were so frustrated.  Immediately after the Spaniards left, the woman behind the counter shut her window, which drew cries of anger from Kevin and I.

After a long period of time, we finally got to the window to book our tickets.  Using our Eurail Pass, which only works in Spain and France, we were able to book a train close to the Belgian border first before going to France.  In the end we each bought 5 tickets for a 5 train route that meanders through France and Belgium.  However, the price was only 10 Euros, so we bought the tickets.

After purchasing the tickets, we returned back to the apartment and got ready to go shopping.  However, first we went to a nearby restaurant, where I had some tartare!

My tartare!

We went shopping along Boulevard Saint-Germain, which has a lot of interesting French clothes!!!  I bought a polo and one pair of jeans.  It was quite fun!  We also grabbed a quick coffee.

After we were done, we headed over to the Arc de Triomphe.  I did a little shopping while CP scaled the Arc.  After that, we met for dinner at an excellent steak place that was a bit off the street.  The place only had one dish, which was steak-frites and each person got one refill of the steak and fries and a salad as well.  The sauce was delicious, although the waiters were a bit rude.  Unfortunately, we were under the impression that we were going to get infinite refills when we came in the restaurant, so we were sorely disappointed (an American outside said so).

The restaurant

Our very tastey wine

After dinner, me and Kevin returned home to relax, while CP continued to enjoy the city.

-Bryan

Tim, Thievery, and a Romantic Evening

Wednesday morning started with an early wake up call in order to get Tim to the airport (Tim needed to leave early from the trip to start his internship in Seattle this friday). Tim was a bit nervous because none of us were familiar with the public transit to the airport, which involved transferring from the metro in the city to another rail system called the RER. We made the 5 minute walk to the metro stop down the street, got our tickets, went through the turnstile, and walked down to the platform. Three of us made it to the platform just as the train arrived. Bryan, who was a few paces behind, got stuck behind a small crowd of people just as we were stepping onto the train. The doors started to close and Bryan still hadn't made it onto the train. Now I am most familiar with the Chicago subway system, where you can hold the doors and the train won't start moving (however, you might start to frustrate the other passengers). I jumped in front of the door to hold it for Bryan, but these doors were nothing like those in Chicago. I tried to keep them open and put my body in front of the door, but there was no way I was getting that door open.

So there we were, three of us on the train, looking at Bryan. It was somewhat reminiscent of that scene from The Planet of the Apes where the human and the monkey are on opposite sides of the cage, putting their hands up to the glass, staring into each other's eyes. As the train started moving, Bryan waved his goodbyes to Tim from the platform. It was up to the remaining three of us to figure out where Tim needed to go (Bryan headed back to the apartment at this point). We arrived at the startion with Tim's transfer, and after a long walk through the underground walkways connecting the two stations, we arrived at the platform for Tim's train. We weren't sure about the timing or the exact location, so One Of The Three Of Us discovered from asking another passenger at the station that Tim was in the right place, but needed a ticket for the specific route to the airport. We all ran upstairs, grabbed the ticket, ran back down to the platform, and said our goodbyes just as the train arrived. It was a bit hectic, but we got him there!

We headed back to meet Bryan at the apartment. After a short nap, we hopped back on the Metro and headed for the Louvre. I will spare you all the details of spending a day at the Louvre, but needless to say, it was quite spectacular. A few of my personal highlights from the museum were the Egyptian artifacts (its quite bizarre to just a few inches from a several thousand year old mummy), the French and Italian paintings, and the Greek and Roman sculpture.

After the Louvre, we made a quick stop at a nearby cafe to caffeine up for the rest of the day. The coffee, however, was no match for our early morning and serious case of museum fatigue, so we decided to take a quick rest back at the apartment before grabbing some dinner.

Now here is where things really start to get exciting.

Just a few stops after we boarded the metro from the Louve, we heard a scream from the back of our train car. We saw a younger man wearing a hood grab a woman's purse and jump off the train just as the metro doors began to close. The scream grabbed everyones attention. Everyone looked around not quite sure what to do. Someone pulled the alarm, and within seconds, there were 3 or 4 security guards attempting to retrieve the woman's purse. It was clear that this was a common problem because security knew exactly what they were doing. The train was stopped and the metro platform was shut down almost immediately. After a few minutes, the security brought back the woman's purse, but not the man who took it. Our best guess is that he got scared once the alarm went off and got out of there. We had heard warnings from friends, family, and locals about theft in Paris, but this really made it real. We all held on to our bags a little bit tighter after that.

In all of the excitement, an elderly lady fell as she was stepping off the train. Bryan and I got the chance to show France that the US isn't all bad. After making sure she was alright (somehow Bryan was able to pick up from other trying to help her that she had recent had hip surgery, but I had no idea what was going on), we helped her back back to her feet and collect her things.

Between the robbery and all the excitement that followed, our adrenaline was running pretty high, but adrenaline, like coffee, was no match for our exhaustion from our day out. We continued back to take our second nap of the day.

Feeling refreshed, we left our apartment and took a walk starting from Paris's Latin Quarter. This walk took us right to the steps of the Notre Dame Cathedral. We found a cafe just across the street and enjoyed a meal in full view of the Cathedral. We finished our meal and spent the next couple hours walking the city along the Seine River. We ended up in front of the Eiffel Tower, which was lit up for the night. We sat for a few minutes to enjoy a crepe and the twinkling light show on the tower. It really would have been a romantic scene had my lovely fiancée been there, but seeing as it was a couple of us guys, we decided we didn't want things to get weird and called it a night.

Tomb of the unknown soldier

Monument to Polish soldiers who died helping France during the war

-Kevin

First Day in Paris!

Today we woke up a bit early in order to catch our train to Paris.  Checking of the hotel was relatively smooth (for the most part).  We headed out the door at 10:00 AM and walked down to the metro.  We had a quick McDonalds breakfast (Tim's burger came out as just the patty and nothing else. lol) and did some souvenir shopping in the nearby themed store.  The train ride was quick and full of opportunities to see the beautiful French countryside.  There were plenty of rolling hills dotted with lovely houses.

We arrived in Gare de Lyon, Paris in the early afternoon and made our way down to the Metro.  It was a quick three train hop to our place, which was in the Italian quarter of Paris - south of the Latin quarter.

Discussing our route

Our room!

After resting for a bit, we hit the town.  Our first stop was les Invalides, an old hospital converted to a military museum (I believe).  Apparently, it holds the tomb of Napolean.  Tim also saw the Air France building and got very excited:

We then went crossed the bridge to the Palais de la Découvert

The roof of the Palace of Discovery

After the Palace, we made our way to the Eiffel Tower

Kevin rehydrating

The tower was closed because everyone was on strike.  Vive la France!

After grabbing a quick dinner near the Eiffel Tower, we passed by the National Assembly and the Obelisk

The Obelisk

National Assembly

Following the Seine, we then moseyed through the Jardin de Tuileries next

Obelisk and Arc de Triomphe in the background

The Louvre in the background

We ended the day walking around the courtyard for the Louvre

Whew long(ish) day.  More Paris tomorrow!

Panicking in Marseille

Today was a pretty lazy day, but also probably one of the most stressful of the whole trip (at least for everyone else). We originally thought of taking a rental car out so we could see the surrounding countryside, and see what it was like to drive on the streets of France. Bryan woke me up around nine so that we could go check out the prices. Of course when I went to find him a few minutes later he was back asleep. Kevin and One of the Four of Us was still asleep, so I decided I’d just chill for a bit.

When everyone else got up, it was time to book a place to stay in Paris (I hear 24 hours before hand is prime time to book). Since all the good hostels were taken and the hotels were thousands of euros, we resorted to a website called Airbnb to find our accommodations. Airbnb allows people to lease out parts of their house or an apartment with at least a bit of security in the form of 1 million dollars of insurance. Since I would only be in Paris for one night and I could stay at the airport if I had to, I wasn’t too concerned yet. Kevin, Bryan, and Mr. One, on the other hand, were starting to get a little worried.

With no guarantee that any one Airbnb host would take us, we only had one option: email them all. We set our requirements and started. One by one, everyone on this site was getting a message from us until we heard what we wanted. Some 30 requests later, we received a response from a gentle chap by the name of Simo. He had space for us! We checked the reviews on his place and sent a booking request – his place was right next to the Eiffel Tower. Thinking we had found our place to stay, we left the hotel and headed into Marseille for a relaxed day.

Down at the office of tourism, we waited in line to find out how we could buy a boat ride that day. Bryan discovered that the city had free WiFi, and we logged on. A few minutes later, while everyone was learning about our marine possibilities, I received an email from Airbnb – Simo had declined our request. This was a problem. With barely over 24 hours left til we arrived in Paris, we once again had no place to stay. There was a nice place we could sit and figure out what to do next (and cry) right across the street, so we went there. We also bought some food so we didn’t feel bad using their tables. At his point Bryan was frantically searching the Airbnb site for more places. We couldn’t leave the Wifi without finding a place to stay. I was getting hungry at this point, so I told them I was fine with anything and went in search of a grocery store. Mr. One couldn’t stand the wind chill outside, so he went inside the restaurant to make a large bank transfer in case we needed more money to afford a place, and to search for apartments as well.

Kevin and Bryan desperately search for a room

Bryan is sad

About 45 minutes later I had found my grocery store, bought some salami and cheese, and was headed back to base camp to see how our search for housing was going. Within a few minutes, there was good news. A man by the name of Erik had given us the okay to reserve his place. It wasn’t nearly as close to the main attractions as Simo’s, but it was still in the city and at this point we just wanted a place to stay. We booked it immediately.

Relieved that we now had a place to stay, we decided to celebrate with a bottle of wine. We needed to go back to our hotel anyway to pick up some clothes, so we picked up the bottle of wine from that same grocery store on the way back.

The grocery store

Kevin and Bryan select the celebratory wine

Kevin explains the rooming situation to Mr. One

We then relaxed in the hotel for a few hours in the French way. We finished off a bottle of wine and took a nap (except for Kevin, he went to drink some coffee while we were asleep). Now that all of our problems were solved, we went out for dinner at the place recommended to us the day before by a couple of locals. It was quite good, though it was pretty close to American food for me. We also had a new view of the harbor, and it was indoors so our glasses didn’t fly off the table.

Bryan sips his wine

Our restaurant

The view from the restaurant

Bryan's food - I have no idea what it was

My food

CP's food

After dinner we decided to explore the city a bit. We headed down the east side of the harbor hoping to find the ocean. On the way we found an old castle that was apparently now a club. It was a bit too classy for us though. We eventually made it to the ocean, where we had a nice of the islands off the coast and some American commercially symbols.

Sunset on the harbor

Us walking towards the castle

View of the ocean

A bit of McDonald's charm to go with the ocean

When we finished admiring the view, we headed back to hotel, where we had a bit more wine and then went to sleep. Tomorrow would be Paris, and we needed to be rested.

-Tim

Last night in Barcelona and the train to France

Its currently 3 o'clock in the afternoon on June 24th. Somehow we ended up in Marseille, Paris, but we will get to that in the coming post.

Last you heard we had about passed out after a lengthy day of exploring Barcelona. After a few hours of relaxing back at the hostel with a decent bottle of Spanish wine (the most expensive bottle of wine we could find was about 6 euros, so we went for it). One Of The Nine Of Us found a local restaurant by the name of Blai Tonight online, so we walked into old part of the city to give it a try.

After a 20 minute walk we arrived to see a restaurant with a crowd nearly out the door. We squeezed our way up to the counter where we found trays full of mini-entrees on skewers. We were supposed to fill our plate up, save the skewers, and keep the skewers until the end at which point we were charged for the number of skewers. The ones I picked up included bread covered with goat cheese and fruit jam, cured ham and brie, fish and rice stuffed mushrooms, avocado with tomato, and a pastry crust filled with fruit. Each one only cost 1 euro, so at 5 euros, we all got our fill at considerably less than many of the meals prior.

This is tapas place.  Yum!!!

The 9 of us all headed back with (mostly) full stomachs, but the group waited for a few that wanted to stop at a nearby gelato place. When we were almost back at the hostel, we stopped for one last drink (Estrella, local beer) with the Brits before packing up in anticipation for the next days early train ride. After a few discussions (and/or disagreements) the ranged from the difference between a cookie, a biscuit, and a scone to the meaning of life, we made our way back to the hostel, packed our things, and headed to bed. 

7:15 came quite early the next morning. One of the four of us was so concerned about waking up early that when we woke him up the next morning, we found him lying in his bed fully dressed (including shoes). The Brits were nice enough to wake up early with us and say a few more goodbyes before we grabbed a taxi to the train station. Meeting up with Joel and company really made Barcelona an adventure. We had the added excitement of trying to decipher two different cultures at the same time, and they were great sports about putting up with our obnoxious American ways. Thanks again, guys!

After walking the length of the train station a few times, we found the security entrance and hopped on our train. This day of riding the trains proved to be a bit more complicated than our ride from Madrid to Barcelona. We could only book our tickets for France once we arrived at a train station in Montpellier. We had a short layover in Figueres, Spain, followed by a 2 hour wait in Montpellier, France. Here we grabbed a ticket and waited in line to book the next train to Marseille.

Renfe line

The TGV line from Figueres to Montpellier

By this point, Tim, One Of The Four Of Us, and I no longer had the comfort of collectively being able to interpret the train ticket agent. We were simultaneously terrified that our fate now rested in the hands of the only French speaker in the group: Bryan. After a short wait Bryan skillfully navigated his way through booking our tickets to Marseille and the following trip to Paris. It was during this conversation that I felt what Bryan must have after getting of the plane in Spain. It was nice to have someone in the group who knew what they were doing, but at the same time, it was frightning that I somehow might not know how to order a cup on my own.

Once the administrative business was taken care of we left the train station and ate at the first place we could find. This was a small Moroccan restaurant that (in my opinion) was a contender with the previous nights dinner for the best meal on the trip (we had a kefta sandwich). After lunch, my fears of not being able to order coffee were assuaged when Bryan taught me how to order a double espresso (at McDonalds, believe it or not). We took a short walk around the neighborhood, but after coming by a man who was clearly intoxicated (and who had obviously just been at the wrong end of a canister of pepper spray), we decided that our time might be better spent waiting in the train station.

Us at the Morrocan restaurant

There was a lot of trash in Montpellier

It had some nice streets though

Our unfortunate drunk friend

Two hours on the train and we were in Marseille. One of the neatest things I've discovered about this area of France so far is that not uncommon to come by several centuries-old castles when traveling through the countryside. We detrained and made our way from the metro to our hotel (yes, a hotel this time was for some reason cheaper). Thankfully along the way a kind passerby pointed out that Tim's pack was open and that France was prime pick-pocket territory.

We sat next to some adorable children!!!

A castle?

Kevin in the Marseille metro looking lost perhaps

We made it down to the water, and after an long and exciting round of "where should we eat?" we found a place right on the water. We were introduced to French culture by a waitress that took about two hours from start to finish, and who had noticeably had a bit to drink by the end of the meal (haha, but the food was great). It was getting late by the end of our meal, so we took a short walk around the port and then headed back to our room for the night.

Marseille

Marseille continued!

Tim looking bored because it was taking too long

My bouillabaisse!

-Kevin