EuroTrip 1.0 part 4

The last part of this amazing school trip brought us to Normandy. This being an educational trip this part of the trip we visited a lot of the Canadian war memorials.

We visited the Juno Beach memorial. It is not only a gorgeous beach filled with Canadian history but they have built a lovely museum which brings us through the whole lot of emotions, such as sadness for the lives lost and pride for our nation. It had beautiful artifacts and a nice interactive display, with wall that give us a chance to leave our opinions and feeling on this day.

Following our visit to Juno we also went to Dieppe, another site where Canadian soldiers played a big part during WWII, everywhere we went in the little town we were warmly greeted and commented thanks to our Canadian Flag pins and badges.

Continuing our tour of Normandy, we went back to Canada. Well technically we visited the Vimmy Ridge memorial which is on Canadian Soil in France. It was kind of grim walking along the wall and actually seeing my grand-mother's maiden name on the wall, it's not something we talked about in our family, I did not know I had ancestors who had gone to war. Some of my friends also saw some of their family names.

Before we left we were all assigned the name of a soldier. It gave us time to do some research on this soldier and do a little something special. For my soldier I didn't want to bring just a little flag but i found a Canada pinwheel. I also brought a bag of dirt to place onto his grave so that he could be buried in Canadian soil.

We got to Belgium and visited trenches mostly dedicated to the Nova-Scotian soldiers.

One of my friends had a great idea before leaving, she contacted our local Legion and got 3 reefs to place at the memorials. The legion shipped them to the hotels where we stayed and at each big memorial site we place one in memory of our fallen soldiers.

Our last stop was Brussels where we prepared to get onto the plane to come home, when we landed in Toronto we all feared that our plane was going to be delayed due to more snow, luckily we made it home.

There are a few things I learned on this trip that I can remember.
1. Don't go on long exploration trips with lots of friends, you will fight
2. Alone time is golden
3. Don't over pack. (I ended up throwing clothes away)
4. Don't buy souvenirs for everyone you left at home
5. If you love it and it's not crazy expensive buy it (I still regret not buying those blue boots)

Back to reality, next story will be even further back in my memory but will still bring up that warm fuzzy feeling.

Until the next adventure, Tata!

 

EuroTrip 1.0 part 3

Ah PARIS, when I left off last time we were getting on the night train to get to Paris, just a note for those taking the night train for the fist time, if you aren't one of those people who can sleep anywhere prepare yourself by either tiring yourself out by waking up early the day you leave or taking Gravol (or some other kind of non-prescription medication that knocks you out).

Once we arrived in Paris we stepped onto a bus which would take us on a tour of the city. The tour was very slow because travelling by bus or any motorized vehicle in Paris isn't convenient due to the high traffic and the massive amount of round-abouts. On the tour we were able to see all the major sites of Paris from the outside before actually going to visit, such as the Eiffel tower, l'Arche de Triomphe, the Louvre, and Notre-Dame de Paris. I am not quite sure the order but in Paris we had a very short time to visit the Louvre, I took the interactive audio-tour and selected the option to be brought to and educated on the main pieces in the giant museum. With this it took us to the Venus de Milo, the Triomphe de Samocrate, the Mona Lisa and a few other pieces.

We also did a night tour of the Sienne where we got to see all the beautiful old buildings that lined the river all lit up gorgeously.

I had the advantage of my dad being on the trip because it gave me the opportunity to go with my friends, her mom, another student as well as her mom and another mom (whom I adopted for the evening) to go to the famous Moulin Rouge show. It was a great experience which I will always remember because during one of the intermissions they had a ventriloquist doing a mini-show between the acts, at one point he needed human "dummies" and I got pulled on stage, therefore now I  can say I was on stage at Moulin Rouge, how many people can say that?

Before heading to Moulin Rouge we did the whole Eiffel Tower thing and went to enjoy the night time view of Paris from super high up. Which was wonderful. My friend also learned how to ward off those pesky people trying to sell you Eiffel Tower figurines, when one of them came up and asked if he wanted one my friend looked at him, pointed at the Tower and said "How much for that one?" the guy was so confused he left us alone the rest of the time we were at the base.

In continuation with visiting the big sites of Paris we visited Notre-Dames, and Eglise Sacre-Coeur in the artist district of Paris. Both gorgeous churches with a lot of history. Of course if you've seen Disney's Hunchback of Notre-Dame you know of the church and have an idea of what it looks like.

That pretty much covers Paris. If you just read the note you will notice we only bussed it once, the rest of the time we terrorized Parisian Subway takers by stuffing 65 high school students and their chaperons into the trains all trying to get on and off at the same time... they must have loved us.

We're only part-way through the journey.
au revoir!

once again here are the pictures you see - 1. me outside the Moulin Rouge. 2. My dad and my friend Edd in front of the Eiffel Tower before we go up. 3. I forgot to mention that our teacher paid for us to take a ride on a merry go round, my friend Sean was happy about that! 4. Me, Izabeau and Jess in front of Notre-Dame

EuroTrip 1.0 part 2

I want you to understand that this was 2 and a half years ago, so please don't get mad at me if I get the order of Italian cities we visited wrong. But I do remember which ones we visited next, before we headed over to France.

From Assisi our crazy driver, drove us through the mountains to Pisa where we saw the Basilica, all the tombs, and of course the leaning tour... which doesn't lean as much as 20 year ago because they have been stabilizing it, because the lean was getting bad enough that it was threating. The basilica in Pisa is well known because of the great acoustics, every 30 minutes a worker who is trained in opera comes in and sings an octave, the sound blew me away! Of course while we were there we did take your typical leaning tour picture where we push it up (I know original) and spent a lot of time in the cemetery...  if you want to call it that because unlike here the people are in stone forming a floor.

Our next Italian city was Florence. Florence is really where we visited multiple museums. I got to see the real David as well as the "fake" David who is where the real David was way back when. We visited some of the most beautiful churches in Florence and visited a great market where I got some wonderful souvenirs, such as a silk scarf and a red leather purse. In Florence it's also where our chaperones let us loose into an international discoteque which isn't like the clubs we have here, we were surrounded by all sides, by multiple people from all nationalities dancing to crazy techno music, it's also the place where my single friends learnt that European boys are smooth talkers with agile tongues, if you know what I mean. 

After Florence we headed off to my favorite Italian city... Venice! I am a hopeless romantic and Venice reminded me of that. Tour wise in Venice we actually visited a glass blowing workshop where we were able to see an artist build a glass horse in less than a minute it was inspiring, we also went to a lace workshop. I did not know how much work was in these tiny pieces. While in Venice my friends and I made sure to go on a gondola tour through the Venice canals. Sadly Venice is where we were running after pigeons and my camera fell out of my pocket so further pictures aren't mine. Sadly, luckily my friends are picture happy and my dad let me use his camera per occasion. I made sure to buy a gorgeous mask in Venice because of course Venice is know for it's mascarade. We visited the castle in the city and were able to see the dungeon where people that were lead of the bridge of sighs would often end up. Our next step was catching the night train from Venice to Paris, but the bus stop and the train station are at two different ends of town. For your entertainment picture a head of teenagers hurrying though the streets of Venice, because of course they didn't give us that much time to get to the station, with suitcases in tow as well as carry on bags on our back. This trek could not be an easy one, not only did we have to rush with heavy suitcases but Venice is full of bridges, but no not nice smooth hill up, hill down bridges these bridges had stairs and lots of them! Other than the hike to the station Italy was fantastic!

Arivaderchi Italia... Bonjour Paris!

 

EuroTrip 1.0 part 1

Since I already told you about EuroTrip 2.0 I guess this is as good a time as any to start the epic 2 week journey my friends and I (and my dad) took to Italy and Normandy back in March 2008.

EurpTrip 1.0 is a school trip and the reason my dad was there is because he is a teacher at our high school. 

Our trip started at home because the day we were going to take a plane to Toronto there was a snow storm here, so we needed to take a greyhound to get to Toronto without missing out flight which would take us to Frankfurt to end up in Rome. This was the first trip for a lot of people so just getting there was an adventure.

Once in Rome we explored the sights that all tourists get to see, with a little Italian woman in our ear... well practically, since we were a big group the tour was set up with a little radio transmitter that allowed us to listen to our guide without being close to her. We were able to to visit the Coliseum, the Vatican (which is another country all together) we did a complete tour and enjoyed it because it rained everyday we were there except they day we were in Assisi. In Rome we were also able to see the pope's summer house which was right near our hotel, which was very roman in my mind, with all the statues and everything. 

We also made sure to throw our coins into the Trevi Fountain, I threw in 2, to get married. If you throw one in it's to come back to Rome, two to get married and three to get divorced. We visited the Parthenon, and since it was just after The DaVinci Code made it big we were on the hunt for some of the clues we got to read and see in the story, we saw many of the churches that Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) followed to end up at the castle, which unfortunately we weren't able to visit. But we did see all 5 obelix that were mentioned as well as 2 of the churches. Followed our guide Vittorio, who is from Italy and stayed with us the whole trip through the crowded streets and managed not to lose anyone. The other accompanying teacher is from Italy so she taught us basic italian upon arrival, we were all able to count to 30 (she said we wouldn't need more if we were bargaining for anything) as well as a few words we picked up, being similar to french it was quite a lot.

We headed to Assisi, where St-Francis was born, a beautiful little mountain town. We visited St-Francis church and than had the option to go to the castle, the downfall with going to the castle is that by the time you'd get back from the hike you wouldn't have any time to see anything else, so we opted out, it gave us a chance to visit the town. Assisi was also the only sunny day we encountered in the two weeks we spent in Europe. Other than visiting a place where they make ceramic plates we were pretty much left loose on the town by our teachers, some of us decided to look at the little tourist shop that were there while warding off anti-american slurs (which were very common... some people got spit on!). Assisi is also the one place where we had Italian Gellato, YUM!

Bongiorno for now, stay tuned there is a lot more to come.

the pictures are: 1. my dad and i at the coliseum (p.s. not my sweater... I borrowed it from my friend... seriously) 2. throwing my two coins into the Trevi Fountain 3. the view from someone's backyard in Assisi. 

EuroTrip 2.0 part 4

Because this was my first trip without parents and the first trip I had to plan myself with my friend Izabeau.

Since I'm 20, and it's my EuroTrip 2.0 I decided to compile 20 thing I learned while on my trip.

1. Always expect the unexpected (I know it's a cliche but it is true)

2. Be willing to modify your plans

3. Asking someone if they speak english is rude (all you have to say is excuse me and your question if they don't speak english they will tell you so)

4. Public transport is the way to go if you're on a budget, and it's a great way to see the town

5. Don't buy tickets from random people... whether it's for vehicles, museum, etc. (you could get in trouble) 

6. If 16:00 is after hours for a hotel don't stay there.

7. If a hotel doesn't have the breakfast included in the price don't take it, it usually isn't worth the price

8. Amsterdam has really steep stairs!

9. You need more than 2 days to visit big cities

10. Backpacks are great.(mostly while moving from place to place)

11. At least learn to say "thank you" and "sorry" in the language of the country you're visiting (even if you butcher it the locals will appreciate it)

12. Put aside your ego, ask for directions (got that men?)

13. Take unusual tours.

14. Cobble stone and shitty shoes don't mix

15. At the airport, smile and wear slip on shoes (mostly if you're going to the U.S.) things will go a lot faster

16. If you have a free night and understand the language go see a movie you can't see at home.

17. Canadians are loved everywhere (at least everywhere I've visited)

18. Ladies "beware" boys in Europe are very charming, not always in a good way.

19. Special tourist passes for trains such at the TGV can save you a lot of money.

20. face/body wipes are a life/stink saver when showers aren't available.

I did learn a lot more on this trip but these are thing I was able to pin-point the day I was coming back from my trip.

I hope my lessons will help you with your trips

EuroTrip 2.0 part 3

The last part of our trip took us to Amsterdam in the Netherlands on a night train. We arrived at 10:00 and got our tram tickets for the two days we decided to visit. Once we figured out how to take the tram we hopped off at our hotel, Hotel Zandbergen the best one yet. It was wonderful because it was close enough to the museums that we could walk there. We dropped our bags off than headed to the museums for the day starting with the wonderful Van Gogh Museum. It was wonderfully set up bringing us through his inspirations followed by his paintings in a chronological order, accompanied by his life story. This let us see the evolution of his art.

Once we finished we headed up town to see the Amsterdam Sex Museum, it sounds garish but it wasn't, it was very interesting. It was taking us through sex in the ages and the different views of sex in the ages. As well as the general history it gave us an over view of Amsterdam's sexual history.

Once again we were on the tram heading for another museum, this time it was Anne Frank's House. The Anne Frank House is where Anne Frank, her family as well as family friends spent quite a few years hiding out during the Nazi invasion of Holland. Having read her diary I was mislead by the size. I don't know if in my mind I made it out to be smaller than it was or if the fact that it was bear of furniture made it look bigger. Either way it was touching for me to be there, in a place with so much history. They had even preserved the wallpaper in Anne and her sister's room.

After visiting the museum the plan was that we were going to go to the restaurant district than take a tram to visit the Red Light District but on our way to supper we got invited to a PubCrawl and decided to go. On this pub crawl the plan was to go to 6 bars that night getting a free drink in each bar. Having visited museum all day we only made it out to 3. It was great because we got to meet people all over the world, there was a big group from England, some Dutch guys, people from Cyprus, Australia, New Zealand, yet we were the only Canadians. I have to admit we did get lost on the way back to the hotel, fine I got us lost, but we got there.

For day two in Amsterdam we registered for a bike tour of the country around  Amsterdam with Mike's Bike Tours. The bike tour was great! I would recommend it for anyone going to Amsterdam. Once we were at the bike shop we got a quick history of the city before heading out on our town bikes to go visit an authentic windmill and a farm where they make delicious cheese and clogs. The 22km ride was very educative and a great way to travel the way the dutch do... by bike. Most road in Amsterdam are not pedestrian friendly, the roads are divided into 3 lanes, the tram lane, the car line and a bike lane... it's a matter of choosing which type of vehicle you want to be run over by, and trust me bikes are not always your best choice.

After the tour was done we didn't have much time to do anything but go back to the hotel to get our bags, eat a light lunch and head back to the train station to get to Paris where I would spend my last night in Europe. We decided to go see a typical french movie called "Il reste du jambon?" for anyone who understands french I do recommend it, it makes you laugh and makes you think at the same time.

The next day I boarded the plane to get back home, just a bit over 24 hours and I was home safe and sound to my familly.

All it all it was an amazing trip full of highs with very few lows.
Au Revoir et a la prochaine aventure

EuroTrip 2.0 part 2

When we left off Izzie and I were getting onto the train for Berlin, it was not a direct train ride to Berlin because we had a stop in Koln (Cologne). Things were going smoothly until our train broke down, and what should have been 20 minutes on the TGV turned into an hour train ride on local lines... that hour meant that we would be arriving at the station at 10:45. The problem with that was our train was leaving Koln to Berlin at 10:48. So there we were pulling an "Amazing Race" and running through the station gently shoving people away to make our train... thankfully we hopped on having the doors close on our back and we were off to Berlin.

Once in Berlin we were starving, it was 15:30 and we were hungry so we B-lined it to a McDonald's to eat a McRib which cannot be found in Canada... and I have to Say it was DELICIOUS!


We made it to the Propeller City Island Lodge which is a themed hotel where each room is designed differently by an artist... we got the room with 360 degree mirrors. One word of warning is the hotel's reception closes at 16:30, and since we got there at 16:30 they had put our key in a safe by the door with a four digit code... Once we got into the room I felt as though I was in a scene from the movie Hostel and I was starting to get freaked out, so we decided to spend as little time in that room as possible.


We headed out to the Unsicht-Bar, a restaurant where you dine in the dark which is a crazy experience. When I say complete darkness I mean "cannot see your hand at the tip of your nose" darkness. We didn't even know what we were eating, we had a choice between a vegetarian, chicken, fish, beef, or a surprise dish. All you knew was that you were starting with a salad, then your main course followed by a desert. At the end of the meal you could go and see exactly what you ate. The meal was absolutely delicious and being in total darkness we had some very deep conversations about everything.


The next day we weren't able to actually check out of the hotel because there was no one there and the fact we no towels meant we couldn't shower (Eww). Needless to say we weren't impressed. After that fun we were off to go visit Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp a few hours from Berlin and had an awesome tour following our guideArja. Arja treated us to a very interesting tour and did a good job of getting the point across without depressing us too much.


The same day we waited in line to see the Bundestag which is the government building in Germany. It was beautiful because we got to go into the dome and see the whole city of Berlin.


Food wise we did make sure to get some Sourcrout and some Haagen Daz before we left, both were delicious. I also have to add that I am glad we walked so much because if not I would have gained a lot of weight due to all the eating.


Before we got onto the train to Amsterdam we concluded our quick visit of Berlin by visiting the Wall and the Hollocaust memorial which can be found in the middle of the city. Noth are beautiful monuments which commemorate hard times for the Germans.


So back to the station we went to wait for our night train to Amsterdam. We were ready to visit a new and exciting city.


Tschüß, until next time

The pictures in order are: 1. me showing off my awesome McRib (before wearing it) 2. the mirror room in the propeller city island lodge 3. the german flag in front of the Bundestag