France

Okay. So before I had said I was the worst blogger. I take it back. NOW I am officially the worst blogger EVER!
So. As most people that are actually reading this are aware, I took a 3 week trip to Europe in Summer 2011. The posts for the first two weeks (in Denmark and England) were put up..... but I realized I never put up the post for my week in France. I wrote one on my iTouch on the flight home, and just never uploaded it!! And since I now have a new trip to spill about, I figured I better complete this one first!

So here it goes.

I am currently on the last leg of my journey, the flight from Iceland to Winnipeg! I am very excited to have a proper sleep, haven't slept more than 2-3 hours for the last three nights, and it's really catching up to me! But first things first: my week in France! I arrived in Paris Gare du Nord around 3 or 4 pm? Made it to my hostel easily. Was planning on having a nap, but decided food was my first priority! My hostel was in Montmartre, not too far from Sacre Coeur actually! I wandered the nearby streets, but almost everything was closed. I had read about people closing up shop in August and heading south, but this was crazy. Although it could have also been because it was Sunday! Eventually I did find an open place, and I grabbed a bite. Also found an open shop to buy a French SIM. However, I couldn't get it to work in my phone! Turns out I don't think Telus actually unlocked my phone! Not cool, considering I paid them 50 dollars to do so! I had already bought the SIM, so I went back and bought a French phone for 29 Euros. Then I went back to the hostel and relaxed for a bit, had a little nap, and woke up just before dark, planning to watch the sunset at Sacre Coeur. However, I slept a bit too long, and walked in the wrong direction at first, so I missed most of the sunset, but was able to get a beautiful view of the Paris skyline at night!

The next day was my one day in Paris to do whatever I wanted! Number one on my list was the catacombs, but then I learned that they were closed on Mondays! Then I also learnt that it was a public holiday that day as well, so once again everything was closed! That was alright though, as most of the other things I wanted to do were more public things! In the morning, I went to the St Queens market up in the north end of Paris. It originally looked like a small market, but it was actually huge! It kept going and going, I went pretty quickly through ti, and after 4 hours I think I still missed a few streets. I did have a small freakout halfway through when I stumbled upon a stall that looked like it had been picked out of Greenmarket Square (in Cape Town) and placed there! 

Of course, the prices were outrageous, otherwise I would have been tempted to load up on some African goodies! Turns out there were a lot of these stalls, it made me so nostalgic!!! I did find this one stall that had a really nice African tanktop that I managed to get for 8 Euros, so that was exciting!! One think I realize that I forgot to mention in my England blog was the South African store I found! I was wandering around South Bank one day, and found this little cave with a restaurant, a hair salon, and this store called Rand Savers. Did I ever freak out!!!!!! I ran in there, and was delighted to see all those brands that I hadn't seen in so long!! Of course everything was 4-5 times more expensive than in SA, so I didn't completely load up, tempting as it was!! I did, however, get 3 bars of Top Deck, a Twist Granadilla drink, a roll of lemon-lime Super C Vitamins, and a pink Fizzer for old times sake! That literally made my day wow.

 Anyways, sorry back to France!! After the market, I had planned on heading to la perechaise cemetrie, but my Nikons battery died, and the spare was dead as well! So I headed back to the hostel and chilled for a bit while that charged, then I headed to the cemetry. This is the cemetery where Oscar Wilde, Chopin and Jim Morrison are all buried, as well as many other prominent figures from the last couple of centuries. I arrived there at 430, and not realizing a) that it closed at 6 b) that it was huge, I slowly meandered through the graves, stopping to look at each one, taking lots of pictures! However, I then realized how huge it was, so I walked to the back, where Wilde was. I got there, and immediately a woman started ringing a bell, and security started driving around clearing the park out! I quickly got a few shots of his grave, then decided I would try to hurry back towards Morrison's grave, which was back off in a front section. I snuck around the security people, who were herding the people onto the main streets and towards the exits. I finally managed to arrive at the site where his grave was, according to my map. But I couldn't find it! I ran around in every direction, madly trying to get a glimpse! But eventually a security man found me. I pretended to be lost, and looking for an exit, so he wasn't too mad that I was still in there! Anyways, I am convinced that his grave is not there. I then headed to the Tuilleries gardens by the Louvre. Those looked so beautiful in summer! I wanted to get to the Eiffel tower for sunset, so I rushed through the gardens. Although I had an abundance of metro tickets, I decided to walk to the Eiffel! Except I slightly misjudged the distance, and ended up looking like one of those speed walkers for most of the trek! Got to the Eiffel tower, got some nice shots of it, then sat on the grass and just chilled for a bit! Met a nice group of guys, chatted for a few minutes, then I headed to the other side of the Eiffel to get some sunset shots!

The next morning I took the train from Paris-Nimes to see JP! I arrived at the station, my train was about 45 minutes late, so I wasn't sure where he would be. To get to the main level, we had to take an elevator down. I step off the elevator, and JP is standing there, holding a pumpkin!!!! I burst out laughing, that is definitely the best greeting I have ever had, sooo funny. For anyone who doesn't know the story, I met JP when volunteering in South Africa. In my second volunteer house it was him, a 68 year old man, and about 15-20 girls roughly around my age! Sounds a little weird, but it was such a good dynamic!! We really became a family. But because of this unusual living arrangement, JP became known as Hugh Heffner and we were his bunnies. I became his pumpkin bunny because he made this amazing pumpkin gratin dish one night and I was basically in heaven. So cute that he brought a pumpkin there to pick me up!  So we walked around Nimes a bit, and then we stopped to have some lunch and wine! It was soo good to catch up, but talking with JP about Africa made me want to go back there even more so!! After that we walked around the coliseum, he ran into an old friend who took us into the radio station where JP used to have a cooking broadcast! That was cool to see inside. We then went back to his house, which is awesome by the way - great setup, with a huge deck balcony thing overlooking France! Took a little breather, and then we went to this little village for a bull demonstration. Wow. I didn't know things like this still happened. Was definitely a new experience! Basically they shut down the main street of this village, and on the sides of the road, they put prisonbar-like barricades up for people to hide behind. Then four men on horses ride past, with a crazy angry bull right behind the horses trying to break free through them. Directly behind and around the bull are crazy people who are trying to grab the bull, tackle him, something along those lines. The animal rights side of me was screaming out this is so wrong!!! But it was definitely a cultural experience like no other. Everyone is drinking on the streets, watching this go down, then afterwards everyone drinks a lot. I don't understand who would want to chase the bull though! One guy held on to him for a second, then the bull shook him free. He fell to the ground, and almost got his head trampled on by the bull. So scary! Then there was an incident where the bull got ahead of the horses, and was just running free through the streets! Would not want to meet him. I was teasing JP that I'd have to warn the other girls if they came to visit him, they'd be putting their lives in danger!

After the bull thing, we went to this very cute hotel restaurant that JP knows the owner of. The place was empty when we got there, and overflowing when we left! Wow, what a good meal that was. I had this crazy eggplant thing that was delicious, then we shared a potato gratin as well. We decided to split a bottle of wine too! He knew from lunch that white was my favourite, but he wanted to get Rose, so I said sure! I'd only tried Rose once, and hadn't been a fan, but this one was incredible!! Might be the second best wine I've ever had! (First goes to this dessert wine I had at Fairview while on a wine tour in SA). We had a really good talk, am so glad I had the opportunity to see him again, although I am sad it was for such a short time!
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So that's where my written blog post had ended...... but I want to quickly write a bit about Nice as well!
I left JP in the morning and took a train to Marseilles, and then onward to Nice! When booking my trip, I mainly chose places where I had friends to see! I didn't know anyone in Nice, and hadn't even really heard of it, but on a whim, decided to spend 3 nights there. What a good decision that was!! Such an amazing little coastal city. My journal also stopped at Nimes, so just relying on memory here! I believe I got there around late afternoon. I walked around for a few hours, took some pictures. I got out of the touristy hub, and found a part of Nice that was actually a little rundown (big contrast to the gleaming city centre). I managed to climb onto the roof of a small building and get a cool view of Nice. It started to get dark and so I decided to head back to the hostel.  The next day I decided to head to Saint Paul de Vence, which is about an hour away from Nice. It's this old little medieval village that sits on this huge hill! It was very cool, like stepping back into another world! Apparently 300 people still live in this village, but it's become quite a tourist trap today. That night me and a nice girl and guy from Quebec bought some bottles of wine and went and sat on the beach til 4 am, which was awesome. Love that you're allowed to drink in public out there! And that wine is cheaper than water.....

The next morning, I hit up this amazing market! It was so beautiful, and filled with amazing things!
Tons of gorgeous flowers, and an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables. Then there were the European staples, such as a stall that had 40 different types of olives! Lots of cheese. I bought an amazing spice mix that my family actually just used up this past month, it was so delicious!

  

In the afternoon, me and two girls who were staying in my hostel decided to head to Monaco to see what that was like, and to get another stamp on our passports! :) On the way, we stopped at a village called Eze. Somewhat similar to Saint Paul de Vence, lots of cute shops in this one. And tons of luxurious cars, wow, very high end! We had a few friends who had been to Eze the day before, and had told us that we had to go into the garden (which cost 5 Euros). Wow, so glad we listened to them! Such beautiful cacti, flowers, plants, and an INCREDIBLE view of St Tropez and the Mediterranean. Got some amazing pictures. But wow, was it ever hot!! We were sweating pretty hard, so were pretty delighted when we got to a part of the garden that had a walk through sprinkler cool down station! So good. Went through that a few times. By the time we left Eze, we realized that we wouldn't have enough time to get to Monaco and really enjoy it, so we decided to forego that and just head back to Nice! We went to this nice restaurant in Nice and had an amazing salad and pizza for dinner! Then we walked around the alleys for a bit, looked at shops. Found this little store tucked away that had such a ridiculous selection of Burkenstocks!! (which I lived in in Europe). I was so tempted to get a pair, seeing as they were significantly cheaper out there, and had so many nice colours and styles, but I restrained! However, I did not restrain from some delicious ice cream gelato thing..... they had so many crazy flavours, so I got green tea, and then a crazy Kinder surprise one which was incredible!! We walked along the beach for a bit, and then I headed along the coast to catch the sunset and the night lights.

When I got back into my room, I saw that the person who had been sleeping above me had left and there was someone new's stuff there. He came into the room right after I did, turns out he's from South Africa!!! He said he was from Cape Town, so I told him how I had spent six months there and was in love with the place. He asked where I had lived, so I told him Muizenberg, turns out that's where he's from!!! For those of you not too familiar with South African geography, Muizenberg is a tiny surfing village, has a population of just over 10,000 peopleish, on the outskirts of Cape Town! The chances of me meeting someone from there, in Nice, are about one in a billion!! So that was very cool.
That night, hung out at the hostel for awhile, later in the evening a bunch of us decided to hit up a pub/club down the street. Can't quite remember the layout, but I feel like there was a lowered cave area dance floor, that had benches or tables that people were dancing all over!
The next morning, I had to check out of my hostel, but my flight didn't leave until that evening, so a bunch of us hit up the beach to soak up some sun (it was scorching!!!) and enjoy the water. We went for a nice supper, and then I sadly left them, and headed to the airport. Had a nice flight to Copenhagen, got to the airport at 11pm. My flight didn't leave until 2pm the next day, so I camped out in the airport overnight, another night with minimal sleep! However, that morning I had an incredible veggie burger from the Burger King in the airport there!! Very different than the veggie burger that Canadian Burger Kings have! Pretty uneventful flight to Iceland, and then from Iceland to Winnipeg!


And that was the trip!!!!
Such an amazing time. Met some great new people, a few of whom I still talk to! Got to reconnect with some friends from Africa. :) Return to Paris, and see what Copenhagen, Skjern, London, Nimes and Nice had to offer!!

England!

Well here I am, almost done my week in France and I haven't even wrote a blog on england yet! I am currently in a small village an hour away from nice called st paul de vence, waiting for the bus to go back! It feels like so long ago that I was in Denmark already. I left Ditte on Saturday, and arrived at the London stanstead airport around 6. Security was intense to get into the uk! They asked where I was staying, where I met this friend, what nationality was she etc. Crazy. Made it through eventually, and then took a train into London, then 4 tubes and I finally arrived at Emmas! Was so nice to see her, was like we hadnt been apart at all. We decided to go out because it was Saturday night after all. I didn't have any nice shoes to wear so borrowed a pair of hers, they were just too small though so it ended up being a very painful evening! We went to Mohiki, then met some people who took us to Movita. Had a great time, me and Emma always have a great time when we go out together.

On Sunday, we made crepes, then I went to hillsong London for the evening service!! So good. I can't explain the feeling I get when I'm there. This sounds so lame, but when I walked in, there was a huge banner that said 'welcome home' and it was the same banner that hillsong cape town has, and that's exactly how it felt. I had heard one of he London pastors speak in cape town, but this was a different guy, i liked him though. After the service talked to a few people, ended up going to this wonderful vegetarian restaurant in soho nearby. London was good for eating vegetarian! Everything was labelled whether It contained any animal products, was suitable for vegetarians etc. France is not so good for that! On Monday I had my first sightseeing day. Decided to go to the British museum. That was cool, saw the rosetta stone, and a preserved human body that was super old and gross! Then I walked down to the grant museum of zoology and comparative anatomy. Basically it's a tiny museum run by one of the universities there, and it's full of animal skeletons and preserved animals in jars! It was really cool to see different skeletons, the penguin skeleton looks just like a penguin! I couldn't believe how similar the chimpanzee skeleton looked to a humans!

Then I went to topshop, but saw people with primark bags and was dying to go there! Took the tube to Oxford street where it was. Wow. I have never been in such a ridiculous crazy chaotic store! You could hardly walk, there were people everywhere! The queue for the fitting room was at least 40 minutes long! Just needed to get out, so I bought a few things that I thought would fit, and made my way home!  Came home to see Emma and her flatmate, James, glued to the news. The riots were going! We basically just watched the news all night, shocked at what was happening. On Tuesday, I took the train to Staines to meet up with Georgina! Was lovely seeing her, she showed me around her area, then we went to the pennywood park hotel and spa. She said it was a nice place but I didn't realize how nice it would be until she told me that when she worked there, she served Russell Crowe, and a bunch of the Chelsea boys came in as well. Crazy! It was super gorgeous, we pretended to be posh so they let us take a look around the spa, we snuck into some massage chairs, went in a sauna and an ice cave (room with ice for walls) and took a look at the crazy pools. Can't even imagine going there. We went and ate lunch outside on the patio, I had my first pimms which was delicious.

Came home and the riots were at it again, this time only a tube station away, at Clapham Junction, a nice end of town, popular shopping street, was being looted! Teenagers in hoodies would come and smash the windows with baseball bats or chairs, anything really, and then grab stuff! The cops arrived there after they heard about it, but there were just too many looters to do much! It's so stupid because it was mainly teens, with no criminal record, who heard about it on bbm and went down because they knew they could get away with it! Which most of them have unfortunately. On Wednesday I went to Camden market and shopped around, then stopped in clapham junction to see the damage! Lots of other people had as well, it was crazy, the damage that these kids caused. I took a lot of pictures, will post on Facebook at some point. Was interviewed by the Swiss national news. One of the big stories was the furniture store in croydon that was burnt down. It was 144 years old I believe, been passed down from generation to generation. And now it's gone. Peoples houses were burnt down as well. I just don't understand how these people could just tear apart people's lives with so little thought. Very saddening.

That evening me and Emma went to see love never dies, the musical sequel to phantom of the opera. It was good, although the songs weren't memorable likethe first one! The phantom had a really good voice though. And a surprise ending!  On Thursday I decided I should probably see some of the iconic sights of London! So I went and saw the London eye, went to parliament square and saw big Ben, and went in Westminster abbey. Was sad that you couldnt take pictures inside it, but it was really cool to see still. Saw the graves  of Isaac newton, Charles Darwin, William wilberforce, Robert browning, Handel, rudyard Kipling, Charles dickens, the bronte sisters, David livingstone, and a ton of others! Beautiful architecture, you can tell a lot of money has gone into that place over time. They also had a nice collection of wedding photos from the royal wedding on April 29, which was cool to see. Afterwards, I went and saw buckingham palace, pretty boring! That evening, Emma and i went for a long bike ride through Richmond park! That was cool because there were hardly any people there, and as a result there were deer everywhere! There was a herd of about 30 on the road, they moved over slightly for us and we passed them. The bucks are quite big! On Friday I figured I should have a practical morning, as nothing past Paris was booked at that point! Booked all my France stuff, and a flight back to Copenhagen to catch my flight home! That afternoon I went to see tower bridge and st Pauls cathedral, then a few of Emmas friends came over in the evening for a barbecue. On Saturday I went to Hyde park, took some pics, went through Kensington gardens and saw the palace. Then went to Notting hill, not really knowing much about it. Turns out there's nothing there. (apparently there actually is I was just not in the right spot or something) After that long detour, I headed to brook st and saw where Handel and jimi Hendrix used to live. Then I went to savile row and saw the store where the Beatles used to get their suits from, and then I saw the venue for their last live gig. 3 savile row, on the rooftop of an apartment building. Very cool. Then I headed home. As it was my last night me and Emma decided to go out again. Went to a place not too far from her house, had a good time. Was not so fun getting up a few hours later to leave London! Was sad to say goodbye to Emma, as well as the city!