Man!!! It's so freaking hard to find time to do aNY blogging in Paris!! On the road, anyway, but ESPECIALLY in Paris!! That's because I was staying at a hostel with NO internet access, my laptop's battery finally died out 8it says "irreplaceable damage", and the battery level won't go over à5, and besides, the only power outlet in the room was located in the most blogging-unfriendly place possible: 2 meters up in the wall, far away from any of the beds. I would've had to lay down right beside the bathroom floor to do any blogging! and that, only if I had the time... which I didn't...
So now that I'm done whining about how I couldn't blog during Paris (such a catastrophe :P), I can start actually saying stuff.
I'm currently at an internet cafe about 20m away from our hostel - the cheapest one we could find open on a Sunday (3 euros an hour!@#$). we just checked out of the hostel about an hour ago, and now I'm trying to figure out what to do for the rest of my trip (yay!) :0
So let's see... I already sort-of narrated what happened from Madrid to Orleans, though Dublin, the rest of Orleans, and Paris are still untold. Ok then... I'll start with Dublin.
Dublin was COOL. It wasn't mind-stunning or jaw-opening, but it was a nice place to visit. Our hostess, ania, attended us superbly even though we couch)surfed with her on weekdays. Isabel and I shared the living room, we had internet access, nice bathrooms, and we got to see Dublin's main attractions during the day (the Dublin castle, the Christchurch cathedral, the Dublin Spire, the bridges, the National Gallery, cars driving on the left side of the road, and so on. we spent two full days and nights there, after which we took an 18-Euro taxi to the airport at 4:30AM (GMT), had my red scissors removed by one of the security guys at the airport, and flew to Madrid.
In Madrid we were hosted by Equatorian Eve, who let us sleep on the living room for two nights and in her room for the third night (she double-booked us with other couchsurfers... kind of an awkward situation), and we got to see a bunch of monuments, eat Tapas and drink Calimochos at night, and go through its very complicated but very nice Metro system. Full description later.
Then we took the night-train ("going aanyywheeeeeere" :P, just kidding) going to Barcelona, where we were hosted by fellow Computer Scientist anton!! He had a VERY small apartment! and he hosted us very kindly - he also let us stay in his living room (smallest livin room I've seen), and we got to see Bracelona - a really awesome city - Gaudí buildings, Tibidabo, and the awesome city structure and people made the experience quite a nice one. Ummm... oh and we went' dancing too! Compliments of Isabel's friend andre, his uncle, and their friend Isis! - she likes other girls so we wen't to a gay bar very close to France, not high on the ladies' side but with very good music!
*MORE TO COME LATER, HAD TO GO LOOK FOR A POST OFFICE*
All right! So, to anyone who read this entry before I corrected it, so sorry, french keyboards suck! They put the "a", "m", "z", "w", "q", ".", ",", ":", ";", "-", and all the number and symbol keys in the wrong places! Just imagine having the "a" and "m" changed! Just writing "I am mainly" is a feat, not to mention "www.gmail.com"!! So I decided I would just write everything consistently wrong, and then replace the misplaced characters. I haven't done it yet, but it hope it goes smoothly.
Just as an example, this is what part of my blog entry looked like:
Iù, currently qt qn internet cqfe qbout éà, qzqy fro, our hostel ) the cheqpest one ze could find open on q Sundqy 9" euros qn hour12340: Ze just checked out of the hostel qbout qn hour qgo; qnd noz Iù, trying to figure out zhqt to do for the rest of ,y trip 9yqy10 M0
Bad, isn't it?
Anyway, so that was pretty much Barcelona. Lisbon was kind of a surprise destination - we weren't really expecting to go there, but a friend I had made at CMU Open House earlier this year, Filipe, had offered to host me if I ever went to visit. I thought he had merely said that as an afterthought, a kind gesture when I told him I wanted to visit all of Europe, but he really meant it! When we arrived at Lisbon airport, he was already waiting for us at the terminal! Then he led us outside, where his father picked us up and took us ALL the way from the northern-most side of Lisbon to the south side of the Tajo river, beyond Lisbon, to his old house, which he completely gave us to sleep while we stayed in Lisbon! And when we came in, they had bought food and bathroom supplies for us, they moved in two beds for us UPSTAIRS, and they brought in silverware, glasses, and bowls for us to eat with! And THEN they took us to their real house to have dinner with their whole family! They were SO GREAT!! They then took us back to our "old house" and went to sleep.
The next day was a Sunday, and they took us on a daytrip! All day! Filipe's dad drove all of us (Filipe, his parents, Isabel, and me) ALL the way to an area near Lisbon called Sintra, apparently recognized as "World Heritage" by UNESCO. We walked through a moorish castle, two palaces, and an amazingly well-preserved monks' convent, all of them requiring a long drive up the mountain and a moderate-to-long walk into the forest. They invited us to everything, and they even brought food for the trip for all of us!!! And we tried Portuguese "queixadas" (which are excellent, by the way). They were so nice!!!! Most hospitable family I had met so far!!
During the next days, Isabel and I walked through the actual city of Lisbon, seeing tourist centers such as the "Castelo de San Jorge" and the "Sé Cathedral", buying postcards and souvenirs, and taking lots of pictures as always. One thing we noticed about Lisbon was that it seems to pride itself on its tiles. A great number of buildings in the center of Lisbon have tiles covering windows, doors, and even entire walls, usually creating pretty designs that allow quite an astonishing effect.
Another nice part of Lisbon was the Oceanarium. We paid 11 euros each to go in, but I think it was worth it. The main area is a great cylinder filled with water and lots of exotic kinds of fish - sharks, school fish, eels, stingrays, and a huge lethargic fish called the "sunfish". You can see this cylinder from many angles as you walk around the Oceanarium, and secondary displays filled with water all around show other species in display: penguins, jellyfish, coypus, and the one that impressed me the most: the seahorses! They weren't the typical ones you think about when you think about a seahorse, not like the Pinnochio-Disney-movie kind of seahorse (yes, there is a seahorse in the Pinnochio movie, when Pinnochio plunges down into the ocean) everyone knows about. This seahorse looked more like a little sea dragon, with a body that looked like a stick, and extremities that looked like leaves. They were awesome! I'll post some pictures later.
So then we eventually left Lisbon and left for Paris, where we were hoping to spend the night and then take a train to Orleans in the morning. We arrived at late afternoon, with still plenty of time to see Paris by day. A train took us near downtown Paris, where we walked beside the Seine river all the way to the cathedral of Notre Dame. It was an awesome first sight, but after about 30 or 40 minutes, we both realized we wanted to go to the bathroom and could find no "toilettes" around.
We walked at least 10 blocks, looking at each cheap-looking restaurant, trying to find somewhere to excrete our waste fluids. I spoke my first complete french sentence in a real situation that night to a hotel manager: "Bonsoir, excusez-moi, je pou d'utilisier die toilette?". He replied with a cold "non" and lots of other french words I didn't really understand.
Not too long after that, we found a small shop that said "patisserie" (French bakery that specializes in pastries and sweets) and sold bananas. It was run by a man from Sri Lanka who very kindly told us we could use the bathroom without having to buy anything. I was too grateful with him, however, so I at least bought two bananas from him. Besides, I was hungry.
A few blocks later we found a walking bridge loaded with young people eating, drinking, singing, and playing guitar. It was past 11PM already, but people didn't seem to mind. At this point Isabel was very tired for walking, and decided she was going to sit down for a while. We also realized at about this time that since we didn't have a place to stay for the night, we would have to find the coziest place possible, and that bridge might prove to be a good candidate.
While Isabel sat down and dozed off for a while, I wandered off to see what I could find in Paris at night. I was surprised when not two blocks away, I found the entrance to the Louvre museum. The big entrance archs, the famous glass pyramids, and the monumental Constantine arch on the opposite side were hard to miss - I had most certainly found the Louvre. So I took lots of pictures of me and the Louvre and then went back to Isabel. She was already sleeping under a blanket, and the night was getting colder, so we decided to find somewhere else to go.
So we tried the closest Metro station. There didn't seem to be anyone inside, and after a few minutes of waiting there inside where it was warmer, a few noises suggested that we had been locked up inside the Metro station. "Oh well", we thought, "cozy Metro station is better than chilly bridge". But our refuge lasted for less than an hour, as some workers finally found us, and with many apologies and some hesitance, kicked us out of the Metro station.
So we kept on walking, finding somewhere else to stay. We then found the Notre Dame cathedral again, and noticed that the park in front of the building was vacated, including a few long stone benches that we at that moment only saw as beds. So we put our backpacks down, found cozy clothes to put on, and lay down to sleep for a few hours.
Around one or two hours later, the cold woke up us both, and it was already almost 4AM, so we decided that a nearby station Elisa had told us about, the Gare de Austerlitz, might already be open. So we walked, and walked, and walked... what before seemed like 10 blocks now seemed like 30, and it seemed to get colder and colder as we walked on. We finally got there not 5 minutes past 4AM, and sure enough, the station was just opening. We got inside, grateful for the newfound heat, and took the Metro to the station "La Défense", where we had told Elisa we would wait for her at a local McDonald's.
About 4 hours after waiting for her at McDonald's, she arrived, accompanied by a Costa Rican girl she referred to as Diana. After a big breakfast and a lot of chatting, we went and touristed around the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower. Took lots of pictures, then walked back again to the Metro station, where we rode back to Gare de Austerlitz, bought three tickets to go to Orleans, and took the train.
***
I couldn't finish this blog entry because of lack of time, will summarize below:
We arrived at Orleans, a guy Elisa knew took us in his house where he was living with his mother and they were both SUPER SUPER SUPER SUPER SUPER SUPER hospitable with us, and we saw a light show projected on the cathedral because of the annual celebration of Jeanne d'Arc, went to an electro-techno concert that same night, saw the Jeanne d'Arc parade on the street the next day, walked around the city for a couple of days, met Elisa teacher-friend Sophie and her two children Nicolas and Charlotte, rented a car, drove around the Loire river area for three days, touring the most famous castles and towns in the area (Chambord, Chenonceau, Amboise, Blois), during this time bought a global Eurail pass 2nd class online and waited for it to get to our residence in Orleans but there was a mishap and the mailman put the package in the wrong mailbox and they told me about it and I spent a whole day worrying about it and trying to get them to get it back for me which they did at the very last day I was in Orleans so in the end it was awesome, then drove to Chartres, Versailles (I got so lost for like 3 hours before getting there), got to Paris, found our hostel, gave back the car at an Avis agency in Paris, spent 3 days in Paris looking at the cathedral, the museums, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysées, and a lot of other places, and then we went to the airport the night before my sisters left Europe to sleep in the airport so they could wake up ready to board early.
To be continued...
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