Semana Santa Parte Dos - Paris

So the next day I woke up and dragged my suitcase down the impossibly steep stairs without bringing it down on myself and possibly ending my spring break, and life, all too early, and proceeded outside to hail a taxi for I did not want to miss my bus to Paris and did not know exactly where the station was. 10 euro and 20 minutes later I got my bus ticket I had booked online the month before and sat down and waited. Only two of my friends from the Amsterdam trip were going to accompany me to Paris. One showed up a bit before departure and the other not at all. The other had arrived 10 minutes after the bus left and had to buy another ticket all over again but still made it to Paris a few hours later than us.


On the way to Paris the bus stopped at Brussels, Belgium's capital. We then continued on to France, where my nap during the total 8 hour ride was interrupted by the French border control. A heavyset French gendarme stepped aboard with a partner to do their "intensive" security check which included looking at everyone's passport, well almost everyone's, they didn't even open my friend's passport which of course had nothing to do with her being a young pretty girl. The gendarme then stepped up to me and said something in french which I didn't catch and then looked at my passport with a surprised face and turned to the other guard saying, "ble bla blu amerikann honh oui oui jeauocqx le pas blah blah" as it sounded to me, and I said, "je ne se pas frances" to which they started laughing and handed my passport back. I guess initially they thought I was french. I tried not to hold it against them.

Finally we got off at the bus station in Paris and made our way to the french metro system to get to our hostel. By the way the metro is handycap-unfriendly, very much so. For some reason there are ups and downs of stairs randomly and frequently, which make it fun to carry your heavy luggage with the tiny useless wheels on up and down.

Fortunately the metro stop for our hostel was literally within view of the hostel once we found it. Checking in was our first true attempt at interacting with the French. The Indian looking man behind the desk became flustered when we explained in broken english lapsing into spanish occasionaly how one friend wasn't here yet and that we couldn't pay yet. In retrospect I seriously think he might have been mentally disabled to an extent as I watched him try to figure out a calendar with only 3 different names on it for the bookings and ours was one of them but to no avail until we pointed at our names. He also said we could pay by credit card which was not the case when we went back down to the front desk later and spoke with a different man who said that eez not posseeble and you can go down street to atm ok real easy you put zee card in and take money real easy ok and come back ok? yes? pay now? - is how our conversation went. Anyhow the room was clean at least once we got to it and had a balcony which was a nice surprise plus.

And here is the view from the 5th floor.

First thing we decided to see as we only had 3 days to explore this immense city was the Notre Dame cathedral. We walked down near the metro and approached this t-shirt seller for directions, who coincidentally was an American selling anti-Bush shirts to recoup some money before flying home.

We learned Notre Dame was only about 20 minutes away by foot so we walked along the famous river Seine to get to it, as it apparently is in the center of it on it's own island. Here is the front that we got to see after waiting in a 45 minute line which wasn't bad by Paris standards.

In front was a man performing acts with kerosene.






Here is a shot from the back looking to the front of the inside. It was free to enter surprisingly.

A shot of some of the stained glass work.

After we explored the inside we went back outside and found another line to wait in that let you pay 4.80 euro to ascend the cathedral up to the top for a view of the city. While we waited in line this very french man performed street humor for us by sneaking up on unaware people passing by. I don't think this would fly to well in America as I imagined him trying this in the Bronx or in Detroit or something and most likely promptly being punched out, stabbed, or sued, or all of the above all at once. The French seemed to take it well however.

Once we climbed to the top here was the view.

And here's a quick clip of the panorama to give you a better idea of the experience.

And here is a shot of the back of the cathedral as we left.

As we walked back down the Seine, one of my friends wanted to stop in this park. As we approached the gate I noticed a small group of American looking kids, one of whom was face down in the dirt in his nice polo sweater. So we approached them to see what was going on. They were Catholic highschool sophmores from Scranton, PA, yes where the hit show The Office takes place; on a trip with their school to Paris to enjoy the cultural and educational experience of traveling, and by that they seemed to mean getting completely wasted off cheap wine and whiskey, as demonstrated by their willingness to sing to the girls and the prone figure of their friend taking a nice break to have a dirt sandwich. Don't worry, he's not dead, they picked him up later and walked him over to a trashcan where he promptly started peeing into it while swaying. Remember, the children are our future.

After the singing interlude we returned to the hostel to rest up, for the next day we wanted to see the Eiffel tower and the Louvre. We asked where the Louvre was from some friendly passersby who coincidentally were American anyway and learned it was about 20 minutes by metro. So we took the train and got off at the Louvre's own dedicated stop, which by itself looked like part of the museum with its sculptures and marble flooring. As we climbed the steps up out of the station I realized the stop actually was part of the museum, literally, it was the basement. We bought our tickets at a stand on our way to the main part of the Louvre and unknowingly at the time were saving ourselves another hour wait in line, as once we got into the center where the reception was, the ticket booth line there had a line snaking on and on.

This is a picture of a room housing some royal jewlery of sorts.

There was nothing in the room at all except for at the very back of it where this case was located.

And here is what was inside the case. It was hard to stare at these things and think of them as real. The amount of jewels and their size looked almost fake because I'd never seen so many like that before. That tiara has about 1,100 diamonds by the way.

We spent about 8 hours walking through the Louvre's various wings so here are just some of the highlights as I did take many photos but also saw a lot more than I captured.

Here is Napoleon Bonaparte's bed. It is really that short, like he was. I thought with all that money he would at least have had a far larger bed.

This is a random painting from one of the many halls lined floor to ceiling with them. It made me laugh to look at this painting and think about how technically any art could practically have as well been painted by a monkey and you would not even know necessarily. Such is art.

One of the wings had a large amount of ancient Egyptian and Sumerian artifacts. Here is a mask from the selection.

And of course the Louvre houses those famous pieces we all know about. Here is the one and only Mona Lisa. What you can't see in this picture of the painting is the extensive multiple protection barriers in front of the painting in a 12 foot radius extending outward. I was dissappointed with this as I wanted an up close shot of the painting but this was the best I could get instead. Honestly I wasn't that impressed. This is one of those items of art that is more important historically I believe. It's also a lot smaller than I imagined, maybe only about 2 feet wide by 3 feet tall.





And here is the sister to the Statue of Liberty. This is the first one that was made that inspired the giant version given to America as a gift.

And this is the Venus de Milo, the supposed classic definition of the pinnacle of beauty. It was quite difficult to take in all this visual information I had seen so far because up until this point all of these famous works were just names and pictures in books. To have the real thing in front of you is completely different.

Included in the 8 hours of our time spent at the Louvre was perusing the sprawling gardens that lay at the front of the outside of the Louvre.

There were many sculptures in the garden both new and old. Note the size of the tree next to this giant spider thing to get an idea of its scale. There was also a hedge maze to the right of this photo. To the left continues the rest of the gardens where at the very end was a large gilded gate that opened up to a direct line of sight of the Arc du Triomphe in the distance.

After we left the Louvre we decided to try to make it to the Eiffel tower, and we did shortly before nightfall. It was truly a grand spectacle, but not grand enough to spend 13 euro to ascend to the top. Sorry Paris, I'm a poor college student on exchange without a job.

We were seated outside the tower getting ready to head back when all of a sudden the tower lit up like a giant Christmas tree. The video clip below shows all, including the voices of my friends who had been sampling some of France's finest red wine after the Louvre.

It really was that cool to actually see the Eiffel tower however. It is freakin huge, to put it poetically. It carried this dominating presence, for you could almost always see it from any point in the city where you were, it was always there in the background somewhere. Made for quite some views of the Parisian skyline. The next morning we had to wake up to catch our flight to London to meet up with one of our friends who had parted ways with us after Amsterdam. From there continues parte tres of my spring break.

Semana Santa Parte 1 - Amsterdam

The first stop for semana santa, which is what they call their spring break, was Amsterdam, Holland. About 7 of us total were meeting up all for the same 4 days there. Two flew from the States, one a boyfriend of one of the girls in our group, and the other a college friend of a guy from our group. We were spread out through Amsterdam in the hostels because we booked things at seperate times. Two of the guys, David and Pete, the ones who know eachother from school in the US, booked the first night before I could talk to them so I had my own place for the first night but stayed with them in a different hostel for the remaining three days. Two of the girls had a place farther down the canal together, and the couple had another place on the other side of the canal down a bit.

My phone couldn't make outgoing calls or send messages, one of the girls dropped her phone into the canal while the other didn't even bring hers, and the girlfriend from the couple ran out of minutes, all of this since the first day...


This is one of said canals that may contain our friend's phone. How beautiful. A side note: this was practically the only sunny day by the way for the rest of the spring break. The temperature at the time was probably about the low 50s, high 40s F from what I recall.


Therefore meeting up was a bit harder than expected and so for the first couple days it was each group on its own. The city was quite small so we ended up bumping into them anyways later on.




These are the stairs leading up to our room in the hostel. Now, normally I wouldn't post such a mundane detail but if you take note of the fact that im standing upright on one stair and pointing the camera at a direct line in front of me you'll realize these stairs incline at a ridiculous rate. It's hard to convey the experience through this photo but basically these are the narrowest and steepest stairs you'll probably run into in your travels. It was a lot of fun lugging a suitcase up.

And these are the luxurious quarters you get to stay in for about $50 american a night in the heart of Amsterdam. The shower in the bathroom was a spigot mounted on the wall and the drain was a hole in the corner. The floor was flat and there was no seperation nor partition between the shower space and the rest of the bathroom, so if you had to go to the bathroom after someone took a shower you best not be wearing pants or mind getting wet.

Here is a view of the street in front of our hostel. We used trams like you see pictured to get around the city, which was quite small anyway. I think we were supposed to pay for it but we kept hopping on the back and no one ever asked us anything. I used the weak dollar in the face of the euro as an anti-guilt remedy for that, that and being a poor college student.

The first day we spent getting our bearings and walking around the city. The people are quite friendly, and almost over-polite to an extent. Almost everyone we spoke to knew english perfectly as well. I read prior to coming here about the many canals of Amsterdam but had not expected there to be quite so many. This city reminded me of a northern european version of Venice to an extent.

On the second day we decided to go check out the Anne Frank house, as it was one of the big tourist things to do in the city. Pictured here is the bookcase which hid the entrance to the secret portion of the house where Anne Frank hid from the Nazis during her time there. To enter the room you step through a doorway not pictured.

This is where you come out to after going behind the bookcase. All over the walls and in various spots were sentences in English and Dutch taken from Anne's diary. The one over this doorway mentions her hearing over the radio about the Jews being gassed in the camps and how terrible she felt.

This is the view out the windows of the room Anne hid in. I took this picture to try to imagine what she saw every day as she hid and looked out this window, imagining how it felt to watch Nazi patrols march down the cobbled streets in search of more Jews to arrest. It was truly a sobering experience. Definately not the typical touristical jaunt through such a famous city. Not quite Disney.

After such a light hearted experience (sic) we decided we needed a few pints of fresh authentic dutch Heineken to un-sober ourselves after having experienced such a sobering sight, and walked to a nearby cafe.

The next day we decided to check out some of Van Gogh's and Rembrandt's works at this museum. They didn't allow pictures inside so this is as much as you'll see of this place right now. The interesting thing was this style of architecture was consistent throughout the city with the other important civil structures as well. The train station we emerged from on the first day was nearly as grand as this museum in its outer appearance.

Here is snapshot of the 'dam on our last night there. There are a lot of other things I could have taken photos of but did not want my camera with me at the time. We did take a stroll through the red light district and it was quite funny actually. You walk down streets and alleys lit up in red neon as girls in lingerie knock on the windows they stand behind as you pass. The whole experience of this city was quite surreal. The apparent unrestricted allowance of such hedonism would suggest this city would fall into utter chaos and ruin after a month but instead what you get is quite the social experiment in action that still continues on without a hitch. Not once did I feel threatened or unsafe, except for being paranoid about my camera, and I did not see anyone seemingly out of line. Everyone generally kept to themselves. Granted if you wanted trouble all you had to do was look for it and it wouldn't be far but at the same time trouble wasn' going to come find you, unlike other places I've seen.

The next morning I had to wake myself up to catch the bus to Paris, as my friend David was going to Ireland from Amsterdam by plane later in the evening and his friend had already left for his plane back to the States as I slept.