Je suis arrive au Paris, dans le tot
matin, avec assez de reste, et pret a pratique parler en Francais :)
Okay, so back to English anyways, I
passed through immigration rather easily and without issue, which was
good considering I only had one free page left on my passport, which
was of course gladly used up by the French immigration. By the time I
grabbed my bags, and figured out my trains to get to my hosts place,
I realized I was going to be quite early, as I had told him I would
get there around 10 am or so, but I arrived at the train station near
his place by 9 am. After wandering around in the rain for a little
bit, trying to get my bearings and figure out how to get towards his
place, I managed to get to a square close to his place, but had to
stop and look at a big map to try and figure out exactly where I was
at that moment, and needed to go. While looking at the map, a French
lady stopped by and asked if I needed help, and kindly pointed me in
the correct direction. I know Parisiennes have a reputation of being
rude and stuck up, but from that point onwards, I couldn't disagree
more with that statement. Perhaps the fact that I am able to speak
the language a bit helps, but throughout my days there, I found
people to be amazing.
It was only 9:10 am and I was on the
street where Olivier, my host, was living, and didn't know whether I
should stop at a cafe to kill some time, or to look around for a
place to buy a sim card to get a hold of him, or what, but I just
figured I would get into his place, and see if he was up early by
chance. His directions said he was on the 5th floor, but
when I entered the building, I had no idea whether that was
considered the first floor, or the main floor, as different countries
have different definitions of the main floor....so I climbed up to
the 4th floor, unsure if it was the 5th floor
according to him or not, and decided to go to the very top floor just
in case...and fortunately he had written his name on his door in
chalk, so I knew I had found the right place, since there were no
actual addresses associated with the apartments. After knocking for a
little bit, he was able to wake up and come let me in. The place was
a very cosy little place, probably a bit smaller than some of my
bedrooms in houses in Canada, but it had a nice charm. We sat down,
and chatted for an hour about various things, including his video
game design interests, and family history. I was pretty hungry by
this point though, so he mentioned he could take me to a place that
served a pretty good and cheap American breakfast, so we were on our
way.
We stopped in the little cafe for an
hour and a bit, had a tasty breakfast, with endless coffee, and just
continued to chat away. Olivier was born in France, but moved to the
US and lived there for several years, and then moved back to France,
so he spoke English with an American accent, but French with a French
accent, quite interesting. He was a super easy going and kind dude,
so we got along quite well, which is a definite plus, as it can be a
bit odd meeting a stranger on the internet, and staying at their
place without having ever met them in person. After our lunch, he
walked with me around the city for the next 4 hours or so, showing me
many of the lesser known sights, and of course some of the major
sights of Paris. He had a great knowledge of many of the buildings,
and the history of them, which was absolutely great, as many walking
tour guides don't even have that kind of knowledge. We wandered
around some of the smaller streets around his neighbourhood, that was
near the Odeon, and then moved on down towards Luxembourg Park, which
was near the McDonalds he was working at. After the park, we stopped
by the Mortuary Church, and then moved on to the oldest church in
Paris (possibly France), which was erected in the year 600 or so,
quite amazing. After that church, he showed me where the cafe de
Procope was, which is the oldest cafe in the world, having opened in
the 1600s, and hosting a who's who of brilliant literary minds
including Voltaire, Hugo, etc., etc. I had a quick peek at the menu,
which was fairly expensive, but kind of to be expected for Paris, and
made a note to go eat there before I left the city for historical
sake. After wandering around some of the smaller back streets, we
made our way over to the Notre Damme cathedral, and wandered around
inside there.
Olivier was just full of knowledge
again, and told me the reasons that gothic churches used gargoyles on
their facades (to keep away evil spirits), and explained how the
rosary inside the cathedral is the largest in the world. After
wandering around that amazing church, we were on our way towards the
Hotel de Ville, which serves as a type of City Hall, and then
wandered around the Jewish district for awhile, grabbing some
falafels on our way through there, and stopping by a park for a
little rest. After wandering through the Jewish area, as well as the
chic gay neighbourhood, we were on our way over towards the Louvre,
which was absolutely massive. It was already a bit later in the day,
and I didn't really feel like spending the 10 euros to enter, and
only have 2 hours to wander around, so I skipped entering it on this
day, so we just continued to wander around a bit more. He pointed out
a few of the Arc de Triomphes in the city (as there isn't just one,
as many people assume), and then showed me the National Opera, and
some of the more expensive shopping areas of the city, before finally
making our way back to his apartment. By the time we were done
wandering around, it had been a good 6 hours or so, and our feet were
sore, and we were ready to relax a bit.
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| Dreary day in Paris, but lovely architecture |
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| l'Odeon |
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| Luxembourg Park |
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| A sort of safe haven for French people during the German Nazi occupation, as they would come and hang out here and the Germans would leave them alone |
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| The Mortuary Church |
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| Oldest church in France |
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| Cafe de Procope, World's Oldest Cafe and location where many of France's great literature minds would gather |
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| Huge police rally protesting their treatment |
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| Notre Damme |
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| Notre Damme from behind, a really unique style with all those support beams, looks kind of like a bunch of spider webs |
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| World's Largest Rosary |
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| Hotel de Ville |
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| Bazaar next to the Hotel de Ville |
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| Louvre Palace |
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| Eastern Entrance of the Louvre, erected by Napoleon |
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| Inside courtyard of the Louvre with my French guide Olivier |
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| West entrance of the Louvre |
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| One of several Arc de Triomphes in the city |
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| Obelisk "donated" by Egypt (more like taken by the French) |
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| the Madeleine |
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| National Opera |
After hanging around for a bit, and
playing some video games, we wandered down to a Canadian pub near his
place for a bite to eat and a beer. I was pretty amused to see they
had Poutine on the menu, so I figured I may as well have one of
those, since I hadn't had one in ages! We had dinner and one beer in
the very rowdy bar, as it was packed with people, not only being a
Friday night, but also because there was a World Ice Hockey
Championship game going on, Canada vs Finland....and there were quite
a few Canadian supporters, as well as a few Finns....a pretty big
deal in Europe I guess, although I'm still following the NHL more
closely. Canada closed out the Finns, and all was good for us
Canucks. After dinner, we just went back to Olivier's place, and I
needed to have a little snooze, since I was pretty tired by this
point. It was a Friday night though, and Olivier had plans to go out
around midnight, so I managed to get myself out of bed and head out
with him to a few nearby pubs, where we met up with some of his
coworkers from McDees. They were all pretty nice people, but
definitely spoke very very little English, so the conversations were
all in French, which was okay, but I don't understand a lot of the
smaller words, and the French speak more quickly than the Quebecois,
so I still have a hard time understanding everything. I also don't
quite have enough confidence in the language to jump right into the
big group discussions to make my points, so I had to sit on the
sidelines mostly, just listening and hanging out. After the one pub
closed, we went down to a second pub that stays open until at least 4
am, and hung out there until close, then went back to Olivier's
place, with his 4 friends in tow. We arrived there, and everyone just
hung out until about 6 am, when people started to fall asleep.
Eventually everyone left, and I was able to finally get to sleep.
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| Poutine! |
The next day I ended up sleeping in
pretty late, and Olivier was still sleeping so I just headed out
myself to a nearby cafe for an amazing lunch and coffee. It was just
such a pleasure to sit in these little cafes in Paris, speaking
French with the staff, and enjoying the delicious food and
atmosphere. What an incredible city, I have already fallen in love,
and could totally see myself living there some day :) After mon
dejeuner, I wandered over to the French mobile provider Orange, to
see what was wrong with the sim card I had bought the previous day at
a shop called Le Quebec, that would only say “Sim Registration
Failed” when I would turn the phone on. The lineup was fairly long
to talk to someone, as Saturday is really one of the few days
Parisians can get things done, since they work all week, and
nothing is really open on Sundays in France, as it still has that
Christian tie to Sunday being a day of rest. Once I was able to speak
to a representative, I wasn't able to get a refund, as the phone
number had been cancelled, and from what I understood, I had to
return to the shop to try and get a refund, and then come back to the
Orange shop to get a new card....so I went back to talk to Olivier
for a bit, and he offered to come along and help me out, since I knew
it was going to be a battle with the shop to get any money back.
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| A croque Monsieur :) |
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| People always find a new way to spell my name 8-) |
We went to Le Quebec, and the guys
working there refused to give me back a refund, saying it was the
service provider's fault, and that they couldn't do anything about
it, so we had to head back to Orange again, where we found that it
wasn't their fault, it was the shop's fault, and that what they were
doing was in fact illegal, as they not only were required to give a
refund since the number had been cancelled, but they were also
supposed to register any person buying a sim card, which they failed
to do. Oh, and on top of all that, they sold me the sim card packet
for 20 euros, when it should have been 10 euros...scam artists
ripping off foreigners!! So we had the guys from Orange write a
letter saying that the shop was responsible and what they were doing
was illegal, and went back to the shop again. Olivier did all the
communicating, and showed the shop our one receipt for the credit I
had bought, and asked them to make up a receipt saying I had in fact
bought the packet from them the previous day, as they clearly
remembered having sold it to us. So they gladly wrote up a receipt
and stamped it, thus proving they had sold it to me the previous day.
Olivier then told the man he wanted his money back since they had
admitted to selling us the card, and of course the shopkeeper
refused....well there was a lot of arguing in French, and on top of
that, some guy behind us in line was bitching about us taking too
long....wow what a ridiculous event. So finally Olivier said he was
going to take everything down to the police, since the shop was up to
illegal activities, and refused to return my money...so basically the
lesson is, don't buy a sim card from a vendor, just go straight to
the service provider's shop if possible, as I'm not out about
$30....ah well...first bad sour taste in my mouth about France, c'est
la vie.
So after that fiasco, I still wanted to
go head out and see the city a bit more, so Olivier went home and I
made my way down to the Eiffel Tower. Wow, what an absolutely
incredible piece of work! It's presence is just amazing and
breathtaking, as there's no clutter around the structure, and just
walking below it and looking up to the heavens, and seeing the
intricate iron work, is just incredible....what an engineering marvel
too. The lineups to take the lift up were rather long, but the queues
to take the stairs up weren't all that bad, so I decided to do the
more fit route, and take the stairs. It was only 5 euros to climb the
stairs, so not too bad, and I made my way up to the first observation
deck, thinking that was as far as I could go, but then realized I
could actually walk up to the 2nd floor as well, so I did
that. A lot of stairs, but still well worth the cheap price, and the
incredible views of Paris. After hanging around the Tower for an hour
and a bit, just wandering around, looking at the restaurant menu
prices ($80 to $90 for a simple meal!), and finally made my way back
down.
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| One of the amazing wonders of the World |
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| Paris from the first floor of the Tour de Eiffel |
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| Men still hard at work on the tower |
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| La Riviere Seine et l'est de Paris |
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| Just an amazing piece of steel work |
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| Look at that huge lineup to take the lift...walk the stairs people! |
After getting to the bottom, I decided
to wander down the nearby fields to grab some more pics of the tower
from a distance, and then wandered off to find a Statue of Liberty
replica that I had spotted from the Tower. While walking towards a
spot to take some photos from the river, two things I noticed that
were rather funny: one being a man who actually had a leash and was
walking a cat! Ha ha ha ha I was laughing so hard when I saw this
ridiculous sight. The next thing I had a laugh about was watching a
lady getting out of her parking spot, and just ramming the car behind
her without regard, making sure she could get out of her parking
spot. After seeing this, I started to pay more attention to vehicles,
and looking at their bumpers I came to the realization that everyone
has scuff marks or don't even bother painting their bumpers, as it
seems like everyone rams other vehicles to make sure they have no
more room to maneouvre...so hilarious (Later on when talking about
this with Olivier, he mentioned he had actually known a guy who would
leave his vehicle in neutral so that people could move it around with
their cars if they needed room to get out of a parkign spot!) After a
few quick photos I was absolutely starving and found a well priced
French restaurant near the river called Domaine de Lintillac. I
popped inside, and had some very lovely service, and an amazing dish
with duck breast, apricot sauce, potatoes, and salad.....it was so
delicious and packed with flavour and only for $19 mmmmm.
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| Add caption |
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| Took awhile to get a decent self photo |
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| Yes, this man is walking his cat on a leash! |
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| The Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower in one photo, neat! |
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| The Duck, mmmm French cuisine is great! |
After this tasty dinner, I was on my
way back to Olivier's place, which took a bit longer than it should
have, as I took an exit from the metro that I was unfamiliar with,
and became fairly disoriented, which is rather typical for me, and
what should have taken 10 minutes ended up turning into 30 minutes by
the time I got back. I arrived back and found that Olivier had
several friends over, and they were having margaritas, nacho chips,
and salsa...a mini Mexico night :) Olivier was pretty quick to make
me a margarita, and I met a few of his friends from when he lived in
Rouen. They were a bit more chatty with me than the previous group of
friends, but still spoke mostly French, but it was okay. Olivier is
amazingly hospitable for strangers like myself, and his friends, as
he was buying rounds the previous night, and offering people anything
they wanted from his place. After hanging around there for several
hours, chatting with the others about things like education, summers
in France, and some small polical stories such as the French party
who's main platform is creating a society where only bicycles are
allowed as transportation means, we decided to head down to one of
the pubs we had been at the previous night. We lost a few of his
friends along the way, so it ended up just being 4 of us that went
there, and we didn't stay too long, just enough to share a pitcher of
beer. While sitting there, I was happy to see one of the NHL playoff
games was being televised, and once ice hockey comes on, a Canadian
is typically a lost cause to socializing ha ha. We left with the
third period still remaining, but fortunately Olivier had ESPN
America at his place, so we went back to his place, watched the end
of that game, and then I called it a night.
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| They didn't have the French Flag on top of the Tower so I had to compromise |
The next day I woke up a bit earlier,
went back to the Cafe Danton for lunch once more, enjoyed the lively
Sunday afternoon crowds, and then made my way down to the Louvre. I
waited in the relatively short queue and was inside in no time. Wow
what an incredibly huge museum! I wandered around several sections,
mostly concentrating on the sculptures and paintings, with the
obligatory stop to see the Mona Lisa, which was absolutely nuts, as
people were just scrambling and pushing to get near the front to take
photos. Rather than scramble to take a photo, I just calmly made my
way there, and stood at the front for a good 10 minutes just admiring
this fine piece of artwork. It's kind of ridiculous how people just
flock to take a photo of it, and don't even stop to look at the
painting, they just want that photo to say they were there......so
after admiring the beauty, I continued to wander around for another
hour and a half, before I was getting pretty tired of seeing art,
especially since I can only handle about 3 hours or so at most in a
museum. I was already getting to be fairly hungry, and Olivier had
went out an bought some groceries the previous night, and had made
some pork and potatoes for us, so I held off on eating another
expensive Parisienne meal until I could make my way back there. But
first, I had to at least walk down the Champs d'Elysee and towards
the more famous Arc de Triomphe. It didn't look all that far from the
museum initially, but it was actually a ridiculously long walk to get
there....I was quite thirsty and starving, but ignored my body's
pleas, and made my way there. It was absolutely incredible, and
really makes one appreciate the joy of victory at war, even if you're
not a fan of war. I was going to go up the Arc to see a view of Paris
that Olivier said is the best, but it was over 10 euros, and I didn't
really feel like spending more money for a view, so I just made my
way back towards Olivier's place.
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| A regular at the Cafe Danton. I will take one baguette with cheese and a cafe with creme s'il vous plait he soon barked |
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| Some of the highlights from the Louvre |
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| Cupid strikes again |
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| Napoleon's Coronation |
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| French Revolution |
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| Some famous painting apparently? |
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| Fit for a King |
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| the iPad has nothing on this original tablet |
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| the famous Arc de Triomphe at the end of the Champs d'Elysees |
I returned there, and had some of the
delicious pork and mashed potatoes that he had prepared, and ended up
just doing some trip planning for the next few hours, since he had to
head off to work for a few hours. I ended up having a pretty low key
night for the remainder, just playing some video games and watching a
movie before getting to sleep. I wanted to try and leave for La
Rochelle the next day, so I got up at a decent hour, and went down to
le cafe to Procope for lunch. I felt a bit sheepish looking like a
scabby backpacker and entering an establishment with such a rich
history, but the staff was kind enough and didn't make any
judgements. I ended up having le coq au vin, which is chicken cooked
in red wine, and damn was it tasty! It's pretty hard to compete with
the French cuisine I must admit, so it has been a nice breaking in
period after the tasty food of Asia. After enjoying that fantastic
lunch, I made my way over to le Gare Montparnesse, where I figured I
would be able to purchase a rail pass and hopefully take the train
from that station to La Rochelle, but of course they weren't able to
sell rail passes at that station, so I had to head all the way up to
le Gare du Nord, where I would be able to buy my rail pass. At this
point, it became a bit interesting to me when I found that my subway
ticket, which I thought was only valid for one trip, kept working on
all my trains at all the different stations....I later asked Olivier
if I only was supposed to buy one ticket for the whole day, but he
told me that wasn't the case, so I guess I just lucked out a bit with
that ticket!
After arriving at Le Gare du Nord, I
managed to pick up a rail pass, speaking entirely in French of
course, pas d'Anglais, but found out that I wouldn't be able to get
on a train for La Rochelle that day, as they were all booked
full...bummer. Fortunately, I asked Olivier if I could spend one more
night, and he had no problems with that. After getting the rail pass,
I just popped back over to his place for a bit, and then decided to
head out to walk around Montmartre for awhile. Montmartre is an area
of Northern Paris that has been recommended by a few people to go
check out, so I wandered around there for a bit. It was a bit of a
shock to the system I must admit, as I first was hounded by several
different Arabs and Northern Africans trying to sell me cigarettes
everywhere around the station (maybe counterfeits, I don't know what
was up with it). Then I wandered over to a supermarket to grab a
snack and a drink, and found several people fighting over the
contents of one of the garbage bins outside the supermarket.
Apparently the store had just thrown out some food that was outdated,
and these people were having an absolute free for all, pushing and
shoving and going through the trash....the strangest part of it all
was that they all were quite well dressed, and looked nothing like
homeless or poor people that one would expect to find digging through
the trash for food. After grabbing a few things, I then spotted a
young girl holding her younger brother's genitals and helping him
direct his urine onto the side of a building right out in the open,
on the sidewalk where many people were walking.....yeah what a crazy
neighbourhood! After these interesting sights, I managed to make it
over to the Sacred Heart church, which sits atop a high mound, and
was hounded by numerous black people trying to sell me a bunch of
junk.....fortunately I'm used to being hounded in Asia so I just
brushed them off.
I walked up the hill and found over a
hundred people just sitting around on the stairs, enjoying the lovely
view of the city, listening to a musician play some music, watching
some other buskers entertain with soccer tricks, and various other
people just sitting around talking and enjoying beer or wine and
food. It was a pretty mellow and cool scene to come across, and I
just ended up hanging around for awhile listening to the musician and
people watching. After hanging around the area for about 45 minutes
and checking out the church for a bit, I just made my way back to
Olivier's place, where I struggled with his spare key to enter the
door for a good 20 minutes. It was pretty embarassing that I couldn't
figure out how to work the damn lock on his door, as it was unlike
any lock I've ever seen before. Finally I figured it out, and hung
out until he got back, then we went down to the Canadian pub for a
few last beers, as I was leaving the next morning. We returned back
to his place, I just watched an NHL game and went to sleep.
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| Sacre Coeur from below |
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| Paris from the steps of the Sacre Coeur.....I love how the clouds kind of resemble the ocean |
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| Large gathering of people enjoying the view of the city and live music |
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| Again, it looks like an ocean view |
The next day I was up early, and on my
way to catch my train to La Rochelle, where I was going to be meeting
up with my old friend Gael, who I had met in Poland the previous
summer. He was with some hilarious Austrian guy, and a Brazilian guy,
and they all made quite an entertaining trio, so I was excited to
catch up with one of them. I arrived in La Rochelle a few hours
later, and Gael came and met me at the station, and we took the long
ass walk back to his place (like 45 minutes), which wouldn't be such
a big deal, but when you're carrying over 20 kgs of baggage, it can
be a bit far, but the exercise was good. We arrived at his parent's
villa, where he has been living for awhile, and grabbed a bit of
lunch and a few beers. After finishing that up, we took a bus into La
Rochelle town, and wandered around for several hours, stopping to
have some more beers and coffee, and just checking out the city.
There isn't a whole lot to do in the town, but it still is a nice sea
side place, and has some nice cafes near the harbour, where you can
people watch and catch some sun. After wandering around for quite
sometime, and buying a baguette (since I hadn't felt really French
yet), we stopped into a small restaurant for some buckwheat pancakes
with ham and cheese, which were not too bad. After dinner we just
walked back to his place, where I met his mom and dad, and sat around
speaking in French the whole time...it was fun to stay with a family
that didn't really speak English, with the exception of Gael, so it
forces me to learn more of the language. Hilariously enough, when I
had told Ingo, the Austrian, that I was going to Gael's place, he
wanted me to take pictures of the place and of Gael's mom, since he
heard that she was really good looking, and that Gael lived in this
luxurious villa with a pool ha ha....so I obliged him with a few
shots of the house, had a few quiet drinks with the family, and then
called it a night.
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| The quiet streets of La Rochelle, a French Tourist destination |
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| Mon ami Gael |
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| Old cobblestone streets |
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| Translates to "Street of Good Ladies" |
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| And this appears to be where you can find said Good Ladies?? |
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| a man and his baguette |
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| he he Rue de Fagots |
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| Gael was so hip at a young age |
The next day I was off to Toulouse in
the morning, so I had an early start, made a quick breakfast, and
caught the bus down to the town, and became a bit lost trying to find
the train station, but eventually made my way there. I hopped on the
train, and was on my way to Bordeaux first, admiring the lovely
vineyards of the French countryside along the way, and then arriving
there and changing trains to head to Toulouse. I had planned out my
day, but had a fairly tight schedule to make it all the way to
Andorra that night, and only had about 10 minutes of wriggle room to
catch all my connecting trains and buses, and of course when I
arrived in Toulouse, my train was delayed nearly 30 minutes, which I
figured would throw a huge wrench into my plans. Since it was delayed
so much, the people who normally would be on the second train, had to
pack on with the people who would have been on the first train, and
it was absolutely nuts. I could barely squeeze in with my big bag,
and was basically stuck standing for the first 15 minutes of the 2
hour train ride, thinking it was going to be a very long and shitty
day. Fortunately, the first stop cleared out quite a few people, and
I was able to dump my bag and grab a spot. I arrived in Ax les
Thermes about 25 minutes later (without anyone checking my ticket the
entire way) than I was supposed to be, and thought I had missed my
connecting train to l'Hospitalet pres d'Andorre. I lingered around
the station for a bit, and came outside to find a bus there, that was
just about to leave. For curiosity's sake I inquired where it was
going, and found out that it was the connecting bus to l'Hospitalet,
as there wasn't in fact a train going, so I almost missed it oops! I
hopped aboard, asked one of the younger people to tell me when my
stop came, and was dropped off just in time to catch the next bus to
Andorra, as it was meant to leave at 19:45 and we arrived at the
station at 19:44...phew that was close!
We entered into Andorra about 15
minutes later, and I had officially entered my 55th
country, nice! I was dropped off in Andorre la Vella, which is the
capital city and largest city of Andorra. I was dropped off in a
place I didn't really know that well, so I just started walking and
walking, and fortunately found a map which kind of directed me in the
right direction. After about 25 minutes of wandering, I managed to
find my hotel, checked in, and thought about having a shower and
heading out, but I was just too tired, and since it was a Wednesday,
I didn't really think there would be a whole lot going on, especially
since Andorra is more known for its ski hills in the winter, and
people just go there to shop during the other months due to the
absence of taxes. I just watched a movie and called it a night.
The next morning I woke up a bit later
than I hoped, and wandered over to a nearby cafe where I figured I
could have some breakfast. I entered inside and found the staff to
only really speak Catalan, so it was time to practice speaking
Spanish a bit. I just ordered an espresso, and inquired about a menu
for food, but I was told they didn't provide food from the menu until
1 pm....damnit. But then one of the men sitting in the cafe mentioned
they had some tapas to eat (in French), so I was able to order
through him a few things to eat. I had a bite there, and another
coffee, and chatted with the fellow for awhile, as he was quite a
nice guy, and had already finished off a bottle of wine by 11
am...nicely done! After finishing there, I wandered back to the
hotel, checked out, and left my bags there to go around the city for
a little wander. It's a fairly small place, and again, there isn't a
whole lot to do, so I just climbed up some walk path to a high
region, wandered around there for awhile, then explored the city for
a bit before finding a cafe and just having a beer and trying to sort
out some more travel plans. I had considered staying a second day,
since my hotel had offered 20% off a 2nd night, and I was
already paying a fairly cheap price (30 euros, thanks to Agoda), but
I didn't think there was much going on, so I just found a place to
stay in Toulouse for that night. (damn expensive place to stay
apparently, cheapest room I could find was $60 CAD ouch!) After
hanging out for awhile, I went and grabbed my bags and found the bus
to l'Hospitalet (where they didn't check tickets at all, so if you
ever wanted a free ride from the Andorra border to Ax you could
totally do that), where I was an hour early for the connecting bus to
Ax-les-Thermes, so I just grabbed a small dinner and beer at a cute
little restaurant near the station, where I chatted with some elderly
ladies a bit and killed some time.
 |
| Canadian Sports experts in Andorra eh |
 |
| The Pyrenhees |
 |
| Not too many of these around |
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| Very rustic mountainous country |
 |
| Went for a little walk up the hills |
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| Crazy spa building...costs about $50 to enter so I didn't bother |
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| Probably one of the fastest moving rivers I've seen in a major city |
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| At the edge of the country, waiting at a lonely busy station for a ride back to France |
After my small dinner, I went back to
the station, grabbed another bus to Ax (which is an amazingly
beautiful city, I wish I had more time in the Pyrenees region, as the
city looks like a great place to spend a few nights enjoying the
lovely surroundings), hopped aboard a train to Toulouse, and was on
my way. I arrived later in the evening, and quickly found my hotel,
which was literally a 1 minute walk from the train station and
checked in and called it a night. The next morning I had hoped to
make it all the way to Milano, but I knew it would be a bit of a
challenge, since most of my trains required reservations, and with it
being Friday I wasn't expecting much luck. I woke up extra early to
run over to the train station and check to see if they were open to
make reservations at 6:30 am, but they weren't open until 7 am, so I
just wandered back, and packed up my bags. I figured I wouldn't check
out until I knew if I could catch the 7:18 am train or not, so I ran
back over to the station at 6:55 am, and found a decent lineup
waiting for the sales booths, shit! The place opened up, but
surprisingly the lines moved quickly, and I was fortunate enough to
get a reservation for the 7:18 am train to Nice, so I quickly ran
back to the hotel, checked out and was on my way. The seats were
decently comfortable, and I was able to sleep for a few hours until
we arrived at Avignon, where I had a bit of a wait to catch another
train. I was then on my way to Nice, and I must admit, taking the
train along the southern French coast is quite a treat for the eyes,
as the scenery and buildings are incredibly beautiful. I arrived in
Nice, and had a bit of a wait for the next train to Italy, so I just
hung out, grabbed a kebab and was on my way again. While on the next
train I met a few Canadian dudes who were in the area for the Cannes
film festival, which I had no idea was going on, bummer! Would have
been cool to check it out, but oh well. I continued on the
Ventimigilia where I was able to get my next train reservation for
Milano, killed some time, booked a hostel, and was again on my way,
arriving in Milano at 8:55 pm at night...so there's what a 13 hour
travel day looks like for someone riding the trains all over Europe!
I arrived into Milano Centrale and
wandered around aimlessly trying to find the bus stop for the bus
that was meant to go right by where the hostel was, and after
wandering around for about 30 some minutes I just gave up, and caught
the metro which stopped around 15 minutes away from the hostel.
Fortunately I had managed to have a little map on the iPod and was
able to find the place within a reasonable time frame. I made it to
the hostel, and found that they had overbooked me and were sending me
over to another hostel nearby, so I popped in there, checked in and
found there to be a shower in the corner of the room, and one guy
sleeping in the room. I contemplated showering while he was sleeping
there, but then figured if he woke up he would probably be a bit
weirded out, so I looked around the hostel a bit more and found
bathroom with a more private shower. After cleaning up a bit I
wandered out for a bite to eat and found a restaurant a few doors
down that was owned by some Chinese Italians, and had my first pasta
dish of Italy, some gnocchi con gorgonzola, and mmmmmm....one thing
Italians know how to do is cook. After enjoying that dish with some
wine, I decided to wander around the neighbourhood a little bit and
see what was going on. I found a gelato place and treated myself to a
bit of that, and then wandered along the main road by the hostel,
finding numerous women working the streets.....it was hard not to at
least look as they were all super gorgeous ha ha. I wandered around a
bit, found an area with a bunch of people at a pub, but didn't really
feel like heading out solo, so I just went back to the hostel, and
crashed for the night.
 |
| A freshly squeezed orange juice machine...welcome to Italy |
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| First pasta dish of Italy, Gorgonzola Gnocchi mmmm |
The next day I awoke to hear the one
guy from the room speaking on the phone in English for awhile and
then speaking some language I couldn't figure out. Eventually he came
back in and we got to chatting a bit, and I found out he was American
but was speaking an Indian dialect. He mentioned that he spoke pretty
much every language that is spoken in the Middle East, including
Arabic, Punjabi, Hindi, etc etc....quite an impressive feat. We
chatted for a little bit, but I had to get ready to head off to the
rail station, as I wanted to try and get to Rimini as soon as
possible that day. I grabbed a bit of food, and was on my way to the
station, taking the bus, but forgetting that you have to buy your bus
tickets from vendors before boarding the bus. So I'm riding the bus,
and of course we arrive at the central station and there's several
agents waiting the bus arrival and they immediately start grabbing
people and checking their passes....I was already pulling out money
thinking I was going to be fined, but then had a pretty big chuckle
as one of the guys looked at me, and saw all my bags and just ran off
to check someone who looked more like a local. I think he probably
didn't want the hassle of having to try and speak English with me, so
much to my delight, I just walked through all these inspectors and
continued walking towards the station, having avoided a fine...win!
I arrived at the station and tried to
find the ticket counter, which was nowhere to be seen, and I couldn't
find any signs showing where the ticket counters were, damn Italy and
its inefficiencies. I asked a worker there, who couldn't speak any
English really, but he just pointed downwards, so I found a level
below the station where the counters were. Of course there was a
massive queue, and I was hoping to catch a train that was leaving in
10 minutes, but I didn't make it to the counter in time. While
waiting in line I overheard an Italian man talking to 2 Americans
behind me, and telling them that he could take them to a machine and
show them how to make a reservation with the machine instead of
waiting in line (which isn't possible to my knowledge) and I could
see they were a bit leery about trusting this guy. They were about to
follow him though, when another lady in the line said “don't trust
him, be very careful”, as it is quite common for people to get
scammed by these guys, so they didn't follow him and he returned back
to the lineup all pissed off and swearing in Italian, saying he was
just there to help people, but then 7 minutes later I saw him
“helping” another English speaking group of people and they went
off with him, likely to get scammed. After waiting in line for awhile
I managed to get a reservation for a train leaving 45 minutes later,
and was a bit disappointed to find that the reservation fee alone was
10 euros! In France they were only 3 Euros, and it kind of defeats
the purpose of buying a rail pass when you have to spend all these
high reservation fees. I tend to look at the ticket machines after
I've booked my reserved seats just to see what the cost would be if I
didn't have the rail pass, and I found that it was about 45 euros for
the ticket I had if I didn't have the pass, so I was really only
saving 35 euros but oh well.
I hung around the station for a bit
until my train was ready to go, and was aboard and on my way to
Rimini. Before leaving the station I managed to find some wifi and
book a hostel in Rimini and write down the instructions on how to get
there. I enjoyed the nice scenic ride through the Italian
countryside, seeing all the olive and grape trees, as well as other
fresh vegetables growing, and arrived in Rimini 2.5 hours later. The
hostel instructions said to take the 11 bus and get off at the 13th
stop. So I waited for the bus, and when it arrived, there was this
massive group of students with huge backpacks (looked like some sort
of school camping trip) who were all trying to squeeze onto this same
bus. The one girl just butted through everyone, hitting some elderly
lady in the face with her massive bag, and I just had to shake my
head. I ended up getting wedged into a corner and counted the bus
stops until it was close to the 13th stop. I tried to
start wedging my way out of my spot to get off there, but these damn
kids with their bags where all in the way and I couldn't get off. I
wasn't able to squeeze off the bus until the 15th stop,
thinking I wasn't so far away from the hostel stop. So I began
walking and walking and walking and couldn't find the street I was
meant to be on. I tried looking at my map on the iPod and of course
it hadn't saved properly so I had no reference point. I was probably
walking a good 20 minutes already and wondering where the hell I was
and whether I should just take a taxi to the place. I finally managed
to get some wifi and found that I was still a good 15 minutes
away...what the hell happened! I finally made it to the place, hot
and sweaty and tired from walking all that way and found out what had
happened to me. The bus only stops when people ask it to stop, so I
was actually meant to get off at stop 13 but since I was wedged in, I
couldn't even see the stop numbers and basically got off around stop
20 something...damnit. By this point it was also too late to try and
make it to San Marino that day, so I just checked in and decided to
hang out for the day.
I asked the staff about a good place to
eat and they recommended I head down to a restaurant where they
served a dish that the Rimini area was famous for, a sort of crepe
thing called a Piadina, and sat down there and tried one of those
with cheese and ham, and a nice cappucino, while admiring the
gorgeous Italians girls walking around. After a tasty late lunch and
cafe, I was back to the hostel where I just hung out in the bar area
waiting for the Champions League final. The barteder at the place was
a bit of a nut job, and they way he was dressed and talked, I thought
he was for sure a guy from New Jersey, but he was actually from
Connecticut, had lived in Vegas for awhile, and was now living in
Italy for the past few years. He definitely had that Jersey Shore
look to him though, with the big sunglasses and an Ed Hardy hat, and
a tight shirt, but he ended up being an alright guy. After hanging
around and waiting for the big game to start, I had a few beers with
an Aussie guy that had arrived around the same time as me, and since
the hostel was fairly quiet that night, we decided we would just head
out together and find something to do for the night. The football
match was super close and a great show, and I was happy to see
Chelsea win. After it was all finished, we decided we would go to
this disco called Carnaby that had posters on the walls and looked
alright. The bartender told us that it was a place where a lot of
youngsters would go, and that we might feel a bit old there, so we
looked at the flyer for the place, and the girls on there actually
looked like they were 16, so I started calling the place Carnababy.
We decided we would go there anyways, and had the hostel arrange for
the free pickup to head there.
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| Piadina |
When we arrived, we saw a huge group of
what appeared to be school children, some of whom looked not much
older than 12 years old, leaving the place, oh damn (when we got
inside there were still a whole bunch of very young looking kids
everywhere, but they were mostly relegated to hanging out in the
basement, while the older people could hang out at the two other
levels)! While in line we met some English dude, who initially I
thought just had smoked a bit too much and had a real raspy voice,
but once we got inside and chatted a bit more with him, we came to
realize that he was just quite flamboyantly gay, but still a pretty
cool guy. He ended up knowing quite a few of the bar staff, as he
actually brought pub crawls through the place, so he was able to get
us some free drinks, and introduce us to quite a few people from the
hostel he worked at, as well as quite a few girls. He had some pretty
funny stories about being gay that I won't discuss here, but they
were pretty outrageous, but good for a laugh. At one point, some tall
woman came wandering over and bumped into me at the bar and started
asking about why I was wearing a South African rugby jersey, and was
a bit confrontational but I didn't think too much about it. I found
out she was a Canadian from Alberta, and she ended up telling me how
much she loved people from Saskatchewan, and became fairly touchy
feely...I was thinking it was probably a good chance something would
happen between us, and didn't care too much when some other guy came
in and grabbed her and took her off to the dance floor, as she kept
looking back and giving the look “saying save me please” but I
chose not to since I knew she'd be back. Sure enough, she was back
about 15 minutes later, and we resumed talking, and got on the topic
of oil, and then she became a really high strung and stuck up person.
Apparently her dad was the president of Shell at one point, which I
disputed since the presidents have generally all been Dutch to my
knowledge, and asked if he was maybe the president of Shell Canada,
but she was adamant about that, and then we got to talking about the
size of the company, which she claimed to be the 2nd
largest oil company in the world, which I disputed again, saying it
was either 3rd or 4th largest...so then she
started talking down on me about my qualifications to know these
things, and started yapping and yapping about how her dad was this
her dad was that, and asking what my dad did, and it just spiralled
out of control real fast. I wasn't taking any of her shit though, so
I just told her to get lost and walked off ignoring her for the rest
of the night. She ended up wandering over to chat with one of the
American dudes we had earlier met, and kept staring back at me when I
would be speaking with other women, but I wasn't having any of her
attitude.
Eventually she had to be escorted home
since she was too drunk, and one of the American guys said he was
going to walk her home, and see how it goes. Matt, the Aussie, and I
just hung out and ended up finding a Chinese girl from our hostel who
had said she might come with us earlier, but disappeared, and then
ended up coming to the club anyway. We hung out with her for awhile,
as the place was getting to be really dead, and it was almost a bit
of a competition to get her, and she kind of kept gravitating towards
me, but I didn't think too much of it. The place was shutting down
shortly after, and we were able to find the free shuttle to drop us
off back close to our place, grabbed some kebabs on the walk home,
and got back to the hostel and called it a night. I had to get up
relatively early the next day since I wanted to head off to San
Marino, but I definitely was feeling the lack of sleep. I was
supposed to change rooms that day too, since they wanted me to move
into a different room, so I had to get up and sort all that out, and
then head down to catch a bus to the train station to catch another
bus to San Marino. The Chinese girl from the night before had said
she was going to go to San Marino as well, but I didn't see her
anywhere, so I just arrived at the bus stop to go to the station when
an Asian girl came up to the stop and I thought she might have been
the Chinese girl from the night before, but wasn't sure. So I asked
her if she was going to San Marino and she yes, so I figured it was
the girl for sure, and I started talking to her about the night, but
then she introduced herself as Leona from Korea, so I knew I had
messed up ha ha. We caught the bus to the station, where I ran into
the two American guys from the night before, and asked how it went
with the Canadian girl, and he said she was way too drunk and that
nothing happened. They ended up grabbing my contact info, since I
might go to Miami in the late summer during my US road trip, so it
was good to have some contacts there. The Korean girl and I just
grabbed some bus tickets to San Marino and were on our way.
The bus ride was about an hour, and we
chatted most of the way, while having a laugh at all the Russians on
the bus who were cracking open bottles of vodka and passing them
around....so Russian! The bus ride was rather nice, again travelling
through the countryside, seeing all the vineyards and orchards, until
we began the drive up the mountain into San Marino. I didn't actually
realize it, but the country is located on a mountain, so it was a bit
of a ways up there. When we arrived, the view of the countryside was
spectacular, and the republic itself was quite charming and lovely. I
found a cafe to grab a bite to eat since I hadn't had anything yet,
and had a tasty lasagna, then walked around a bit, until it started
to rain, so I ducked into a free museum that had some historical
artifacts from the country. San Marino considers itself to be the
oldest republic in Europe, founded in the 400s, so it has some fairly
rich history. The museum only took about 30 minutes to tour around,
and since it was mostly in Italian, I didn't really understand it, so
I breezed through most of the museum, only stopping to admire a few
paintings and sculptures, plus the few writeups that were in English.
After the museum, I just wandered up the town some more, checking out
a few of the shops, where you could buy things for fairly cheap, due
to lack of taxes. I ended up buying a new belt, since my other one
was pretty much broken apart, and found a nice orange one. I looked
for awhile, and the pretty woman working there came over and dropped
the price on it, and offered to make it smaller and adjust it if
needed, so I had them do that. After that, I still had some more time
to kill, and had wandered around most of the place already, so I just
went and ate again, since that's all I really seem to do in Italy. I
had a delicious pizza Margarita, and a strong Belgian beer to go
along with that. Eventually, it was starting to get really cold, and
the wind picked up, so I had to make my way down to catch the bus
out, as I didn't really want to stay too much later. On the walk
down, I was basically walking through the clouds, which was a pretty
cool feeling.
 |
| Russians enjoying their vodka on the bus, so typical! |
 |
| One of the best parts of San Marino is the view of the Italian countryside |
 |
| Just gorgeous |
 |
| If you don't want to take a vehicle up the steep roads, you can always take the cable car |
 |
| Pizza and a beer on top of a mountain...nice life |
 |
| Hanging out in the clouds |
I arrived at the bottom, chatted with
two Canadians who were looking for the hostel there, and then waited
for the bus where I met this super cute Russian girl, who didn't
really speak much English. We had a small broken chat, and then I
hopped on the bus and was hoping she would come sit with me, but she
continued on to the back of the bus, so I just put on some Spanish
tapes, and drifted off to sleep for a bit. When I awoke, she had
moved up to the seats next to me, and was just kind of staring at me,
which I thought a bit odd, so I tried to strike up a conversation
with her, but she didn't really understand most of what I was saying,
so it wasn't going anywhere, too bad! We arrived back in Rimini, and
I made another train reservation to get to Switzerland the next day,
and went back to the hostel, where I found Matt and chatted a bit
about the night and how it went with the Chinese girl, since I hadn't
seen her, but he had no recollections of the night! She showed up not
too long after that, and told me she had gone to San Marino around 10
am and had spent the entire day there, so I told her about mistaking
the Korean girl for her, and she said they were roommates, but she
meant at the hostel they had shared the same room, not the same room
in Milano where the Korean girl was studying, as I first thought.
I also ended up finding out that there
had been a decent size earthquake in the night, and people were
asking if I felt it, but I assumed I slept through it. Apparently, it
actually happened around 2 am and we were at the club still, and Matt
mentioned he had actually asked if that was an earthquake we had
felt...crazy. It actually happened around Bologna, which was over a
100 km away, but could be slightly felt in Rimini too. Matt and I
then ended up wandering out to find a restaurant he had been to the
previous night that offered free food if you bought a drink, but when
we arrived, we found it to be fairly packed and there wasn't much
food left so we just found another restaurant on the main street. I
had a super tasty spaghetti carbonara with some wine, but after
having eaten twice in the last 6 hours, I couldn't quite finish it
all, but still enjoyed what portion of it I could manage to stuff
down.
There was an ice hockey game on that
night, and I figured I would have the tv in the hostel to watch it,
but then of course there was some cup final in the Italian league
between Juventus and Napoli, and I knew there was no way I was going
to get the tv, and sure enough, when we returned to the hostel, the
football game was on. I asked if there were any sports bars in the
area that might play the hockey game, and they just laughed and said
“this is Italy man, everyone will be watching the football” ha
ha. So I just used the hostel computer to stream the game for a bit,
but I could only use it for one hour, as the hostel only gave away
free wifi for one hour, which was kind of a bummer. I watched a
choppy stream for the first period, and ran out of time, so I just
watched the football match. It finished with enough time to watch the
3rd period of the hockey game, although it was a bit of a
battle to convince the Italians in the room to let me switch the
channel, since they seemed to want to watch the cup presentation, but
they finally caved and let us watch the rest of the hockey game.
Since I had a 8 am train, I just called it a night after that.
The next day I was up early, and off to
the train station to catch my train to Bologna, which was a bit of a
mess with train delays due to the earthquake. My train to Milano
ended up being delayed 35 minutes, which was a bit worrying since my
train to Zurich only gave me 40 minutes of leeway, but I arrived in
Milano to find that my next train had also been delayed by about 35
minutes, so I just grabbed one last tasty meal and cappucino at a bar
in the train station, and was on the train and on my way to Zurich.
The train ride through Switzerland is also quite incredible and
really nice on the eyes. After a few hours of admiring the Swiss
countryside and its beauty, I was in Zurich, and trying to figure out
what to do, since I was hoping to head up to Kreuzlingen, where two
friends I had made in Laos were living. They had said I could come
stay with them, but I had left messages with them to try and get
their phone numbers to let them know I was coming, but hadn't heard
back from them yet, so I had a bit of a conundrum on my hands,
whether I would just go straight to Liechenstein and stay there, or
if I should just head to Kreuzlingen and hope they had a phone number
listed in the phone book there or something.
 |
| Riding the train through Switzerland can be a nice treat |
 |
| Reminds me a lot of Canada |
Being random and spontaneous as per
usual, I just hopped on the next train up to Kreuzlingen, with no
plans set in place. I arrived a few hours later, and found it to be
pouring rain. Before disembarking from the train, I asked a gentleman
who was getting off the train if he lived there and if he knew of
where I could find a phone book, so he directed me towards one of the
nearby hotels. I got off the train, and was greeted with a torrential
downpour, and became quickly soaked. I hadn't really expected the
rain to be so hard, so I ran over to the nearby hotel and came
inside, asking for a phone book in English, which the girl working
there didn't really understand, oh great! I managed to get my message
across somehow, and she handed me a phonebook, and I started looking
through for Alex's name, which I was unable to find. I was also
unable to find Kristin's name listed anywhere in the phone book.
Hilariously enough, I would later find out from Alex, that his
Facebook name, which is “Aelu Zweitausend” is a fake name, and
Aelu is a nickname, and Zweitausend actually means “Two Thousand”
in German, so there's no way I would have been able to find him ha ha
ha! On top of that, Kristin's last name on Facebook is also a
completely different name, so the phonebook idea was a terrible one.
I'm just glad I didn't ask the bartender if she knew an Aelu
Twothousand....the look she would have given me would have been
hilarious. After perusing the phonebook, I had to try getting back on
the wifi, so after using my limited German vocabulary (she also
didn't speak French which is very strange for a Swiss), I was able to
get a password and hop on the wifi.
I checked my emails and saw that Alex
hadn't messaged me back, and that the email accounts he had listed on
facebook were actually expired accounts, so the email I had sent to
him had bounced back, damn! I also found that neither of them had
been online and checked my messages, so I was really running out of
options. As a last ditch effort, I sent a message to a guy that Alex
had listed as his brother on Facebook, asking him to tell Alex to try
and contact me if possible. I waited about another 35 minutes or so,
and started looking into alternative options, finding that it was
possible to still catch a train to Liechtenstein that night, and that
there was even a hostel avaiable, although I had to check in by 9 pm,
which wasn't possible with the current train schedule, so I ran them
up and found they had a bed available, and made a booking on the
phone, and set off for Liechtenstein, a bit dejected that I couldn't
get a hold of Alex and Kristin. I was on the train for about 25
minutes when my phone rang, and sure enough it was Alex. He asked
where I was and told me to just get off the train and that he would
come pick me up, so I just grabbed my bags and hopped off in some
tiny village on the way to Liechtenstein. I decided that it would
just be easier to catch the train coming back towards Kreuzlingen,
and told him I would call him when I was back in town. I managed to
catch the next train, and arrived in Kreuzlingen, where they picked
me up :)
Alex also had to drive towards
Liechtenstein the next day, to go stay at his hometown for a few
nights, so he said he could drive me through the next day, no
worries, great! They took me out for dinner at a pub across the
German border, where they frequently stop by for dinner, and then we
went to a brewpub for some German beers. Kristin had to work the next
morning, so she wasn't up for a late night, and I was a bit tired
too, but Alex was pretty excited to have me in town and wanted to
head out and show me the nightlife, even though it was a Monday
night. Kristin headed home, but dropped us off at some club that Alex
said was pretty good most nights. We ended up hanging out there for
several hours, and it was pretty dead at the start of the night, but
got really busy. I was pretty tired though, and didn't really feel
like meeting any German girls, even though Alex was insistent that I
should meet some and experience a night with a German woman ha ha,
but I didn't bother, I was just happy to catch up with an old travel
friend. I did end up meeting a pretty cool German DJ though, named
Bombilla, who has some pretty cool music, and has been invited to go
play in South America and such. He has a myspacepage with samples of
his beats, pretty cool stuff. We probably shut it down around 2 or
230 am (after quite a few beers and Jagger shots), and went to grab a
tax by the Burger King nearby. Alex and the cabby started talking
about something in German that I had no idea what it was about, and
they kept talking and talking, so I decided to go grab a hamburger,
and kept trying to interrupt and tell them I was just hopping inside,
but they were deep in this discussion and didn't hear me, so I just
left.
I came back outside a few minutes
later, and Alex was wondering where I had went and had thought about
leaving without me. We hopped in the taxi and were on our way back to
his parent's house, where him and Kristin were living at the moment,
until they could find their own place. We arrived there, and I found
a guestroom and called it a night. I woke up feeling pretty rough and
dehydrated, regretting all the jaggermeister, and realized it was
nearly mid day, and figured we would have to get going soon. After
grabbing a shower, and meeting Alex's aunt briefly, who spoke no
English, and listening to him switch back and forth between English,
Swiss German, and German (always in awe of these Europeans and their
language skills), we were ready to set off for Liechtenstein. We
hopped into his Fiat and hit the road, enjoying a nice drive through
the Swiss countryside, along Lake Konstanz. We arrived in
Liechenstein about an hour and a half later, and of course found it
to be absolutely tiny. We found some nice church, parked there,
walked around for a bit, and then drove into Schaan-Vaduz area (the
largest cities of Liechenstein). We stopped there, and basically just
found our way up to the Castle, watched a bunch of Japanese tourists
running around like crazy, and walked around for maybe 20 minutes or
so.
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| Massive Liechtenstein! |
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| One of the few highlights |
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| Some crazy house i spotted |
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| The castle of the Prince |
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| View from above of the tiny Principality |
Alex had opted to not serve in the
Swiss army, so once a year he has to do a few days of community
building type service, and since he was still registered in his
hometown of Flins, he had to go there for a few days to do his
service. I didn't really have any plans, other than trying to make it
to Bratislava the next day, so we continued on driving, stopping by
the nearby city of Chor, where I was able to sort out catching a
night train from Sargens to Vienna that evening. After sorting that
out, we just drove up into the Alpine town of Flims, and went to the
family retreat. The views of the area were amazing, and it was nice
to get up into the fresh mountain air and relax for a few hours. It
was a super lovely place to stay, and is right on the nearby ski
slopes, making for a great ski vacation spot, as well as a relaxing
weekend getaway spot. The area of the country is also home to the
only speakers of the rare roman based language that is one of the
official languages of Switzerland, but only spoken by about 100,000
people, and is becoming a dying language, so it was interesting to
see all the street names in this language.
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| Hanging in the Alps at Alex's family home |
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| Pretty nice view from the deck |
After hanging out for a few hours,
having a tasty dinner, and watching some football, we drove back to
Chor, where I caught a train to Sargans, and then waited an hour for
my night train to Vienna. I hopped aboard, found my tiny little
sleeping compartment, settled in there for a few hours of sleep, and
was awoken a bit earlier than needed by a fellow Canadian guy who
thought the Vienna stop was really soon, and wanted to make sure I
was able to eat my breakfast before we arrived (typical nice
Canadian). I finished off the small breakfast, and realized that they
had also provided us with Champagne, so I figured I would take a
bottle of that to celebrate meeting my Austrian friend Ingo in
Bratislava. The train staff managed to take it away when I made a
quick bathroom stop, and I came back to find it gone, so I tracked
them down, and they ended up giving me three bottles instead
(perfect, since my Brazilian friend Rodrigo was also supposed to be
coming to meet me in Bratislava). I got off in Vienna Westbahnoff,
and had initially planned to head out and track down a Kasekainer
(seriously so amazing, I was eating two or three a day last time in
was in Vienna last year) or two before making my way to Slovakia, but
since I was already full from breakfast, I decided to just head on to
Slovakia.
It took me awhile to figure out how to
get to the Sudbahnof from the Westbahnof, but eventually I figured
out a metro route to get me there, and arrived with about 3 minutes
to spare to grab the next train to Bratislava. I hopped aboard and
made the quick one hour and 10 minute journey to Bratislava to meet
Ingo. That's where I'll continue from.
Monsieur Reilly
