Eurotour - Day 7

Today was our free day and night in Paris to do whatever we wanted! I teamed up with Ana and a few other exchangers but somehow there was a bit of a miscommunication and they left without us so we went with a big group that was going to go to the Notre Dame. We caught the metro and when we got on, a guy with a saxophone and another with a clarinet got on too and just started jamming right in front of us! We got off at the Notre Dame station and then started walking. On our way we stopped at a touristy stand and I popped into the post office to buy some stamps for my postcards. Once the lady had finished being terribly rude to me I posted my postcards and discovered that I was alone. I was in such a big group that no-one could notice that they were short a person. I headed towards the Notre Dame because that's was where we were going but turns out they had already turned back to find me and so I never found them. 

A little annoyed but never to be discouraged, I decided that there was no use wasting my day looking for people in a city as big as Paris so I slowly walked back up the long street and ate a delicious crepe on the way and tried not to spend hundreds of dollars on touristy things. I jumped on a train and got off at the Louvre. I'm not a big art fan but I really wanted to be able to say I had been to the Louvre and that I'd seen the Mona Lisa. It was free because I had proof I was under 18 so I didn't feel bad only spending about 40 minutes there. It was surprisingly easy to see the Mona Lisa, I thought I would have to wait a while but I got in pretty fast. Paris made me feel very small, not because of its size but because it was so strange to be looking at a painting that millions and millions of people have looked at before me. I took photos of things that had been photographed so many times before and I knew that they would be photographed another billion times in the future. It was quite a strange feeling especially compared to the feeling I get when I go camping and I see desert outback that maybe only a hundred thousand or so people have ever experienced. I realise this is a bit of an underestimate but it feels that way sometimes. 


Anyway I wandered around the Louvre for a little while longer and then came out a different door, very confused because it felt like I had barely walked 100m and I could barely make out the entrance I had walked that far! I caught another train to the Arc De Triomphe and tried to take a picture of myself with it with little success. I then spent 20 minutes trying to figure out how to actually get to it, I knew there was a tunnel but where was it! Eventually I found it and I just took pictures of it for a while and decided it was too much of a hassle to pay to go the top. I'd already seen the city from up high anyway. I watched two guys take pictures of each other in front of it for a good 15 minutes and then one came over and asked if I wanted a picture. This was why I was a little apprehensive about letting strangers take photos of me. Sure you can do a bit of profiling but you can never know can you.


I then walked down a street that seemed to be mostly car and motorbike shops. There was a Lamborghini on the side walk and I just couldn't deny myself a picture with it! I spent a while shopping then and I found a nice dress and embarrassed myself in front of the lady selling it to me, what's new! I was having a great time and I found a cute little market selling fresh fruit and veggies and then realised I was a bit lost, I found a map and realised I had walked a long way! I headed in the direction of a Metro but seems I choose the wrong street and ended up on the very outskirts of the tourist end of the city. We were given touristy maps and they had  big red circle around the city that was sort of, you don't need to pass the red circle because its all business centres and nothing touristy. I had passed the red line. Luckily I found a hotel and asked for directions and managed to get back to a metro and catch it back to the hotel.


There was a meet up at the Eiffel tower so I was going to change and go back there but I ran into some people so I tagged along with them, it was nice to be back with people! We went to Rue de Rivoli and shopped a bit and found some food. Then I caught the Metro to the Eiffel tower and all day I had caught metro after metro with no problem but I had decided to take this line that was a letter and not a number because it would be faster but its not the same thing and I had to walk forever to get to it only to realise my ticket didn't work because its not the metro! So it took me about 40 minutes instead of 5, whoops! I found Ana and Sophie at the Eiffel tower and although I'd had a good day, I was just glad to be back with them! We hung around waiting for the light show and we all had crepes, I think it was about number 50 for me?! The light show was so cool even though it was still pretty light when it happened. We gathered as a group then to try and find a club that we could go to. Someone knew of a gay club near the Notre Dame and so as the exchangers students we are we thought it might be funny to go there. On the metro there, one of the girls in our group got fined 50 euros for giving here ticket to her friend to use again. Tip for travellers - just buy a day ticket! They are only about 3 Euros and I used mine about 20 times.


We never found the club, we just spent 50 minutes walking around trying to find somewhere that looked fun. The trains in Paris stop at 2am and start again at 5am. It was about 1.30 and the group I was with wanted to stay out all night but I was exhausted and done with trying to find things when we had no clue what we were actually looking for so I caught a train back to the hotel, in the dark, on my own. Not a decision I am particularly proud of but all was well in the end. That was the end of my rather eventful day in Paris! My highlights would have to have been the Mona Lisa, the Lamborghini (parents; I will have my license soon?) and the Eiffel tower with all the sparkly lights! My favourite thing about Paris was the Metro, it was so easy to get from place to place and it was so cheap! I also really loved the food! I know this is a very detailed post but it was probably my most eventful day and I had lots of thoughts on Paris and I wanted to write them all out. 

On the metro, excited for our day! 

Notre Dame

Mona Lisa! 

The Lourve

Arc de Triomphe

Success? NO.

One of my highlights  

A little bit of Oz in Paris. 

Crepes at the Eiffel tower, definitely needs a picture!

Happy to be re-united! 

Sparkly!! 

Eurotour - Day 6

Something I fell in love with on Eurotour was those pastries with chocolate in them (name anyone?) they had them in almost everywhere we went at the breakfast buffets and the ones at our hotel in Paris were particularly delicious! We were going on a bit of a sightseeing tour today and first stop was the Palace of Versailles. In my journal it says VERSAILLES!!! It really was incredible, I wandered around with Ana and there was a lot of people but not as many as I expected. You get a free audio guide at the door and they are really informative and it was actually really fun to learn all about how the French royal family used to live back in the day. When we went back to the bus there was all these people trying to sell us stuff and they do not let up. Even if you give them no attention whatsoever they keep pestering you. A few times we would see a huge group of them sprinting in one direction and then you would see some police officers walking towards where they are running from. This happened a bit in Venice too.


The next stop was a photo stop for the Eiffel tower! I never had the big Paris dream like a lot of girls my age do but it was still so incredible to be seeing such a famous landmark! We took lots of pictures and then it started to pour with rain so the rest of the tour was in the bus. I admit I was drifting to sleep by then and can't really remember where we drove. Our group had a booking to go up the tower and when we got there we had to go through security gates and have our bags checked. Bit of back story now, it was freezing. It was rainy and cold and I had shorts and a light cardigan on, I'd decided I would bring my big Australian flag to keep me warm but then I forgot to take it out of the bus and had to buy a poncho at the gift shop. Back to the security, anyone who were carrying any country flags; had them confiscated. In a group of 80 or so exchange students from a handful of different countries, collectively we were carrying quite a few flags. All of them had to be thrown away, I was so glad I had forgotten my flag because that would have made me furious!


We headed up in the lift and then we had to wait a while to catch the 2nd lift that would take us the the very top. The view was incredible, even form the 2nd floor you could see the whole city sprawled out in  front of you. We could see people riding their bikes and playing soccer and they were like ants! We finally got to the top and admired the view and took some photos before waiting forever in line to get back down. It is a lot of waiting and I think from when we started and to when we got back to ground it was about 3 hours but so worth it! The rest of the evening was spent trying to find some food. You would think this would be easy in a city as big as Paris but we had a hard time finding anything. Eventually we found a nice little Chinese place and then I finally got to sleep!

Yay! Versailles! 

Typical jumping Eiffel tower photo! 

D1430 Newbies!

Thanks for crashing my lovely photo Ana!

From level 2

Waiting to go up

From the very top! 

At the top

Chinese in France! 

Catching the Metro home

Eurotour - Day 5

Somehow even though I woke at 6.45 I still managed to be late for breakfast and had to throw some rolls into a serviette and dash back to the bus. We were driving to Belgium and the traffic was crazy! Crazy traffic to me is Melbourne at rush hour and that has NOTHING on the crazy traffic I saw while on Eurotour! We finally arrived in Brussels and it was a lovely warm day. We had free time to wander the streets and try chocolate, waffles and French fries. I didn't get any French fries but I can report that the waffles and chocolate are as good as their reputation! Brussels is the capital of the European Union and all the main EU meetings and stuff happen there. This meant that a lot stores had stuff from all the EU counties and I found a Finnish flag, badge and sticker. Very weird buying touristy things in the wrong country. One problem that arose quite often in a lot of place we were at was that most stores had a limit for what you could use your card for and also ATM's seemed to be a dying breed. I think I spent about 50 euro's less than what I was going to in Brussels just because I couldn't find a damn ATM to get any cash. We had a delicious lunch and then had to start driving again, this time to Paris! We arrived in Paris just before sunset so we could see the tip of the Eiffel tower in the distance, so exciting!

European Parliament

There were puppies on the side walk!

I had a ridiculous messy and delicious waffle

Missä olemme?

The view from our hotel room

Eurotour - Day 4

The morning was spent driving to the Netherlands! When I think of the Netherlands, I think canals and windmills and cows everywhere but no country can be as cool as it is in the movie's can it? IT WAS! We stopped at a little cheese and clog factory and watched a guy who was wearing converse clogs give a short demonstration on how to make clogs. We then got to attack the souvenir store before spending some time taking pictures in the giant clog. We had a short talk on how they make cheese too and we got to have a bit of a taste of all the nice cheeses. There was one covered in garlic and olive oil and it was so good. We went down to the beach next where we were having lunch but we got to run through all the little stores first. So many cool things and I have no idea how I didn't buy everything! We had lunch and then drove to Amsterdam, really cool city! Definitely one of my favourites that we visited.


First we went on a boat tour through the canals and the guide told us all about why they built the houses they way they did and a bit of the history of the city. There is a big sort of hook thing that extends from the top of most of the houses and that was so that when people moved they could put their furniture in the higher levels because the staircases were much too thin. There was also two sets of doors into most of the houses, one for the owners of the house and one, which was normally lower than the other, for the servants to enter the house. There were lots of house boats tied to the sides of the canals and people live in their house boats all year round! They were very different to Australian houseboats! 


Then we swapped groups and I got to spend some time in the Anne Frank museum which was chilling but a really good experience. Our hotel was quite a way out of the city and it was dark and freezing when we got there so we were not happy to hear that they hadn't gotten our key-cards ready and we had to wait ages to finally get inside! I went to take a shower and had a brief moment of "whoa how the heck do I work this thing" before I realised that it was just like an Australian shower and I had grown so used to Finnish showers which are so much easier to regulate. 

Converse clogs! 

My roomie and I in a giant clog!

One of my favourite photos from the whole eurotour.

Just posing with a cute house

Public urinals :/

Houseboat!

Actual houses

Being a bit silly with Ana in Amsterdam.

Ana also has a really good blog that is really worth reading! 

Eurotour - Day 3

In the morning we had a tour around Copenhagen, we stopped at the canals and the Little Mermaid statue and we went to the Royal Palace and got to see the changing of the guards. The guards were kinda scary, if you got too close to them they would stamp their gun on the ground and look straight at you. We had a really good tour guide and she told us heaps of really interesting thing but I can't really remember them. When we got back to the hotel I got to meet my friend Andrea for the first time! We'd been facebook friends since the beginning of her exchange and it was so nice to finally meet her, she came with a big group of us to Christiana which is Denmark's "free city." It really was something else all together, I couldn't work out if I was amazed or appalled by this little city. You weren't allowed to take any pictures because technically all the drugs are still illegal. Denmark's government is always trying to eradicate the open drug selling but has tried unsuccessfully many times although their is a "no hard drug" rule within Christiana as of 1979 and they take this seriously. The smell of cannabis gets to you after a while so we left and caught the bus back to our hotel and tried to find food. I had to say goodbye to Andrea then and I really didn't want to, I'd just got to meet her and then I had to leave and I had no clue when I would see her again. One thing I've learnt is that exchange is so chock full of goodbyes :( You should all read Andrea's blog, she is a really really good writer and I especially recommend it to outbounds! Ashleigh and I had to sprint back to the bus then and luckily we made it on time and the bus continued its journey till we reached a ferry that took us to Germany. We were staying overnight in Bremen and while we were waiting for to get our key cards hundreds of people on roller-skates went by!

A golden girl on her bike

The canals of Denmark, they call it "little Amsterdam"

Sophie and I with a guard

The guards changing, it kind of looks like they are laughing when they change.

Here they are marching around

Andrea and I!

Christiana 

I stole these pictures of google because I wanted to show you what it was like in there.

There is about 850 people that live there permanently (including 150 children) and they all live in houses that are mostly made by themselves. 

There was so many bikes! 

I swear it is not me who makes the noises at the start!  

Eurotour - Day 2

First on the agenda is Happy Birthday Nanna!
We had a early start this morning as we all had to be packed up and down at brekkie by 6! When we got off the boat it was straight into the bus. Stockholm was really beautiful, I wish we could have spent some more time there. Rotex ordered silence until 9 but I didn't do much! We stopped at a little lolly shop where you can see the lollies being made, like that store in Chadstone that I forget the name of, Sugar maybe? I bought some lollies and made a fool of myself by telling the lady kiitos when she was finished. Kiitos is thank you in Finnish and its such a habit now that my brain didn't say hang on a sec, you're in Sweden not Finland!!! Whoops! I did it again at lunch when I got my meal, what an idiot! 


We caught a ferry over into Denmark and soon we were in Copenhagen surrounded by bikes! There was so many bikes! We settled in to out hotel rooms and the whole group walked to Tivoli which is the 2nd oldest amusement park in the world! I bought a pass for all the rides because those that know me, know that I love a good theme park! The first ride we went on was the tallest carousel in the world. It took us up 80 metres and you could see the entire city, it was so incredible! I knew Denmark was an old city but when you see it all laid out in front of you like that you can really appreciate its colourful history. We went on lots of other rides including a freaky ride that spins you around in ways I didn't know possible! Once we'd had enough of the rides we went to find some food and got stuck in the rain so we took shelter in the first bar we could find. While we were there the TV was showing the highlights of a game of AFL. Yes you read that correctly, I watched the highlights of an Australian Football game in Denmark! That was very weird!

The lolly store

TIVOLI! 

The swinging chair ride.

Mathaus and I on the drop ride

This ride was freaking scary, I'm on the left.

We survived! 

Set loose in Copenhagen