Nov 2008

Right now I'm watching the last few streaks of blood red twilight disappear behind the Andalusian hills. It's been hard catching up on my blog with this kind of scenery distracting me- white, glistening little cities in the distance, nestled between mountains, rows of hills lined with trees and red dirt- but alright, I guess as far as this is concerned I'm still in France.
Our next stop was Nice, a playground for the wealthy, but not totally inaccessible for us poor folk. We got an early morning train out of Paris, and I can remember slivers of it- waiting in the train station, nibbling on croissant and waiting for the sun to rise. Watching as cute French towns yielded to a wilder Mediterranean landscape, all palm trees and striking azure water and red-roofed stucco houses climbing the hillsides. Our surroundings gave me a renewed surge of excitement for travel, for what laid a few steps ahead, which in our case was Spain. We got off our train and stepped into the warmth of the afternoon sunshine, and took the tram to the spot where our hostel's shuttle was supposed to pick us up. We dropped our bags and shed our extra layers. I was so excited- the blue sky, the warm weather, the palm trees- this was all very new, very welcome after the weather from the first half of our trip. They were selling flowers in a small makeshift open air market where we were standing, and the smell enhanced the whole memory- now, when I think of Nice, I can still smell the flowers. I would be smelling them for a while anyway, as the stupid van never came and got us. We were waiting for near a couple hours, not even left with directions, because after a half hour we would've walked whatever the distance was. After trying this and that, Ruaridh finally flagged down the van while I was looking for a payphone and we made it up the fairly short distance to our hostel. It was really lovely- it was perched above the city a bit, in a quiet area full of vegetation with lots of places to hang out outside. It all had that vague but really nice humid smell of plants that you get in tropical places. We have dinner at the hostel, which was great at only 6 euro or something, and some wine, and hung around a bit before heading off to bed.
The next day was fantastic. T-shirts and sandals all day... ahhh. We went back down into town, stopping to pick up some fruit, cheese and baguette- from the baker's of course- for lunch. We went into Old Town to the fruit and flower market, full of fresh vegetables, spices, oils, preserves, and of course fruit and flowers. It was really crazy there, full of local shoppers, wandering tourists and barking vendors. The place just made you want to cook. Once we were done wandering, we went down to the beach for our little picnic, admiring the beautiful blue water and the town curving down either side of the shore. Soon after we headed up the side of a steep cliff to see a waterfall and some ruins of a chapel. It offered some pretty incredible views. After a bit more wandering down the coast, we decided to head back since some clouds were rolling in.
And the bad weather begins! I think it's chasing us. We woke up to some thunder and rain, but no matter, it was still SO warm compared to Paris. Since we made a pact to see absolutely no museums during our stay, we just bummed around, read and planned little details for more of our trip. We slipped and slided back into town to pick up some groceries, but that was about it. Nothing of import.
The weather persists the next day- U.S Election day! But we decide to go into Monaco just to say we did. We also knew of an aquarium in Monte Carlo which was supposed to be pretty great, and both me and Ruaridh seem to share the affection for aquariums, so it was all good. We got on the bus from Nice, and actually passed right through Monaco without noticing into some other similarly rich place. We got off and walked along until we were back in the area. Lots of expensive shopping places and massive flats and mansions overlooking the sea. Monte Carlo was on a piece of the coast jutting into the sea, or at least the aquarium was. We went in, and it was pretty great. On our way out, we wandered around a bit more, saw the Super Yachts (complete with cape) and billboards for super yacht insurance. The casino was very pretty, as was the area around. We were in jeans and our hiking shoes, so we didn't bother to see if we'd be let in. There were lots of very shiny and sleek looking cars, which Ruaridh, with awe and reverence, explains are Aston Martins and Ferraris (whatev.) The rain starts up again. We head back into the city center of Nice to see "W." in spirit of the elections. We were completely soaked by the time we got to the theater. They don't let you in the physical building until 20 minutes before the show, and don't even have popcorn! The French just don't know how to do movie theaters. Nevertheless, I thought it was very interesting. We got back for the "election party," where they played the election stuff on some large screens. and although I wanted so badly to stay up and see the results, we were 6 hours ahead and I just couldn't do it. I was falling in and out of sleep, and even though it's silly I couldn't sleep. I felt sick, I felt like it was going to be the same shit all over again. We were in the room next to the converted chapel, where we had breakfast, dinner, the bar and the computers. This is where the party was, so I got to hear all the chatter of the party. At some point I woke up and heard that special music, so I threw on my jeans and ran next door, where some kids were hanging out outside. They told me it was Obama, and I went back to bed, quite relaxed.
The next day was completely uneventful since rain battered the town for most of the day. That's the thing about Nice, its a vacation town, and if the sun isn't shining there is nothing to do. We would've left, but we were holding out for the sun that was promised to us, because we really wanted to get some beach time in. The morning after wasn't so bad, but we changed hostels, unfortunately to one not nearly as nice, but much more centrally located (only a block from the beach.) Today we had to do laundry, reserve tickets for Barcelona, and send some things home. When night came we decided to wander around the pedestrian streets a bit and found an unfortunately mediocre place for dinner, but you can't always make the best guesses, right? The rain started up again, which put a quick end to our night. Tomorrow's our last day in Nice, and regardless of the weather, we are going to get out.
Our last day in Nice was pretty great. We wanted to see some more of the Cote D'Azur, so we hopped on a bus to go over to a beach called Villefranche and a beautiful town called St. Jean Cap Ferrat. We really had no idea where to get off, as none of the bus stops were really marked, so we got off at a pretty looking stop and wandered around. We ended up at St. Jean Cap Ferrat first, the most beautiful town in the world. Gorgeous houses hidden by tropical flowers and palm trees, jutting out into crystal clear water dotted coast below us. Vines covered in little purple flowers crept onto every stone wall on the streets. The roads were surprisingly unpaved, considering all the expensive cars parked on them. We made our way down to a little beach next to the port where some locals were walking their little dogs or taking an afternoon swim. Lush cliffs rose for miles to our left. In front of us was a bright blue expanse of water, with a lone white cruise ship a few miles out. By the cliffs, the sky was bright blue with a few tufts of cloud, and out by the port to our right we saw some black clouds moving in. From where we were, we could see the heavy rainfall a few miles away. It was a very cool sight. We hid in a cafe for a while as the storm passed over us, then we slipped and slided to the bus stop, intent on finding Villefranche. After walking here and there, we found ourselves walking along another little port, unable to find the beach. There were swarms of fish under the little sailboats, so we hung around, without much to do, and watched for a few minutes. Then, right in front of our eyes, a little octopus jetted into view! It was so cool, I've never seen one outside an aquarium. It was just jetting to and fro in the shallow waters before settling into a little crack out of view. That was very exciting. Still bent on finding this beach, we ended up wandering around the coastline for the rest of the day, climbing crumbling weed-ridden stairs, wandering around impossibly beautiful tropical neighborhoods, ambling up and down pedestrian streets. We found a beach finally, not "the beach" but a beach. I don't know exactly where we went wrong, but it ended up being a great day anyway. Tomorrow we head to Barcelona, and Ruaridh tells me that his dad, in a lapse of sanity, booked us 2 days at a 5 star hotel in Barcelona. We were both really pumped for that. Barcelona was a long trip from Nice, but we decided to avoid the night train situation. I was excited to move on, but Nice is one of those places where you can accidentally spend the rest of your trip and not even notice. Next- Barcelona!

Paris is hard to talk about. I got some really bad news from home when we got in to the main station about a childhood friend, so the first few days- most of Paris, actually- is a tired blur. But I tried my best to have fun, and Ruaridh was really supportive.
I'll start off by saying that right now I'm actually on a 3-coach train from Granada to Sevilla. I am a month (?!!) and several hundred miles away from all the shitty feelings an sunless days we had in Paris. The pain and homesickness is still there, but thankfully much less intense. I suppose I'll start where I left off-

Our morning trip out was a little hectic, but after leaving Geneva it was your pretty normal train day. We got in and found our hostel, which is pretty far from the action but was fantastic. The dorm beds had these little curtain things and reading lights on the walls. There was a bar/restuarant downstairs that had good food, mostly American cuisine though, and good music. I don't think we did anything for the rest of that day.

We wanted to start the next day with a little walking tour to orient ourselves. Our guide was a Canadian kid in his twenties who was hysterical, and it made some of the dreary history and less-than interesting "modern art" sights a bit more bearable. The tour actually took a large part of the day, and afterwards we tried to see the Musee D'Orsay but it was closed. After a bit of aimless wandering (something we've gotten into the habit of for every city) we saw some nasty black clouds barreling in from behind the gold-tipped obelisk and decided to hightail it back to the hostel.

Something else unique to backpacking- "laundry days." Tuesday, the next day in Paris, was a laundry day for us. It is a "day" because first off, a hostel is not a hotel, you cannot "send out" your laundry and go about your business. Secondly, although all your clothes can be done in a medium-sized load, it is all you have and would under no circumstances leave it unattended. So yes, unfortunately this took up a lot of time. Ruaridh left at some point to pick us up some breakfast- since Germany, he's been completely addicted to chocolate croissant-y pastry things, and here there is a bakery on every corner, so lucky him. After our laundry we checked into our next hostel- reluctantly, because St. Chris's was great, but unfortunately booked for the next couple nights. It was technically more central, but because of the distance and the weather we still needed to take the smelly metro everywhere so it really didn't matter. After checking in to our more typical hostel, complete with tacky paint, windy, narrow creaking steps and dangerous metal-rod bunk beds- ladderless, tricky tricky- we decided to give the Musee D'Orsay another go, and I'm glad they did. I'm no art buff, and I tried really hard to remember some of the artist names, but alas I draw a blank. The works there were really incredible, and the museum itself is an old converted train station, so the building itself was artful. After art-frying our brain, we made some dinner and chilled out at the hostel, discussing exactly how we wanted to spend the rest of our days in Paris.

The next morning we headed off for the Latin Quarter, which would've been a great wandering-about neighborhood if better weather had allowed it. We decided to do as the Parisians do and stop off in some cafe for a long, drawn out lunch. It was fantastic- if the french can do one thing, they can cook. I've gotten into the habit of drinking wine with lunch and dinner since it is so good and so inexpensive- cheaper than water, actually (at least the stuff we were drinking, heh) After lunch we headed to the Notre Dame, which, despite the many cathedrals we've seen, really struck me. It is one of those cathedrals designed to make you feel so small, amidst this huge presence that at the same time was so intricately decorated. It turns out, though, that most visitors were not as captured, so we had to shuffle along amidst the camera flashes and chattering and all that until we could finally escape. After this, we wasted some time strolling in and out of souvenir shops, then dropped by a cafe to warm up over some coffee for a loong time. We tried to think of another obligatory tourist trap to visit and decided to hop over to the Arc du Triomphe. Turns out yes, it was an arc. I took pictures for tourists aplenty, and just as we were about to take off we noticed the traffic circle from hell, and decided to stick around for a bit. Apparently it is the most dangerous traffic circle in Europe, with 12 roads converging into this traffic light-less roundabout, averaging one accident per 30 minutes. It was the most exciting thing we've seen in a long time, actually. Little motorcycles crossing over 6 lanes, buses diving into its heart with reckless abandon, not to mention a few idiots who decided to run across. Once we started to go numb from the cold, we headed back and after making dinner- baguette and pasta has become a diet staple, by the way- spent the night talking to people from the hostel, mostly the 3 Aussie girls in our dorm, who were really funny and easy to get along with.
The next day yielded similar crap weather, and I'm starting to doubt our cleverness in picking the fall for Europe. We wandered around the Bastille area, and I got a nutella crepe (mmm.) We fought the driving rain to wander through a graveyard- and right before halloween! Ravens and everything. We saw, of course, Oscar Wilde's grave, which was covered in lipstick kisses of all different shades, and then went to see Jim Morrison's grave, much smaller and blocked off, with some flowers. Afterwards, we sloshed up to the nearest cafe. It was very strange, because they had posters up in the window of Jim Morrison and his grave, but with thick, violent scribbles and X's over it in black crayon. Once inside the cafe, they had posters up of Jim Morrison all over the place, unmolested. It was all very strange. On the way back to our hostel, I picked up some sushi- apparently we crossed through Paris's asian quarter- and some meat from a butcher (for Ruaridh, naturally.) We ended up spending the night downstairs in the kitchen area again, drinking cheap wine with the Aussies and watching a group of Spanish hostelers sing and dance and stamp their feet and drink and laugh, because that is just what Spanish people do.
Our last day in Paris ended up begin a jumble of all the huge sites we didn't get to yet. Namely, the Louvre, the Chat Noir, and ze Eiffel Tower of course! We saw Montmartre in the day, so it was less glamorous and mostly just seedy. We saw the Moulin Rouge, and I imagined how pretty it must be lit up at night. I had wanted to see a show, but at a 90 euro cheap seat it just wasn't going to happen. Afterwards we wandered down to the Chat Noir for some coffee, still reminiscent of it's former seedy glory. There were sill some tobacco-stained pillars from the original building. You could imagine the room filled with smoke, the sound of someone pounding out a jazzy tune on the piano in the corner. After this we went over to the Louvre. We had perfect timing, actually, I'm quite proud of this. It was Thursday and the Louvre stayed open until 9, with discounted entrance after 6PM. We arrived around 5 from the metro stop, and as we entered the corridor containing the inverted glass pyramid, we saw the slews of people, hanging out or drinking coffee, waiting for the museum to drop it's prices. We booked past them, bought tickets at full price, and for the hour we actually had a great deal of the museum to ourselves. The day crowd was gone and the night crowd was yet to come. We decided first to go see all the big works, the Mona Lisa, the statue of Venus, etc and then take our time with the rest. The Louvre was amazing and at the same time very intimidating- just thinking about all that there was to see made you want to curl up and take a nap. We wandered down vast hallway to vast hallway, works of art in their own right with their beautifully painted ceilings. After a few hours we got to the point you get to in museums where you can no longer process any artwork and your brain starts to throb. We headed over the the Eiffel Tower just in time to see it light up in a glittery light show- it was very cool. Afterwards it settled to a pretty blue, enhanced by the fog settling high over the city. We were in the perfect spot, across the river with the bridge twinkling white in the distance.
That night we were back at St. Chris's, and it was halloween! Over dinner at the restuarant downstairs we ran into a couple guys from Canada and another from California. We ended up talking to them for a few hours, but decided to bypass the zombie party in the "club" downstairs and took an early night. The next stop was Nice, and honestly, despite the romance and the history of the city, I just wanted to get out of Paris.

The rest of Interlaken was fun but obviously not as exciting. Since we liked the area so much, we went up to Lauterbrunnen again- turns out we never got to the "real" waterfalls, haha. It was another gorgeous sunny day, although a bit chillier, and we took the actual route, which was much more picturesque with much less cow poo. On the way we saw a woman who was taking her 5 bernese mountain dogs for a walk, some puppies- they were so adorable, and it made me really miss my first dog (also a berner.) The "actual" waterfalls were enormous, and we had to take a tunnel lift up to the highest one, then worked our way down. A lot of them had to be viewed from inside the caves, it was pretty awesome.

We decided to stay a little longer and switched to a hostel called Balmer's Herberge, the one and only party hostel in Interlaken. It was really big and really cool, kind of a series of oversized log cabins with central courtyard hangout areas and a very infamous downstairs bar. My only complaint was that it was a little too Americanized- full of screechy overprivileged Californian girls on a school trip, from what I gathered, and a bunch more americans and aussies looking to get as drunk as they can, as fast as possible, with the mental capacity to match. Luckily not everyone was like that- the first night we started talking to these two Canadian girls, Jenna and Jess, who were hilarious, some of the stranded and slightly-cooler-but-just-as-drunk californians, and these two startlingly good-looking South African guys. That night we went down to this bar, the "biggest club in Interlaken," which was a basement with some music and strobe lights, haha. But it was still nice, and the drinks were affordable.

The last day we wanted to make a day trip to Bern, since it was only 50 minutes away and we basically spent all our switzerland time in Interlaken and the alps. Despite having a bit of a rough morning, we got out early for the last day, deciding to whittle it down to the basic highlights. It was a cute city, but so obscenely expensive that it really took away from the experience. They had an open air market going on, so we checked that out, but basically just wanted to see the bear pits and the fountain of an ogre eating a baby. The bear pits were a little depressing- one brown bear wandering around apathetically, occasionally sitting for people who gave them the "bear food" that can be purchased there. Lots of cool fountains, but never caught the ogre. Shame. We found a bookstore that had a huge english section and stocked up, despite our wallets screaming in agony. It's paper and ink! how can you people live with yourselves... anyway, our last night in Interlaken, so we headed back to the hostel and talked more with Jenna the canadian and this nice but somewhat creepy missionary (i think) from Kenya. Went back to the bar, but decided to take it much easier- met up with the South Africans again, incredibly nice guys. The Kenyan missionary came down- Father Buzzkill- but went up after realizing it wasn't civilized enough. It wasn't long before we went back up to our room- decided on an early night- but we ended up talking to this really awesome couple in our dorm from Vermont, which spanned a few hours. In the morning we leave for Paris!