wow... Europe!
Alright so I guess it's been about a month... and what I month! Firstly Heather and I had the most amazing time in Europe... that's right folks I spent three weeks and an awful lot of money this summer in Europe. I don't even know where to start. Ok, well the begining I guess...
So we left Toronto on this really great flight where you leave Canada at night and get to the U.K. in the morning, it was great. We found out that on international flights Air Canada plys you with food and alcohol possibly to keep you sedated through the night.
So we got to London and it was amazingly nice out. The tube is the most efficient public transit system I've ever encountered and I've encountered quite a few. London is an amazing city, you could never run out of things to do and things to see there. AMAZING! We did a lot there, since museums are free we checked out a lot of them including the Natural History Museum... hey what can I say I'm a big geek. We went up tower bridge and saw the tower of London and just wandered the city, I mean this we would take the tube and get off at random stations and just wander the neighbourhoods. We checked out some English pubs too... you know because we were there. Ya that's King's Cross Station, you know Harry Potter!
We joined up with our tour group in London and spent the night in a hotel that was a lot nicer than the hostel we stayed in... not that it wasn't great for a hostel. We left London bright and early for Dover so we could take the ferry over to Calais. I'm telling you those are some impressive white cliffs. The ferry was nice, it was sunny and gorgeous and it was just a good crossing.
When we got to Calais we went through border control where I obligingly in my best French convinced border control that they wanted to stamp my passport even though I have one of those fancy ones that don't need stamps. From there we drove though Belgium to the Netherlands and eventually to Amsterdam where we spent the first night of our tour. We went on a canal cruise and then took a little tour of the red light district. Heather convinced me to go to a live sex show. It was kind of interesting, I don't think I'd go again but they did give me a pretty cool condom so, hey whatever. After that we went to the Grasshopper and well it was a fun night. The next day we got to see Amsterdam in the day light so we headed to the Anne Frank museum and to the floating flower gardens/world's biggest tulip store. There's a picture of some peoeple from our tour (I went with my friend from Waterloo, Heather, she's in the green shirt next to me) at the flower market.
From Amsterdam we went on to St. Goar in Germany. It's a pretty little town but I mean LITTLE. Heather and I had this room that makes me think that nuns live in the same sort of thing, I wish I'd taken a picture of it but I didn't. There was a really neat castle that we walked to in the rain and the world's largest free hanging coo-koo clock.
After St. Goar we headed to Munich where we saw the Glockenspiel and where we went to the world's largest Beer House... yeah you know the one where they only serve beer in 1L steins. I loved Munich! They had these lions all over town that local artists had painted for charity and of course we had to take pictures with them... well I had to, I think Heather just went along with it because she loves me.
After Munich we left for the Austrian Tyrol. This is where we stayed in a Gasthoff and for some reason we ended up in the most amazing suite with two South African girls (who were amazing and really nice!) Nicest hotel I've ever stayed in, down pillows and comfortors and big wooden beds... since it was sort of remote they hotel owners put on a party for us in the hotel bar. Now let's talk about this bartender, his name is Wolfgang and he's just gorgeous. I know I say that about a lot of people, but he is. wow. So that was nice. When we were in Austria we also went to the Swarowski crystal museum which is built into a hill and quite possibly the coolest thing you will ever see.
From there we went to Italy! Firstly we went to Venice. Since it had been raining when we got to Venice it was completely flooded. Myself being a student of hydrogeology understood what was going on while everyone else... well they just didn't get it. ok ok... anyway it was amazing, except for all the pigeons. We went to a glass blowing demonstration and of course we went on a romantic gondola ride but I'll let the pictures do the rest. (Yes taht's gross pigeon water!)
The next stop was Rome and I think I'll just put pictures because it was so amazing and we did so many things! All I want to say is that we climbed all thousand stairs to the top of the dome at the Vatican...and it was hot!
The last stop in Italy was Florence. Florence was amazing. We went to this dinner in Tuscany that was reminiscant of an Italian wedding there was an anti-pasta buffet and three other courses and of course a lot of wine! Live music, dancing and a chance to try the world's strongest liquor (180 proof) completed the evening. It was just nice, we got to dress up. After that we went to Space Electronic Disco, you heard me... anyway it was a fun place and I miss it a lot.
This picture is Heather, myself, Michelle and Kim
Now I was really excited to go to Switzerland, more excited than anywhere else. But I didn't get to go up the mountain because it had flooded and there were massive landslides. Most of the roads and mountain passes were closed so we ended up spending at good 11 hours on the bus that day drivng around the mountains. When we got to Switzerland, more specifically Lucerne we went on a cruise of the lake and then we walked around for a while and had coffee and a generally low key night. It was nice though and I would love to go back someday.
The last stop on our trip was Paris, the most romantic city in the world. I loved this city, I adored this city, I want to live in this city. We did so much here. It was also the city where we had the last night of our tour, and it was a hell of a night!
After our tour ended we moved into a hostel, a very nice one at that... we had some low key days in Paris that involved the Mineralogy museum, you got me a museum devoted to crytals! I know... so that was nice, we had some nice dinners in Paris and generally wandered absorbing things like we did in London. On our last full day we went to Versailles and followed that up by a nice dinner and a creme brulee.
Followed by the 21 hour plane trip from HELL to get home which I don't feel like talking about. Never want to talk about it!
Anyway if you want to know more just message me and we could chat and stuff.
Whew... that was long. There are so many more pictures and so many more stories but this is long enough as is.