Disneyland, Paris and Prague - longest entry ever...?
We were originally planning on taking the Thalys high speed train from Amsterdam to Paris. When we looked online before the trip we saw 10 departures a day and didn't bother buying tickets that far in advance as they were only €25. Big mistake. At the central station in Amsterdam we waited in line for an hour to buy tickets:( Then they had none of the €25 tickets left, only the €120:P The cheapest option was taking the regular train to Brussel and taking the high speed train from there. I believed we paid €78 each. The regular train was bleh, too crowded, the seats were killingly bad and it was noisy! Switching to Thalys was so much better even though it was more expensive. You could barely hear the train moving it was so quiet!
We left Amsterdam at 10am and arrived Paris Gare du Nord at 4pm. We planned on getting tickets to the RER train and take it out to MLV Chessy/Disneyland and go out for dinner there. I made the mistake of saying yes when this woman asked me if I spoke English while waiting in line for tickets and soon the beggars were all over us, holding cards that said they had 8 sick kids and all that. As soon as we ignored them enough (I don't want to encourage them so I don't give money) another one came up with the same card, then another one. Bleh. I was not expecting this as we saw none of it in Amsterdam. France was interesting as so many people didn't know english and my francais suck. We were out of cash so we used my visa card - which did not work! Ooh ooh funky new chip thing that is suppose to work in all of Europe - except France, so watch out for that. RER tickets cost €6.45 per person and the train ride was about an hour.
Arrived Chessy station around 6, and I laughed when I realized Disneyland is just outside the station's doors! I think that is the only thing there. They had free shuttles to all the hotels which was nice. At the hotel we encountered the same problem - my visa card refused to work. I paid the €350 with my credit card praying that my card would work elsewhere since my credit limit is low (about €700). The hotel was nice, but noisy (OMG little kids running around at 11pm - they must be so tired/cranky in the morning!) and we got the closest room to the lobby/bar:( We went to the Disney village (Downtown Disney) looking for food as Disneyland Paris really is in the middle of nowhere so you have to take the train to have other options. We stood in line at one of the restaurants and split a pizza to make it not as expensive (menu prices were €18-35!). It was fun being at the disney restaurant, 5 or 6 characters came to visit and danced on the tables, hehe. Disneyland was VERY American, how the restaurant worked, the food and plate size, waiting for a table where they called out 'Kristine party of two' like they do in the US. The restaurant accepted our cards, yay, and that ended our bad card karma for the whole trip.
The next day was spent in Disneyland from it opened at 10 until it closed at 8pm. It was pretty much like the park in Anaheim but with some changes. No Splash Mountain, different Indiana Jones and a little bit different Space Mountain. The weather was about 15*C and cloudy. We met my hero Jack Sparrow and I got a picture but left my autograph book at the hotel, booo:( The Disney magic still isn't boring and we had a lot of fun. The next day we started out in Walt Disney Studios Park (California Adventure), going on the Tower of Terror a lot, hehe. They had no California Screaming and the park was a little smaller than California Adventure. They did have two different rides, the Aerosmith coaster, which is like Space Mountain except with Aerosmith music and a stage setting instead of space. It was fun. They also had Crush's Coaster, which is sort of the same - you fly through a coral reef sitting on a turtle shell. I loved it! Too bad it didn't have a fast pass and the line was constantly one hour wait:( Spent 6 hours in the park before going back over to Disneyland.
The first day we ate at the Rainforest Cafe in Disney village, I've eaten there before and wanted Lena to see. The last day we cheap'd out and ate at one of the food courts:P Most of my souvenirs from the trip was bought in Disneyland. They had a thing where they would send the stuff you bought to your hotel, I did and the mug I bought for hubby was broken in transport:( Luckily they were awesome and I got it replaced for free, even though I bought it inside the park and exchanged it in the disney village right before we took the train back to Paris.
We bought thalys tickets as soon as we came back to Gare du Nord. No e25 tickets this time either, it was about €80 per person again. After finding our hostel and got the keys for our little studio apartment we took the metro down to the centre of Paris. We lived in the 8th arrondissement between the opera and molin rouge. I was a little nervous about the location after reading that the hooker street was in the 8th arr, but our location was away from that stuff and very quiet/seemed safe. Riding the metro late at night was also safe as it was very crowded. I forget what we did the first night, just walking around and had dinner I think (oh right, the Notre Dame). The next day we got a day pass on the metro and went around here and there. Visited the Louvre - OMG it is big! It will seriously take you 10 hours to walk through all of it! I don't care squat about art but I liked it. Especially all the greek statues. They were all naked, haha, but their bodies were real compared to models/naked people from today. The ladies had small-ish boobs, woman-y thighs and hips and they all had a little tummy. Aphrodite had the same body shape as me! had We also walked around a lot, tried to find a cute cafe in the Latin quarter but got lost. Found a car store on les Champs-Elysees, that was funny (bilbutikk i gate 1??)
The second day the weather changed to 20*c and sunny. We started the day sitting on the steps of the opera with a starbucks javachip frappuchino:) We went on a walking tour with the same company that did the walking tour of the Red light district. It was very good and I totally recommend using their company, they are in many major cities. The first evening we ate dinner in the apartmet, the second night we ate at an italian restaurant. Real carbonara = yum! This was the only time our housing didn't offer us breakfast so we ate at the apartment. All the cereals they have at home came in a 'chocolat noir' (dark chocolate) version in France so we had to try that, haha. Special K chocolat noir was teh yum. The second night we took the metro down to the Eiffel tower in the evening. Warning - we were in line for about an hour total to get up, in the summer you might have to wait 3 hours. When we made it to the top it was dark and you could see the lights from Paris at night - so beautiful!! Stressed a bit in the end as it took us 40 minutes waiting to get down and the metro stopped going at midnight.... The last day we went to the sacre-coeur and montmatre. On the tour the guide warned us about the scams going on there. There's a bunch of men stopping you at the gates to the park trying to tie a string around your wrist saying that you need it for the church (sacre-coeur is a church). Apparently if you let them they get mean and want money from you later. Walking up to the park we were attached by 6 of them, same when we were going down! Afterwards we went to walked around the area, which was very cute (of minnet litt om syden med alle åpne butikker og boder). Went to a pharmacia looking for peppermint essential oil for Lena. The pharmacist lady said she spoke english so we asked for peppermint. She gave us something that was labled in francais. The dictionary was in the bottom of our backpacks so we didn't bother looking it up. Turned out we got grapefruit oil (pamplemousse). Oh well.
The train to Köln was 4 hours. We had a 2.5 hour wait an the night train ended up being an hour late. We got our German on at Burger King and bought some very expensive american magazines (YogaJournal:D) We got into our cabin around midnight, and it was full of sleeping Czechs. We fumbled around in the darkness trying to get the couchettes to work. The train was bumpy and it was hot - we didn't sleep well. Arrived Prague at 11am. They use czech kroner which we didn't have. Found an ATM that gave us 1000czk in one bill, the machines for the metro tickets only took coins:P Finally found a ticket booth that could make change. Bought a 3 day pass there too for 330czk, about €12. Found our hotel fast but we couldn't check in and shower until 1. Went out to lunch. Came back, showered (best shower ever!) and went into town. Apparently it was some EU festival there with outside concerts on a stage, not too bad in the warm sunny evening. Lena wanted to go on a ghost tour so we did. At this point I started missing hubby horribly.
The last few days of sun (and sunscreen use) made my face crazy - probably 10 zits on my face and 20 on my chest D: It took a week after returning home before they went away. My hair hated me too, just hours after washing it was back to yuck and oil:(
The next day was also wery warm. We went to the zoo. Before that we went to the ATM and took out another 1000czk which the lady didn't accept, she needed exactly 150czk and she spoke NO english. Sigh. The zoo was fun. In the evening we went to see Slumdog Millionaire in original language with czech texting (made the indian language parts interesting, hehe). The next day it rained so we did a guided bus tour. Then we visited Hard Rock Cafe. Got a swedish waiter and I was mistaken from being from the West coast in the gift shop, hehe (same happened at Schiphol). Then we got our czech on at Starbucks and I wrote my 15+ postcards. The next morning we left the hotel around nine to be at the airport 3 hours in advance. Waste of time since the Norwegian counters didn't open until 2 hours in advance:P The wind was northbound so we arrived Oslo 1/2 hour early (15:20) and our plane north left at 20:10:P I am so sick of waiting in Oslo airport. Luckily the plane north also arrived 1/2 hour early so I was home at 11pm instead of 11:30. Went to bed at 1 and got up at 7 for work. Bleh.
In Amsterdam we stayed in a 6 bed room of a youth hostel, it was very nice and I would totally recommend the place. The hotel in Disneyland was comfy but crowded. The apartment in Paris was very cute, typically Parisian with the window and squeaky wooden floors. The hotel in Prague was very pretty and fancy but the room was on the top floor and it was 25*C constantly:(
All in all it was a great trip. It was interesting being in countries where you don't understand anything of the language, and the first hour in each city you thought you were going to die from confusedness:P I don't have a favorite city, I liked Amsterdam for being able to understand stuff, Paris for it's Parisian cuteness and Prague for being quieter than Paris - we saw almost no beggars there (and none that were as pushy as Paris). Pictures will come soon. I am not sure how much money we spent total as we have to split the costs we paid together and wait for the mastercard bill.