Paris: Part Deux

On Friday we met up in the lobby around 10:30am and hit the metro heading for the Louvre. We had originally scheduled in about 2 hours for it cause we really only wanted to hit the necessities like Mona Lisa.

Yeah, it took us like 40 minutes just to find the ticket machines. Huge does not even begin to describe this place. It is massive.

Hehehe, thats what she said.

So we wandered for a long time because it took us friggin forever to find the Mona Lisa. They just taunt you with small pictures of it with arrows beneath until you finally get like two rooms away and then they leave you to figure out which one leads to the room its in. I peaked in one, saw a glass wall and knew we had found it.

Everyone has said "Oh, its soooo small when you see it in real life" and such. Guys, have you ever seen a normal sized portrait? Cause thats about the right size. It wasn't tiny, but I guess compared to the cinema screen sized painting across from it, it would seem tiny.

Anyhoo, we took some pictures of it and in front of it (sorry, no little people because it was packed and I felt rude standing there for too long). That done, we left the room and got about twenty feet before Emily realized that while she took a bunch of pictures of the Mona Lisa she didn't actually look at it. So we jammed on back and really looked at it, as a painting.

It's good. Far better than I would ever be able to produce, but...its just a painting. I don't know. I respect the skill and all that it took to create this lovely painting, but it didn't really move me. Although to be fair, paintings don't seem to do that to me anyway. I'm much more of a sculpture and architecture girl. I guess I get that from my grandfather.

The museum does, we discovered quite by accident, have an enormous sculpture collection. This is pretty much where I wasted most of my camera battery and memory. So awesome sauce!

Kellie, you might appreciate this: I was strolling through the room of busts (hehe) and there are all these old school greco-roman looking ones and then BAM! I see this one behind gladd and am like " Why, hello George Washington". Yes, I am proud to say that I can totally recognize the first president of our country. Also it was pretty cool that there was a bust of him with all of that other history. America! ____ ____! I was quite proud of myself ::dusts shoulders off:: when I peaked at the info plate and found myself correct. There was also an intersting sculpture of Voltaire that Emily said reminded her of Gollum. So...yeah.

After we made a quick visit to the Code of Hammurabi, we decided we'd had our fill of the Louvre and explored the outside grounds instead. All in all we spent a little over 3 hours. Its a beautiful building, I'd say a more elaborate Library of Congress, which is a freaking amazing piece of architecture. Go see it!

After that we walked along the park thing to the Obelisk, which was...very phallic. Well, it was!

From there we continued on towards the Champs Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe. We stopped along the way to people watch and rest our feet though cause we'd been doing a lot of walking. Also we consumed two crepes between the Louvre and the Arc. The Arc de Triomphe is ginormous. You don't even realize until you're standing beneath it. Even from across the street it doesn't look as big as it really is.

Huh...just realized that Paris is filled with "that's what she said" pieces of architecture...

We decided to pay the admission (which was only 5.50 euros cause we're under 26 huzzah!) and check out the view.

ATTENTION PEOPLE! NEW WINNER!!

1. Arc de Triomphe
2. Prime Meridian
3. Walk to hostel in Wales
4. Victoria Street in Edinburgh
5. Llangsteffan Castle

I think that's all of them...

284 steps later...
we arrive at the viewing deck. Gorgeous views of the whole city. We tried to take pictures of us with the Eiffel Tower in the background but it was silly how tiny it looked so we just took pictures of us eating it and squishing it between our fingers instead.

After heading back down the Arc, we decided to check out what the dealio was with a possible dinner cruise on the Seine. We ended up doing that and enjoyed pasta and wine and a guided tour of the river's sights.

After the cruise we headed back to the hostel to figure out our evening and get a new camera battery since ours had died somewhere around the Arc. We were going to check out the Moulins and Sacre Coeur but totally ended up picking up some wine, cheese and baguettes for a lovely evening in instead.

It sounds a little lame, but it was actually quite nice to not be running around and just enjoy a glass of wine.

It was a nice night, but who knew the next day would be such a fiasco...

Paris, je t'aime!

We left Dublin relatively early, first stopping by the post office and spending an ungodly amount of money to ship stuff home in the feeble attempt to lighten our luggage. Fail.

Thursday was also the first day where we encountered rain, but it doesn't count because we spent the whole time either in a bus, airport or plane.

We flew out of Belfast International Airport, which I'm pretty sure is smaller than the church my parents go to. Tiny! Also, Belfast in general smells like a petting zoo, so that's nice.

They actually do have a zoo, but our cab driver told us its more like a prison for animals. So I guess Beflast smells like a prison for animals. Hmm...

It took about an hour and half to get to Paris. Never fly Easyjet. You can only have a purse on the plane and checked luggage is 18 euros!! Outrageous.

We landed and then attempted to figure out how to get to the hostel. We got to Gare du Nord and then spent about an hour and a half failing at life before we flagged down a taxi who drove like 3 minutes and voila!

So we checked in and discovered that because of some computer glitch we ended up with two separate rooms. Whatever, at least we have somewhere to sleep.

After we dropped our stuff off we headed out. Walked about two blocks and then had our first crepe in Paris. Awesome! We also had this absolutely amazing hot dog that is an entire baguette with two hot dogs and mounds of cheese melted on top. Mmmmm....so good.

We decided to catch the Metro to the Eiffel Tower and see it at night. As we rounded a corner in the train there it was! One of the most amazing moments of the trip by far. It is so friggin beautiful all lit up at night! And they make it sparkle! The only thing I can compare it to is christmastime at Disneyland when it starts to get dark and they have the castle lighting moment. Except this is like 1000 times more awesome.

We ended up walking along the river where we accidentally picked up some French guy. He was fairly vexing. Not attractive at all, cause I know that was your next question. We told him like a million times that we didn't want to sleep with him, but he was probably too drunk to understand. So, instead we used him to lead us to the Metro and then ditched him at the gate.

That was our first night in Paris.

Bon nuit!

"THE BIG DAY"

Hokay. I am in Paris at the moment, but we'll get to that later. I'm gonna get St. Paddy's taken care of in this post and then immediately write one for Paris. K? K.

So St. Patrick's day, otherwise known as St. Paddy's, or if you're in Dublin "The Big Day".

We got up a little later than planned and headed towards the post office. Closed. Unsurprising considering the importance of this day. So after that we went to find a spot for the parade. It was scheduled to start at 12 and we found a spot around 11am. This hour wait would've been fine if we hadn't been at the end of the parade route. Essentially the parade got to us at 1 and then ended.

After the parade, which was fun, but had an unnecessary number of tribal and eastern displays, we decided to check out the Guinness Storehouse and take the tour and all that. So, consulting our handy dandy map of Dublin, we figured out that we just needed to walk along the river and then it would be on our left. According the some website that I had checked out it was about a 20 minute walk from Trinity. LIES!!!!!

After 40 minutes of lugging around the crap we needed to ship we FINALLY made it. Except, we didn't. Its like a friggin labyrinth to get to the entrance. I swear we made a full circle at some point. Anyhoo, we pay our fee and waltz on into the storehouse.

It was fun. Since it was "the big day" they had like four bands playing (each on a different level) and everyone was, of course, all decked out in their green. The tour (which is self-guided) was interesting. They definitely have a lovely layout and the process is fairly easy to grasp by reading the signs and such. Only, having been on the intimate tour of Boulder Brewing Co., it seemed kind of boring. Part of the fun of brewery tours is the guide.

We wandered for a while and then made our way up to the Gravity Bar, which is a 360 view of Dublin. Going up in the elevator is fun and kind of like Charlie in the glass elevator at the end of Willy Wonka. We had already had our little tasting glass of Guinness on the third floor and decided to forego the free pint because...well, guinness tastes bad. Just saying, not a big fan.

The view was interesting. I think maybe, it would be cooler at night, cause the city is...well...dirty. It just looks like a dirty city from above. Not pretty at all. I'm thinking in the cover of darkness with only dots lighting the city it would look cool. Who knows?

So after that we grabbed a cab back to the hostel with the intention of resting up for a couple of hours. We met our Canadian roommates Europa and some girl whose name I don't recall and they were kinda cool. They seemed nice, but Europa is a center of attention kind of girl, whose apparent claim to fame is about 3 degrees from the stars of Degrassi. So they leave to go drink and I head down to the lounge to pop on the net for a few before squeezing in a nap. Emily comes to join me about 20 minutes later with the news that the other three have returned and deliberately woke her up from her nap to ask if they could have some peanut butter. Europa's reaction to finding out she woke her up "Oh, well shorter naps are better for you anyway". Yeah *shakes head*.

So we decide to head out about 7pm and don't even get to a bar before we hear "Are you from America?"

HOW CAN THEY TELL?????????

We were wearing various shades of green like everyone else!

So we ended up taking to 3 guys (Colin, Kevin, and Flick, who is also a Kevin) for awhile about various American television shows they we watch. It was just simple fun. Oh, and Em and I were sipping out of a bottle that had Malibu and Pineapple juice in it.

The boys were hilarious and we were having a great time, but we wanted to get drunk so we all headed to the shop to buy some beer. During our time with them we learned that in Ireland they call alcohol "drink", because really, what else are they drinking?

So after buying some drink, we set off to find some place where the police wouldn't see us drinking in public, because as much as it feels like it, Dublin is not Vegas. No drinking in public places :(

One thing I forgot to mention about our new friends. Only one of them is legally allowed to drink. That's right, we spent St. Paddy's with 17 yr. olds. I know what you're thinking: that's retarded/lame. But it wasn't. It was actually really fucking fun. Firstly, 95% of the time they don't act like annoying teenagers. Secondly, they were super ridiculously entertaining. Thirdly, we all wanted to get drunk so who cares?!

Anyhoodles, since they were underage the only bar that they could easily get into is a gay bar. Yes, a gay bar. So we head on over and we all get in except Colin, who was so sure they'd get in. Ha! So I go out to try to get him in and we eventually succeed after he takes his hat off. Weird.

This bar was so gay. The decor wasn't, it looked like a regular club, but the music. OMG. The only way it could've been more gay is if it was remixed showtunes.

We made our way upstairs and hung out (finishing my can of beer that I accidentally snuck in) and then decided to go downstairs. I bought us all a round of drinks and there was much dancing, laughing, drinking for the next while.

Oh, yeah. Btw I totally slid down the last 4-5 steps when we came downstairs. Totally didn't feel it until yesterday. Ouch. And yes, I was drunk.

Moving on. We were there for a good amount of time. I have no idea how long since I was drunk. Suffice to say the younguns missed the last bus and had to take a taxi.

Kel...Ireland was represented, but the competitor was a little...shall we say green?...and the lack of spark kinda made it more like a lesson. Yes, it was a cougar moment (which thoroughly amuses me). But, in Ireland's defense, with a little more experience they can be definite winners. So far, Scotland still in first. I'm pretty sure France isn't gonna happen, because my general reaction to them is "ew".

K, enough of that. After we sent the boys off to their homes, we headed out to do some drinking. We swung by Temple Bar but it was waaaaaaaay too packed so we hopped next door. Had a cider and danced some more before heading back to the hostel.

Then my alarm went of at 7am and I woke up not knowing where I was, what was making that noise, and why the room was spinning.

Good times.

That was my big day, how was yours?

Dublin

So we have arrived. The bus ride over from Belfast was very uneventful. Once we checked into the hostel we were completely sidetracked by our need to feed and COMPLETELY FORGOT TO GO TO THE GUINNESS TOUR!!!

I know.

How did that happen?

I seriously spent the whole bus ride over planning out our afternoon, beginning with that and it wasn't until 5pm while we were in Marks & Spencer looking for something green for Em to wear that we realized we had skipped it <----long ass sentence. Side note: Marks & Spencer is amazing. I super wish we had one in L.A. because these clothes are all so cute. And by all, I mean ALL. I don't think I saw one ugly thing. Its like a better version of the GAP. Mucho expensive, but its British so yeah. Nadia & Wifey, I think you guys would enjoy this place.

Anyhoodle, we hit up the pre-St. Paddy's festival and watched some Irish stepdancing and then began walking around Dublin. We saw Trinity College (SO PRETTY!) but were stupid and completely forgot to see the oldest bible exhibit thingy. We also walked down O'Connell street and bought some souvenirs, including the necessary gaudy bouncy clover headband for tomorrow. We then hit up O'Daid's pub (yes I took a picture Wifey) for our first pint of Guinness in Dublin (since we missed the last tour and felt a little guilty). I followed my pint with a pint of Bulmer's cider (my new addiction) and Emily followed her's up with 2 glasses of Jameson & 7Up. Needless to say we were a bit loosie goosie when we left.

After that we decided getting some sort of food in our stomach was probably a good idea since it had been awhile since our last full meal. We ended up eating Italian and pretending we weren't tipsy in a nice little establishment called Pacino's (no obvious association with Al). Then we walked around some more and headed back to the hostel to drop off our bags and head out.

My guidebook mentioned a place called Whelan's where bands like Arctic Monkeys are want to perform so we dolled up (a little) and headed out. That place was packed. There was also no obvious signs of live music once inside, which was weird because I could hear it outside. Hmm. We decided to leave because it was just too hot with all the people and once outside discovered that the live music was UPSTAIRS. Who knew there was an upstairs? All we saw upon entry was people.

We waited for a little while to see if the band was worth the fight through the sea of people and decided to chance it again. As we were walking in Emily saw a sign for the band playing and it turns out she knows them from Myspace or something, so we head on up. Except as we approach we find out that it costs 17.50 euros to see them. BULL SHIT! I totally didn't want to pay that much to see a band I've never even heard of so we bounced.

If it had been 8-10 euros then maybe, but 18?!?! Thats like $25. Its not even Roxy status, guys. Whatevs. We decided since both our feet hurt to head back here to the hostel and get some business out of the way so we can face tomorrow head on.

Tentative Plan for St. Paddy's

7:30/8am: Breakfast (must drink milk since it is apparently delicious in Ireland)

8:30ish: Post Office (we need to get some of the stuff out of our bags, I can now barely close mine. yikes! Also, I have a few postcards to send--->check your mail boxes!)

9:30am: Guinness Tour (since we failed yesterday)

11am: St. Paddy's Day Parade

2pm(ish): Lunch & Nap (food is obviously necessary and we will likely need at least an hour nap as well. This may sound weenie to you, but we've been going non-stop for 7 days. I am also full prepared with my 5-hour energy shot.)

5pm(ish)-????: DRINKING!!!!! (until I am Irish)

Sometime after the drinking, but whilst still drunk: Composing postcards.

Hopefully all goes as planned.

Sorry, that's NORTHERN Ireland

I'm just gonna add the last part to our Belfast stay. Not that you noticed, since its fraking early in the U.S.

So we ended up lounging around in our adorable B&B for a while. Totally got caught up watching Sex in the City the Movie. I KNOW! Anyway, we didn't head out for dinner until a quarter to ten. In my defense, I kept Emily aware of the time every half hour starting at 7pm because I knew it was a weeknight and likely most places closed earlyish.

We ended up calling a taxi and this guy was awesome sauce. We totally got an impromptu tour of the city since he drove us around to a bunch of good eateries he knew so we could see if they were open. They weren't.

We also got some history of what they call "The Troubles" a.k.a. people bombing the shit out of each other. It was interesting. He was really entertaining though, and we ended up at some Turkish Kebab place for takeaway. We befriended the Turkish guys there and after hearing of our haphazard travel plans they offered us a job if we needed it. Funny sauce!

It seemed, though, that no matter who we talked to everyone told us that Belfast was "a shithole". Seems they can agree upon something.

That was pretty much it for Belfast. We had a lovely breakfast this morning and then collected our clothes from the laundrette we dropped them at yesterday. Now we are waiting for our bus to Dublin.

Hopefully we can get into the Guinness tour today and tomorrow, well, we all know what that is.

WOOT WOOT!

Bye bye bye!

Ireland

I only have a few moments so I'm gonna type really really fast to get this to you.

Yesterday we had to go from Glasgow to a town called Stanraer to catch the ferry to Belfast. So the night before we were exhausted and decided to just stay in and get some rest. We were lame, didn't see the city at all and ended up with Dominos in our room (illegally! since we technically weren't allowed to have food in there). There are no words to describe our exhaustion. I had looked at the train information from Glasgow to Stranraer earlier and, while it was a cursory glance, it seemed that we had several options for times we could leave.

As I was falling asleep I kept thinking I should just pull out the schedule and figure it out that night instead of in the morning, but we were getting up early to go to the laundrette anyway so I figured it was fine. BAD. IDEA.

You know what they saw when you assume, right?

So my alarm went off at 7am, but typical me, I turned it off and rolled over. And didn't wake up until 9:20. Oops! So much for the laundrette idea, since we wanted to go before check out at 10am. I woke Emily up to get dressed and she asked what time the train and ferry were at. I checked the ferry and we had reservations for the 2:30pm one. That's fine, we just had to check in by 2 and we'd be good. Next I checked the trains to see which ones get to the station before 14:00. The answer: one...one train gets in before 14:00. What time does this train leave? 9:30am.

Bollocks!

From that moment on it was a race. We decided to check out and head to the train station and see if there was anything else we could take to get there or close enough that we could taxi it the rest of the way. We found out that there was another train but it gets into the station at 13:54. We'd have 6 minutes to get off the train, dodge other travellers, queue up and check in.

We weren't so sure we could pull this off so we asked where the closest bus depot was and hiked it for 10 minutes.

Imagine our relief when we found out that there was a bus headed straight to Stranraer and it was leaving in only a half hour! Awesome sauce! So we hopped in line and asked for two when we got to the window. ALL. BOOKED.

AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

So, now, we had to go all the way back to the train station and reassess the situation. We decided to call the ferry people and see what they suggested. My research had failed to turn up a later ferry time, but apparently they have one that leaves at 7:55pm as well. Brilliant! The lady suggested we try to make it on the train that gets in at 13:54 and if we know the train is delayed to call and change our reservation.

With our new plan we hop on the train and soon enough are on our way to Stranraer. Everything is good, seems to be working out. The train is on time to every station, Stranraer is the next stop, we're prepared to run to the check-in, all is well.

Then, in the middle of BFE, our train stops. Just stops. No overhead announcement, no sight of a station, nothing. You know what else wasn't there, cell phone reception. So here we are, so damn close and we can't even call the ferry place to change our reservation. Ten minutes later the driver comes through and tells us that a truck has hit one of the bridges we're to cross and we're holding here until it gets inspected.

WE WERE SO CLOSE!!!!

Having resigned ourselves to the later time, we call the ferry place when we start moving again and change our reservation. We also call the B&B in Belfast to let them know we'll be in late. But as we approach Stranraer we notice several people who are going to try to make the ferry. Should we follow?

Yes.

So we run with the pack and VICTORY! make it onto the original ferry we had booked.

It was awesome. We spent the rest of the time watching Ireland come into view and eating knock-off McDonald's. Good times.

We got to the B&B, which is unbelievably adorable.

I'll tell you the rest later (not much) as I am out of time.

Bye bye bye!

So far, we're regretting leaving Edinburgh. Glasgow=America. Or at least, what I imagine America looked like early on it the 20th century. Since its on a grid system in the center it really feels like home. Blah! Not what we wanted. Plus we're super tired and are not even sure if we want to go find this excellent pub crawl we've heard about. Also, its a Sunday so we have doubts about its excellence.

The train ride over was awesome sauce. We got on and grabbed a four seater with a table so we could spread out a bit. Some guy holding a huge silver trophy asks if the seat next to me is taken. I invite him to take a seat and after about 2 minutes cannot resist asking what the trophy is for. Apparently he's a runner and came in 2nd at some huge marathon type thing that day. We were impressed and had him explain about his running for awhile. We were even more impressed when he said that the person who came in 1st place was the number 1 male runner in Scotland. Which, I guess, now makes him the 2nd best male runner (if that's not impressive enough he's also studying for his PhD in nuclear physics. Wtf?! )He had stowed the trophy by his feet and I told him that if it was me I would set it on the table and be like "check this shit out, I rock". He laughed and turned to me and said "Yeah, can you move, I need these seats for me and my ego". He was super nice and the train ride flew by as we all talked about places we've been to and places we want to go. He had some suggestions for places we're going and we all geeked out about wanting to go to New Zealand because of Lord of the Rings. Good times.

When we go to the station Em and I hailed a taxi and here we are at the hostel. We ventured forth to the laundrette but that was a fail cause it was closed. I'm simultaneously typing this and googling someplace to go tonight. Definitely not gonna get dolled up and it'll probably be an early night for us.

Tomorrow is Belfast and after all the horror stories we've been told since we got to the UK I'm slightly nervous about going now. If someone asks me what religion I follow, I'm just gonna pretend I can't understand the question. Well, that or buy them a pint and send them on their way. I feel like the second option is better because at least they'll leave with a favorable impression of me. :)