flashpackers's TravelStream™ — Recent TravelPod.com entries TravelStream™ news feed for member flashpackers on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/flashpackers en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:05:35 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com Dem bones, Dem bones... — Paris, France http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212635100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212635100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212635100/tpod.html Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:05:35 -0400 Flashpacking Europe with our clothes on... ;)
Paris, France

<Brian's brief chronological list of "highlights" (and of whinging)>

- Musee D'Orsay
- Catacombs
- Champs Elysees
- Latin Quarter

<Lang's Extended Version>

After yesterday's big day, we decided to take it a bit easier today by visiting one of the other galleries Paris was famous for - the Musee D'Orsay. The masterpieces of this gallery were the impressionist works done by Monet, Renoir and Van Gogh, not to mention the building itself, which was a former railway station.

We arrived at the museum at around 10.30am, thinking that we would have to wait quite a while in queue since we didn't have a Paris Museum Pass that would have allowed us to skip the line (they didn't sell single day ones, so there was no point for us to get one), but to our surprise, there wasn't a line at all, so we walked straight in.. After paying, of course!

Once again, Rick came to our rescue with his audio guide and pointed out the main attractions of this gallery. Brian in particular liked the "Birth of Venus" painting by Cabanel. I mean, who wouldn't with the erotic ivory smooth skinned Venus lying naked in the waves of the ocean?? Even I was compelled to give it a nice long look.. =P

I found the Musee d'Orsay much more 'user friendly' and manageable compared to the Lourve. The paintings and sculptures were spread out at a reasonable distance and I guess it wasn't as crowded.

The more I saw the different impressionists works, the more I liked them, surprisingly enough.. In fact, I actually found Van Gogh's works quite interesting and was kinda regretting not going to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.. Oh well, there's always next time..

The other thing I've noticed now that I've visited so many galleries and museums is that I can recognise certain painting styles as well as self-portraits done by the more famous artists.. It certainly has made me appreciate art a lot more, but that wouldn't have been difficult as I don't think I've stepped foot into an art gallery since I was in primary school.. Funny that.. What makes someone come across the other side of the world to pay money to see paintings and sculptures? What's even more ironic is that Adelaide is the so called 'City of Churches', and I haven't even set foot inside (or out on the steps for that matter) of St. Peter's Church in North Adelaide!

Anyway, after approximately 3 hours admiring the works, we decided we had had enough - or at least our stomachs thought so! We stopped for a quick baguette lunch at a café nearby and then we headed off again, this time to something a little different - the catacombs..

Underneath the city streets of Paris houses the bones of almost 6 million former citizens. Basically in the late 17th century, the church cemeteries were severely overcrowded and the government wanted to reclaim some of the land, so they had to find a place to bury their dead elsewhere. The government decided to rearrange and relocate the remains to the unused underground limestone quarries that use to be on the outskirts of Paris (of course this is now in the heart of the city), and after several decades, the move was complete.

So after finding the simple easy-to-miss entrance and paying our fee, we descended the narrow spiral staircase 20m below ground. This led us to a small gallery of photographs and information, before we had to walk down the dark narrow tunnels.

After approximately 15 minutes, we were confronted with literally millions of bones, stacked neatly against the wall, roughly 1.5m high. Skulls of the deceased were intertwined and lined in a decorative pattern with all the other bones. The 1.6km of tunnel that was open to the public was only a very small proportion of the entire catacomb network, but that was probably enough. It was fascinating yet eerie..

Flash photography was not allow out of respect for the departed, so I did the best I could with the limited light, pillars and the like around. However, one guy had no qualms about touching the bones at all as we saw him place his camera on top of one of the skulls and leant across to set up his shot on the bones.. We were quite shocked and somewhat bemused at the same time.. What was even more interesting was that as we were leaving, there is a guard at the exit checking bags.. Apparently some people do try to take home a souvenir or two!

As we were walking back to the metro station, I spotted a crepe stand, so we decided to fill up on this delectable dessert. The last and only one we had while in Paris was near the Notre Dam and they just reheated pre-made crepes, so I was kinda disappointed with that. However, this one made them fresh and the owner was really quite friendly.. I had a nutella crepe and Brian had one with nutella and banana. The owner put a whole banana in! It was delicious, especially the crispy edges.. mmm..

We eventually made it back to the Champs Elysees, as the main reason for this was that I wanted a t-shirt from the Disney store, but didn't see the same one for sale at the park yesterday.. Well, I got my shirt and we also ended up at the original Louis Vitton Store to check out the bags and things for sale there.. You had to go, right? Well, lucky for Brian, we didn't end up buying anything.. Although later on, he did say he wouldn't have cared if I did.. yeah, I bet it'll be a different story if I did have one around my arms! Haha..

So from one side of town to the other, we headed to the Latin Quarter next in the hopes that I'd be able to find some street artists and buy that original painting of the Eiffel Tower or such.. Unfortunately, it appeared to be in vain as all the little stalls by the River Seine were closed and all that was open were restaurants. Oh well, we slowly made our way back on foot to the Lourve.

As tonight was our last night in Paris, we also had our last dinner with Gruncle. He was to take us to a French restaurant, but unfortunately it was booked out, so yet again, we had Chinese.. No, it wasn't as good as home and not really what we wanted!!



]]> The happiest place on Earth.. well, one of them.. — Paris, France http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212548520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212548520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212548520/tpod.html Sun, 20 Jul 2008 00:04:16 -0400 Flashpacking Europe with our clothes on... ;)
Paris, France

<Brian's brief chronological list of "highlights" (and of whinging)>

- Eurodisney
- French Meal at a café
- Eiffel tower pictures at night

(Brian was too lazy to update the blog from here onwards..)

<Lang's Extended Version>

We woke up quite early this morning as we were going to catch a ride with Gruncle to the train station before he dropped Sophie off to school. We were out of the apartment by 8.10am, and as usual, Gruncle was in a rush.

From the Chatelet station, we bought tickets to Monee Valley, where Euro Disney was and surprisingly, managed to get seats for the 45 minute ride.

Euro Disney didn't officially open until 10am, but they still allowed you to go in and walk down the main street, browse the shops or wait by the barriers that they had erected in front of the entrances to each of the 'lands'.

During this time, we checked the map to see what rides we wanted to go on to get the most out of our experience, since we had to cover both Euro Disney and Disney Studios before they closed at 7pm that night.. Eventually we decided to start in Futureland as Brian wanted to go on the 'Star Tours' ride and we also wanted to get Space Mountain 2 out of the way early..

At 10am, music started to blast out of hidden speakers around the park, so the security guards dropped the barriers. Some of the people hanging around the entrance started running towards the rides, I had read about this online before the trip, so warned Brian to step out of the way a bit - it was pretty funny to watch, really..

We made our way to the Space Mountain ride, but on our way there, we saw that there was hardly a line at the Buzz Light Year ride, so decided to detour to that instead. It was really quite fun as you would sit in a spaceship and try to shoot at targets with your laser gun.

So the other rides we covered that day at Euro Disney included of course Space Mountain 2, Star Tours (Brian's favourite, although C-3P0 did talk in French and we couldn't understand a word of it), Peter Pan, Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones and of course - It's a Small World..

We went through the 'It's a Small World" ride about 4 times, twice in a row at closing time, and each time we would notice something new, which was cool.. Although it was a bit freaky at times seeing all those little dolls sing and dance..

In the middle of the day, we detoured to Disney Studios for a couple of hours to check out the rides over there, and as we were walking in, we spotted Pluto and Donald, so had to take the obligatory photos with them..

One of the innovative things that they've introduced at Euro Disney and Disney Studios is the fast-pass concept. Basically for most of the popular rides, there is an option to put your entry ticket into a machine and then at a later allocated time, you go back to that particular ride and bypass the queues to go on the ride. It was great as it saved you heaps of time and you could go on the other rides while your allocated time came up.

Despite this, it seemed that the only major ride that they missed out on this fast-pass concept was the Crush Coaster, Disney's 'Finding Nemo' spinning roller coaster ride where you rode through the East Australian current. We had to wait about 45 minutes in line for this one and it wasn't too bad, but not good enough to warrant another 45 minute wait.

The hotel Terror was n interesting ride though as we didn't have a clue what to expect. You ended up being strapped to a seat, similar to that on the Star Tours ride and basically get lifted up and dropped down 13 levels very quickly about 3 times.. I guess it was similar to the Tower of Terror in Movie World in the Gold Coast, but the only difference is instead of being harnessed in, you're only strapped in with a seatbelt!

By around 5pm, the weather had taken a turn for the worse, it was very cold and there were even a few light showers, so Brian and I dressed in our t-shirts and pants were absolutely frozen. We checked out some of the souvenir shops for something to keep us warm, but in the end we were too stingy (or really, there wasn't anything there that we particularly liked), so we decided to brave the elements.

As Euro Disney closed at 7pm that night (don't know why it was so early!!), we decided to head back there for the last hour and a half. We ended up going on a few more of the rides, and like I mentioned earlier, we went on "It's a Small World" a couple more times.. I think it was to keep out of the rain and cold wind..

All in all, it was a great 1st Disney experience for me, and Brian thoroughly enjoyed himself too. He claims it was his favourite day of the entire trip.. hahaha.. it bought back a lot of memories of when he went to the main one in LA when he was 9, but at that time he didn't go on any of the thrill rides or anything..

I guess it wasn't a bad thing that the parks closed at 7pm, as we were frozen and still had to catch the train back into Paris. We ended up getting back there at around 8.30pm and decided that tonight would be the night we'd try out an authentic French meal at a restaurant.

We ordered the escargot, French onion soup, duck, steak and finished off with a crème brulee to share. It was expensive, but totally worth it - especially the tender and succulent duck and the deliciously creamy brulee..

The night was topped off by walking in the drizzling rain to the Champ de Mars to view the twinkling lights of the Eiffel Tower.. It was totally worth it!


]]> Liberty and the Tower.. — Paris, France http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212464700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212464700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212464700/tpod.html Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:46:49 -0400 Flashpacking Europe with our clothes on... ;)
Paris, France

2/6/08 -

<Brian's brief chronological list of "highlights" (and of whinging)>

- Did the Free Morning walking tour around Paris. Wasn't anything too particularly exciting about this one... walked past some of the places that we had already visited such as the Louvre and other museums. It started raining a bit and Lang opened the umbrella too hard and broke it, rendering it useless. The guide offered to sell bright pink ponchos for 1 euro each, but we just walked through the rain instead.
- We remembered that there was a smaller Statue of Liberty in Paris somewhere and scoured the map for it... found it eventually which was a distance from the Eiffel Tower, so we decided to walk over for a look. As expected, it was a small Statue of Liberty on an island below a bridge of its own. There was also a good view of the Eiffel Tower from the island too.
- We were in the area so decided to walk back to the Eiffel tower, saw that the line was pretty short so we went to the top floor. Security was pretty strict and had to go through a security checkpoint first. The teenagers in front of us had their bottle of wine and a pocket knife confiscated. The view from the top was pretty good though, it was pretty interesting pointing out all the landmarks that we had seen around Paris. Kids spitting off the top of the Eiffel tower was pretty gross though, especially for those unlucky enough to be on the lower observation towers.

<Lang's Extended Version>

We woke up quite early this morning with the intention of going to Euro Disney, but when we looked out the window it was gray and wet..

Gruncle and Grauntie convinced us not to go since they close some of the rides in wet weather, so we were kind of at a loss on what to do today since the Musee d'Orsay was closed...

Anyway, we mingled around the apartment for a while, while we decided on what we were going to do instead. Grauntie bought us some freshly baked croissants from down the road for breakfast and they were really delicious. She even insisted that we take the rest with us to snack on during the day.

So with our full bellies, we decided to head to the Latin Quarter/Notre Dam again, this time to do the proper free walking tour of Paris.

This tour covered the Notre Dam and its gargoyles, the River Seine, Pont Neuf, the Lourve, Tuileries Gardens, and Grand Palace - many of the places we had already been to or walked past in the last few days. Nevertheless, Brock, our guide made it interesting as he would like to crack random jokes and it was still interesting to learn a bit more about Paris and its history.

One thing that was interesting was that if you looked at the windows of the Louvre, you may notice that some of them have bright orange dots on them. This is to let the firemen know that they can enter the building from there.. Yeah, basically it means that the less important pieces of art are there and 'can' be damaged if totally necessary..

The tour concluded in front of the Grand Palace where Brian and I sat for further half hour or so, partly because it was raining a little and I had broken the umbrella earlier by opening it too quickly, and partly because we had no idea where we wanted to go next...

Eventually we decided to check out the Statue of Liberty - yup, there's one of those here in Paris.. The American community in Paris constructed a bronze replica in 1889 as an appreciation of the one in New York Harbour. I guess it was also to help the friendship ties between the two countries..

So we caught the metro to what we thought would be the nearest stop, not really knowing which way she would be facing and spotted the front of her as we walked closer to the river. She was standing tall and proud on the tip of a little island in the middle of the Seine.

Although we had never seen the original one, we knew that this one was way smaller in size (35ft), but she was still impressive.. There's nothing like seeing something in real life - you can imagine, but it's not quite the same as photos don't do it justice!

We walked closer after taking some photos from our vantage point until we were standing right before her.. The bonus thing was that there were no other tourists around, so we took a few photos and soon realized that this wasn't the best place for photos, so left soon after..

After a brief break, we headed towards the Eiffel Tower, 1.5km away, as the sun was back out and it looked like the perfect time to ascend to the top.. When we got there, the line was surprisingly short and we were on our way to the top via the elevator within half an hour..

The view from the top level was obstructed by chicken wire, so it wasn't the best place to have your photo taken.. Some immature wankers were even spitting from the top, which was totally gross... Seriously, why go all the way up the top and ruin the experience for others??

After seeing if we could spot all the landmarks of Paris from the top level, we headed down to level 2 to do the same. Here you had a wonderful 360° view of Paris. And you know what, the weather was absolutely perfect for it too.. The sun was out and there were beautiful clouds around to add contrast..

It was down to level 1, via many flights of stairs after - not because there wasn't a lift, but just because we wanted to.. It wasn't really that great, as you'd go round and round and round..

Anyway, when we reached the 1st level, I realised that they had a post office here, but unfortunately it had closed half an hour before I got there so I missed out on sending a postcard to myself to get that special 'Tour Eiffel' postmark.. Oh well, it just means that I'll have to come back again one day.. =) Or some wonderful person can post me a postcard from there.. *hint hint* =P

By this stage, we kinda had enough of looking at the same views of Paris, so decided to head back to Gruncle's shop to meet him for dinner again. He took us out to a Chinese buffet place, not exactly the French meal I was after, but I guess it was free again.. We'll have to go out on our own one of these nights to get that French meal I'm after.. maybe tomorrow night after we return from Euro Disney...



]]> Museum Free Day.. Oh, the crowds!!! — Paris, France http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212378420/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212378420/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212378420/tpod.html Thu, 10 Jul 2008 06:49:18 -0400 Flashpacking Europe with our clothes on... ;)
Paris, France

<Brian's brief chronological list of "highlights" (and of whinging)>

- First up, we saw the Louvre and followed the Rick Steves audio guide. Here we saw works of art like the Mona Lisa (which was actually pretty small in a room with 4 security guards at the front pushing back a crowd of about 50 people all trying to get to the front to take a picture of the Mona Lisa... yeehaa!), Venus de Milo, Winged Victory, Raft of Medusa and Madonna of the Rocks. It was pretty cool to see these in real life.
- Went over to the Arc de Triumph, but got told the museum there (and access to the top) was not included in Museum free day, so we had a quick look around the base of it and walked back along the Champs de Elysees.
- Visited the Musee d'Orangie... an art gallery which has 2 big oval shaped rooms to showcase work by Monet. At first I thought it looked pretty crap, but gradually I came to appreciate his work (it looks better if you stand real far from it!).
- We visited the church of Notre Dam which looked pretty dark inside. Not much more to say, its just another church... didn't see any hunchbacks...

<Lang's Extended Version>

We slept in a little this morning and then headed out with Gruncle to his shop again as we wanted to go to the Lourve today.

He stopped by Maccas again and ordered us 2 'French' meals of coffee and mini croissants.. ok, not really what I was expecting, but hey, you have to eat it out of respect, right? =P Well, to say the least, the mini croissants weren't too bad.. they were nice and fresh..

Afterwards we headed across the road and to the underground entrance to the Louvre. This was where the inverted pyramid was, so to see that was pretty cool! However, we didn't linger too long here as there were already a huge crowd gathering at the entrance, so we joined the line and was in the Lourve in no time as we didn't need to purchase any tickets or anything..

So donning our Rick Steve's audio guide, we quickly made our way to the first of the 3 ladies of the Lourve - the Venus De Milo. Famous because she was one of the few original Greek Statues still around, and I guess also from that Simpsons episode where Homer steals the Venus de Milo gummy lolly.. =P

Our next masterpiece was the Winged Victory, set at the top of the Napoleon staircase, she was literally dominating the altar. To me, she was more impressive than Venus as the details of her robes clinging to her torso, leaves little to the imagination.

Lastly through the great hall, we past a few other Da Vinci masterpieces like Madonna of the Rocks before we were confronted by even bigger crowds gathered in front of the Mona Lisa. We literally had to elbow our way to the front. People were taking pictures, while the security guards were trying to enforce a 1 photo rule, but there were just way too many people around.

I wasn't disappointed but I wasn't exactly thrilled either. I knew that she would be quite small in size and in reality, she looked no different from what you've probably already seen in the photos as you can't get close enough to even see it properly. It's a wonder why she is so famous though, there are so many other paintings in the gallery that were a lot more impressive.

The one particular painting that I liked was the Raft of Medusa. I had heard of the name before but had no idea what it was suppose to look like, so naively imagined it to be a painting of Medusa with her snake like tendrils as hair (as in the "Wrath" of Medusa).. What it really depicted was a group of dead and dying men on a small wooden raft, some of them reaching towards the sky as they had spotted a boat in the distance. The Medusa was the name of the ship that had capsized and sunk, apparently there were only 15 survivors on that raft..

Anyway, after a good half day in the Louvre, we had had enough.. There were just too many people there to actually enjoy and admire the works, so we caught the metro to the Arc de Triomphe as we thought that was free also..

Unfortunately not, so we just walked around the base of the Arc and then headed down the worlds 2nd most famous/expensive street - the Champs Elysees.. FYI, the most expensive is 5th Avenue in New York..

The Champs Elysees was lined with trees and expensive shops. The only shop we really had a good look at was the Disney store where we purchased our Euro Disney tickets, hoping to go tomorrow while the other museums were all closed..

We continued our walk down until we reached the Place de la Concord. This was the place where King Louis XV1 and Marie Antoinette had their heads chopped off by the guillotine. Today there are just 2 fountains and an Egyptian Obelisk in its place.

Since we were also near the Tuileries gardens, we decided to head to another gallery nearby - the Orangerie. While waiting in line, we chatted to a family from Sydney who were behind us, this made the 40 minute wait more bearable.

So what was this gallery famous for? The main attraction was Monet's impressionist painting of "The Nymphets" or "The Water lilies". This was a series of 8 huge paintings that covered 2 oval shaped rooms.

At first glance they didn't seem that impressive and Brian was totally disappointed, thinking that he had wasted 40 minutes waiting in line just to see some sort of scribble on huge canvasses. Luckily it was free, otherwise he would had complained even more.. =P

Impressionist painters just dab paint on without firstly mixing the colours, so if you look closely at the details, you can see for example red and blue paint. However, if you look from further away, your eyes bled the colours together automatically to form purple.. it was definitely a new concept for me and the longer I spent looking at them, the more it grew on me.

Apart from the water lilies, they also had a small collection of other paintings by Renoir, Picasso and Cezanne downstairs. This was the first time we had actually seen works done by these other painters, so it was interesting to see what style they had.

So after about an hour and a half, we had pretty much had enough of looking at paintings for today, so headed down to the Notre Dam via the metro.

We walked around the inside perimeter of the church, admiring the stained glass windows and checking out the hi-tech confession booths. I found all the stain glass windows really pretty, but to Brian it was just another bloody church.. To make it even more interesting, they were conducting Mass at the time too, so the beautiful voices of the choir resonated throughout the church. As for the confession booths, they were all glass and the person actually gets to speak to the priest face-to-face..

By the time we left, it had started to rain and to my disappointment this also meant that the little art stalls along the River Seine were closing.. So we continued our walk along the Seine to get back to the Louvre, stopping by a pet shop on the way.. If I were back home, I think I would have taken that gorgeous little Westy home and Brian may have taken the Silky Terrier.. Oh well.. Saves us over 1000 Euro at least.. =P

Back at the Louvre, we sat on top of the stairs for a good hour, admiring the views, listening to a band play nearby and also rested our feet. A single lady sitting next to us got approached by a French guy who tried to pick her up. It was interesting eavesdropping on their conversation and she eventually left with him, not sure where though!

So at around 8.00pm, we walked back to Gruncle's shop and since he wasn't quite ready to close, we took the metro back to his place with Sophie and Grauntie.. Grauntie decided that she would cook us tea tonight... So while she was cooking, we convinced Sophie to play on the piano for us.. By convincing, this meant that Brian had to firstly play his 'happy' song... Sophie ended up playing 3 songs for us and she was brilliant - definitely put Brian to shame!


]]> Run Moron Run... — Paris, Île-de-France, France http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212290820/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212290820/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212290820/tpod.html Sun, 29 Jun 2008 02:30:05 -0400 Flashpacking Europe with our clothes on... ;)
Paris, Île-de-France, France

<Brian's brief chronological list of "highlights" (and of whinging)>

- Caught the train to Paris... our first train was delayed for almost 45 minutes, luckily Lang made it back in time from the ticket office as she had to change our reserved train tickets for our connecting train to Paris.
- Got picked up by my Great Uncle (shortened down to gruncle) at the Gare Du Nord train station in Paris. We had to rush to his car as he was illegally parked, but as his car pulled away from the curb, some dude came running and starting bashing on his window, saying that my gruncle had hit his car. We weren't sure what had happened, he could quite possible have been a car thief or something so my gruncle just floored the accelerator... the man held onto the car's window and started running along with the car until he could no longer run fast enough and then was dragged for a good 10-20 meters... quite clearly this guy was an idiot... was it really worth costing his life over? If so, there were plenty of buildings he could jump off. Anyhoo, he claimed victory that he had stopped the car and called the cops. The cops came, saw that there was no damage whatsoever to either car... and luckily no damage to the man (although he may have had severe brain damage) and we went on our merry way. Unfortunately we were a bit shocked by this whole incident to take a picture of the idiot... would be nice to name and shame the moron... apparently he's a dude from China who is living in Germany and drives tourist vans around... unfortunately for him, (apart from his brain damage) is that in France, its pretty standard to bump other peoples cars to get into the car parks.
- Anyhow, my gruncle drove is to his house first where we dropped off our bags. Before we could make ourselves comfortable, we were off again to the souvenir shop that he owned which happened to be in one of the buildings opposite the Louvre.
- At this point, we were told to go for a walk around and to come back later, so we did. First lesson about Paris (apart from not holding onto windows and running with cars) is that things don't appear as close as they do on the map. First we went to see the outside of the Louvre and took a few photos around the giant glass pyramid. We could see the Eiffel Tower in the distance and it didn't look too far away on the map, so we decided to walk there ... about an hour later, we finally made it there... the tower was humongous!!! It looked pretty awesome... the queue to get up the tower was too long though, so we decided to postpone it till later.
- We decided to catch the metro to do the "Free" walking tour around Montmartre. This tour turned out not to be free anymore, but since we were there, we decided to do it anyways. Highlights of this tour include the Sacre Coeur, a really white church which has a nice view of the whole city... we also saw a couple of nuns walking their german shepherd attack dog inside the fences of the church. There were also a few places used in the movie 'Amelie' (which I still have no intention of watching) and the place where Van Gogh lived (and painted the blue room).
- Went back to the shop and had dinner with gruncle and his family. After gruncle took us for a drive around Paris... points of interest include the Arc de Triompe, the Eiffel Tower with all its lights lit up at night and the hotel that Princess Dianna left and the tunnel where she died

<Lang's Extended Version>

Since we had reserved our tickets to Paris a couple nights ago, we had to leave our B&B just after 8am to catch the bus back out to the train station. We got there just as the bus arrived, so was somewhat early. Unfortunately, we had also left our bag of baby Gouda in the fridge and probably didn't have enough time to go back to get it and return.

However, in reality we had plenty of time as our train to Brussels was delayed for almost 45 minutes, causing us to miss our connecting train to Paris.. Luckily while waiting, I ran back to the ticket counter and got our tickets changed for the next train, and returned back to the platform just as the delayed train was pulling up. The rest of the journey to Paris was relatively uneventful and we soon arrived at Paris Gare Du Nord station..

After Brugge, Paris was just bustling with life - people of all ages, races and sizes were on their way to catch a train, wait for friends, drinking coffee etc.. It was interesting to watch as they were moving at a thousand miles a minute, as if the world was going to explode any moment from now..

As we were staying with Brian's Great Uncle here (yes, in the most romantic city in the world!!), we had to give him a buzz to let him know that we had arrived.. He insisted on coming to pick us up from the station, so while we waited we made a couple calls home.. It was great to talk to familiar voices again...

So after about 40 minutes, Brian's Great Uncle (Gruncle, as we've nicknamed him) appears from nowhere and tells us to hurry as he had parked in an illegal park.. So we quickly grabbed our packs and raced after him towards his car. He hastily introduced us to his daughter, Sophie, who gave us a cute smile, while we squished in the back besides her..

As Gruncle was driving off, some Asian guy started to knock angrily on his window.. First lesson in Paris - cars are allowed or it is acceptable to utilise bumper bars for their intended purpose, especially when parking or leaving a parking bay..

Anyway, the Asian guy said that Gruncle had hit his car, but none of us heard anything, so Gruncle apologized and started to drive off..

However, that guy didn't leave it be and held onto the window for at least 20-30m down the road until Gruncle stopped, then he reached in and grabbed the keys saying that he'd call the cops.. All this while, my heart was racing because we had no idea what to do or what was going to happen.. We had just arrived in a new country and didn't know the customs or language..

So Gruncle had no choice but to follow the guy over to inspect his van while Brian & I waited with Sophie.. After a little while, Brian went to check what was going on just to make sure everything was ok.. Sophie didn't seem phased at all and I even managed to talk to her a little in my broken Mandarin, so was able to devise that she was 9 years old and an only child..

After about half an hour or more, Gruncle came back, but Brian was no where to be seen, apparently he went to the phone booth to call his mum and told them that Gruncle was arrested and he had no idea what to do... thinking back to that is quite hilarious as I'm sure his parents wouldn't have expected that!

So Brian came back after a couple of minutes and Gruncle told us that the guy was a German citizen leading a small tour group here in Paris. He wanted to lay charges but the police inspected his vehicle and didn't find even a scratch, nor any injuries on his hand from him holding onto the window. Besides, the ironic thing was that he didn't know much French at all, so couldn't even explain himself properly, so Gruncle had to translate for him.

Boy, what an exciting start to our Paris leg of the trip!! Not that I had wanted that to happen!

Anyway, Gruncle drove us back to his place, pointing out the various landmarks as we drove by.. Lesson two - people drive crazy here! There are no lanes on the road, and if there is, they don't care.. The Cars cut in and out of traffic, but at least they do give way to each other.. It's a marvel that we didn't see any major accidents here!

We dropped off our packs then went with Gruncle to his souvenir shop that is situated right across the road from the Lourve.. Yes, it was extremely convenient!!

We agreed to meet him back at the shop at around 8.30pm when he closed, then headed of course across the road. Brian was too busy trying to sms his parents back to tell them all was now ok to notice the glass pyramids of the Lourve until I pointed it out to him..

After a few obligatory photos, we headed off towards to Eiffel Tower. We would be checking out the masterpieces of the Lourve in the morning as there was free entry to most museums for the 1st Sunday of the month, which just so happened to be tomorrow..

Thinking that the Eiffel Tower was nearby, we decided to walk to it. It took us close to an hour to get there!! Paris is huge! It looked relatively close on the map, but in reality, it was quite far as we had not seen the scale on the map.

Nevertheless, as we approached the tower, we were in awe.. We hand not imagined it to be so big in size - it was enormous! It way exceeded my expectations.. So we walked closer to check out the queue to see how long it may take to get to the top and found that they were way too long for our liking, so we decided to come back later on sometime during our stay... Besides, we'd only been in Paris for about 3 hours by this time and like Rome, there were many annoying African touts trying to sell mini Eiffel Tower key rings and other useless junk.. One after another they would wave their wares in front of your face, so you have to keep moving your head from side to side until you were at least 100m away..

It was almost 6pm by this stage, so we decided to head to Monmartre for a free walking tour, only to find that it was no longer free as of yesterday.. We decided to pay up anyway since we had paid for the metro to get there and knew nothing about the area..

The tour lasted roughly 2 hours and our tour guide was very animated and seemed like she was really enjoying herself. We covered the Moulin Rouge, walked past a number of film locations for the movie 'Amelie', stood in front of Van Gogh's place where a number of the girls on the tour tried to take photos of the place across the road instead of the actual house.. hehe..

We eventually made it up to the Sacre Coeur - the church on the highest hill in Paris. Of course it came with gorgeous polluted views to boot.. The church was made of limestone, so over the years, it became whiter and whiter as the limestone oxides with oxygen.

It was getting close to 8.30pm by the time the tour finished, so we quickly raced back to Gruncles shop, only to be told to go to Maccas on the corner and wait for him to close his shop for the night. Great auntie, or Grauntie, as I will now refer to her as, shouted us a coffee while we waited..

Dinner ended up being at a Chinese restaurant at around 10pm that night, compliments of Gruncle. After wards, he took us on a whirlwind drive to see the lights of Paris, which included the sparkly lights of the Eiffel Tower, the Ritz Carlton (the hotel where Princess Di was last seen alive), the Champs Elysees and we even went around the infamous roundabout around the Arc de Triompe.. after all, Paris IS the city of lights..

Oh one last thing, there is only one bathroom and toilet in Gruncle's 2 bedroom apartment, which just so happened to be the en suite of the main bedroom... So after a quick shower, Grauntie handed us a small white bucket with lid, filled part way up with water... Yup, she just gave us a potty!!!! Great... Let's hope that we won't be needing this service - and even if we did, I will relieve you of the knowledge.. =P
]]> Stalking Svitlana? — Brugge, Belgium http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212205440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212205440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212205440/tpod.html Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:46:45 -0400 Flashpacking Europe with our clothes on... ;)
Brugge, Belgium

<Brian's brief chronological list of "highlights" (and of whinging)>

- Visited the chocolate museum... learnt how they made chocolate... didn't really care... highly overrated... SKIP. Better off spending the money on chocolate and eating it.... Or go read the page on Amsterdam again... HAHA.
- Next must see here is a visit to the De Halve Maan brewery... so we booked ourselves in for a tour. I had no real idea how beer is made, so was somewhat interesting... especially since the tour guide looked and spoke like Richard Branson. At the end of the tour, we each got a free beer... always makes the rest of the day interesting.
- Lang found some windmills on the map, so we went for a walk over but they were run down and falling to pieces, so ended up going back to the B&B and resting instead...
- Final point of note... I think our hostess Svitlana is stalking us... every time we get back to the hotel, she will either jump out behind us as we are waiting for the lift or jump out when we get to the lift on our floor... she is always happy and enthusiastic though... so all is good...

<Lang's Extended Version>

Had breakfast at 9am, with Svitlana serving us freshly baked crossiants, ham and cheese, and coffee.. Svitlana had to be the friendliest hostess we've had so far on our trip. Right after we dropped our bags off yesterday, she sat us down, gave us a drink each and then proceeded to tell us all the sites that we could see in and around Brugges. The scary thing was though, that whenever you leave or return back, there is a 90% chance that you will bump into her.. It felt as though she was waiting for you to press the button on the lift, and then she would run up or down the stairs and meet you there..

Anyway, after breakfast, we decided to go to the Chocolate Museum.. It really wasn't that great as you have to read a lot and just look at the displays of urns, boxes, flasks etc.. as the museum covers the history of chocolate. At the end, you can watch the 'chef' explain how chocolate is made and even get to taste one.. yeehaa.. 1 chocolate.. =P I'm yet to decide if I'm a fan of Belgium chocolate though as I found that one to be too sweet for my liking, once again..

So after the Chocolate Museum, we headed to De Halve Maan brewery, this is the only brewery still in operation in Brugge, so we bought tickets for the 2pm tour. As everyone is probably well aware that we're not the biggest fans of beer or alcohol, but I guess we needed another taste of the local brew, right?

The tour lasted roughly 45 minutes and it was interesting to know that alcohol was cheaper and 'healthier' than water many, many years ago here.. (I reckon there's a few of you reading this that continue to think so..). Also, they use to hire children to clean the tanks for them as the openings were rather small. They would ask the child to sing while they cleaned and once they started singing out of tune from all the alcohol inhalation, they would swap the child over for a fresh one.. usually that took about 10 minutes or so apparently..

Included in the tour price was a glass of the freshly brewed beer, Brugge Zot or 'Bruges Fools', as represented by the joker on the bottle.. It wasn't too bad, to be honest.. At the very least, it didn't taste like some of the crap we had at home, and I could actually finish it all on my own, like the glass we had in Prague..

Luckily, this time round, Brian wasn't feeling too dizzy from the 6% alcohol in the beer (yeah, he's pretty hopeless with his drinks! =P), so we walked to the other side of town to check out the last 4 remaining windmills in Brugge. Well, what a disappointment they were! We only checked out the first two, before ditching the idea of seeing the others and headed back to our B&B as we had pretty much seen the entire town by now..

Interestingly enough at the 2nd windmill we went to there were all these white tents setup on the grass field.. We had no idea what they were there for, but each one had an old suitcase and a speaker in it playing weird music and sounds.. Modern art, maybe??
]]> Fries, Beer, Chocolate & Waffles!! — Brugge, West Flanders, Belgium http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212036540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212036540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212036540/tpod.html Fri, 20 Jun 2008 05:59:42 -0400 Flashpacking Europe with our clothes on... ;)
Brugge, West Flanders, Belgium

<Brian's brief chronological list of "highlights" (and of whinging)>

- Popped by the post office to send another package back... the stuff weighed 4.5 kg and the box it was to be sent in 0.46kg... so we came just below the 5kg weight scale thingy. Hopefully this package gets home safely as well.
- Next we caught the 5hr train to Brugge... this was kinda confusing as we pronounced it as "brooooge" whereas the people here pronounced it as "brooka"... and they also spell it randomly as Brugge, Bruges, or Bruge... meh... got there eventually anyways!
- At the B&B, we were greeted by Svitlana the hostess... she was full of energy and recommended we go on the tour that she had created herself. Our room was on the second level and we had to catch the lift, which was kinda small but she got us both in with a big push on my backpack. The lift also was missing doors, so you could see the walls descend as you ascend... kinda funny. Our room was filled with a bright red décor and had a sink and a douche... aka, a shower. This place also had sweet sweet wifi... woot!
- The prescribed tour visited sites such as the Donkey Gate, some Church with a frickin high bell tower, Market Square (where they sell fresh seafood and other stuff), Town Hall (with a tower you can climb), Lovers Lane (place filled with swans... watched a couple run for their lives when a big swan walked towards them, hahaha) and finally visited the train station to buy tickets to Paris in 2 days time.
- We had a snack stop at a waffle place to have Belgium waffles of course! Man they were the best waffles I had ever had... definitely recommended when you're in Belgium.

<Lang's Extended Version>

Our aim this morning before we headed off to our next destination was to send off a package of stuff that we had collected since Innsbruck.. I had been carrying my pack as well as a shopping bag full of stuff for the past couple of weeks as we traveled from pace to place, so wanted to lighten the load a bit.. Well, we got rid of almost 5kg of stuff and ended up about 25 Euros lighter in the wallet also..

So after gathering our packs again, we headed to the train station to catch the train to Brugge, a once World Heritage listed city in Belgium. We eventually arrived after a 5 hour, 1 change over journey, then caught the bus to our B&B for the next couple of nights.

Bruges was an interesting little town, perfect for a little rest stop after a big city like Berlin or bustling Amsterdam. The inner city was basically a little island with a moat surrounding the city. Chocolate and lace shops lined the cobblestone streets, while tourists toured the town by bike, foot, horse drawn buggy's or boat along the canals.. It was definitely very touristy, yet didn't seem too over flowing to bother you too much.

As suggested by our hostess, Svitlana, at the B&B, we decided to do her self-made walking tour that covered one of the old town gates, Market Square with the 88m Belfry tower (which we did contemplate on climbing the 366 steps to the top, but since it was such an overcast day, decided to forego the pain.. err.. I mean experience.. =P), Burg Square, City Hall and also the Church of Our Lady, but only from the outside as it was closed by the time we got there.. This church is famous because it houses the only Michelangelo sculptures that actually left Italy during his lifetime.

Along the way, we had a quick stop for lunch - fries covered in mayonnaise. Did you know that fries originated from Belgium?? Can't say that they were much better than what we get at home, but the mayo that covers it is fantastic.. It's not that sickly sweet stuff, but creamy and lightly flavoured..

Not long after, we decided to stop for our 2nd lot of Belgium invented cuisine - the famous Belgium waffle.. Brian settled for a banana covered waffle, while I had the strawberry one.. OMG, they were to die for!! They were sweet, light and crisp yet just melted in your mouth.. Nothing like the doughy stuff you get back in Australia.. You definitely have to try a freshly made one if you go here!!!

Yes, the 3rd thing that we tried today was Belgium chocolate from Dumons.. Sounds like a very healthy day, hah? =P Well, to be honest, we walked into the shop and managed to score literally a flake or crumb of chocolate each as a sample. Now this was kinda disappointing for me. Not because it was only a crumb of chocolate, I actually found the chocolate a bit too sweet for my liking, but then we proceeded to buy a small sample box anyway just to make sure all Belgium chocolate wasn't like that. Not that we had any of it for the rest of the day though..

So moving on, we eventually made it to our final destination on Svitlana's tour, Lover's Lane, where swans and egrets had literally taken over the place.. One couple got too close trying to take a photo of the swans and her egrets, so the male one came walking up, breasts feathers puffed up and all.. It was funny to watch the couple trying to run away from him..

We were left fairly close to the train station again, so decided to book our onward tickets to Paris in a couple of days.. Despite having a Eurail pass, we still needed to fork out about 50 Euros just for seat reservations, crazy!!!

It was about 7pm by this stage, and since the waffles were so filling, we decided to head back to the B&B for a rest and to surf the net for a little while. By about 9.30pm, we were feeling a bit puckish, so decided to get a drink and bite to eat.. It was such a strange feeling when we stepped outside as it was still quite light, and by 10pm, it's only starting to get dark..

BTW, the final thing for the night we had was the local brew.. so yup, we pretty much had tasted everything Belgium had to offer in one afternoo
]]> A Wholesome Experience.. — Amsterdam, Netherlands http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212030000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212030000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1212030000/tpod.html Wed, 18 Jun 2008 08:28:51 -0400 Flashpacking Europe with our clothes on... ;)
Amsterdam, Netherlands

<Brian's brief chronological list of "highlights" (and of whinging)>

- We thought we had better do some of the museums since it was our last full day in Amsterdam, so first up, the Rijksmuseum. We were pretty early, so there was no line and we managed to walk straight in. Highlights here include the big paintings by Rembrandt such as the Sampling Officials and the Night Watch... these paintings are truly awesome to see for real and the reproductions do not give it justice.
- Feeling all wholesome and clean from the Rijksmuseum, we decided to try the opposite side of the spectrum by visiting the famous Sex museum. If you're into black and white porn with dudes with weirdass facial hair, boy is this the place for you! Otherwise, stick to the internet. There are also giant statues of penises and vaginas, if you don't know what one looks like. The history information part is interesting... where you can learn about the different types of porn and sex... who knew the Americans invented anal? We all knew they love taking it up the ass...
- Since the sex museum opens up to a navy of Canal cruise operators, we decided to go on one since it's one of the things all tourists have to do... can't report much here since I fell asleep before the boat even left the harbour it was in. After the cruise, we went back to the hotel for a 2 hour sleep break.
- Got woken up by an sms from Terry on our mobile... so we went out for a drink with him in Leidseplein, followed by dinner at Gauchos where we had all you can eat ribs... yummo! 3 plates of ribs later, I was full and we called it a night.

<Lang's Extended Version>

We had watched a documentary sometime last year on the ABC about Rembrandt and were very impressed by his works and his 'business'. Basically the documentary was about how he had an art school and branded his student's art as his own and sold them... so they've spent the last few years trying to work out what a real Rembrandt was and what was not after people spent like millions on it, so there was no better place to check out a few of his works than the Rijksmuseum..

So after breakfast, we quickly made our way to the Rijksmuseum and surprisingly, there was no lineup so we went straight in. The first few rooms were interesting, covering the history of the Netherlands, and then following on, there were displays of doll houses, which were ornately decorated. It was very interesting to find out that some women spent excessive amounts of money on this past time of theirs, even commissioning furniture and art to be a scaled replica of what they had in their own homes..

This lead to the main attractions of this museum - Rembrandt's Sampling Officials and the Night Watch paintings.. They were definitely impressive as Rembrandt's master on light and shadows really showed. The candidness of the poses and the expressions on the faces of the people were also brilliantly portrayed..

Over 3 hours later, we headed back to the Dam for a bite to eat and then onto the infamous Sex Museum.. It was full on to say the least and they really didn't leave much to the imagination, so if you're easily offended, give it a miss.. Then again, what's Amsterdam without visiting a place like this??

There were 3 floors of sex memorabilia and the like, covering the history of porn from the ancient European and Asian times to the present where there is anal, bestiality, S&M etc. Oh, the dummies in their various positions and giant anatomical pieces were funny too.. One lady from Perth was video taping the displays while muttering, "my mum's going to have a heart attack", while Brian replied, "Only if you don't get her a good present from here".. hahaha..

So after that experience, we decided to do what all tourists (and no locals) do and went on a canal cruise with recorded commentary.. What do you know, Brian fell asleep as soon as we pulled away from the dock.. I lasted about ¾ of the way before I was dozing off also but still managed to learn that the government spent millions of Euros to build low barriers along the canals as heaps of people were driving their cars over the edge.. Despite that, they still have to fish out at least one car a week driven by lead-footed drivers..

Once the cruise was over, we headed back to the hotel for a siesta and was only woken up by Terry prank calling us.. We organised to meet up at Leidseplein for a drink, then walked around thinking that we'd catch Indianna Jones at the cinemas, but as it turned out, the timing was all wrong and we ended up at the Dam again. That night we had dinner at Gaucho's where Terry and Brian ordered all-you-can-eat ribs, while I had a small steak and some of Brian's ribs (you know what I mean!)..
]]> "I won't tell your wife..." — Amsterdam, Netherlands http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1211945100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1211945100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1211945100/tpod.html Wed, 18 Jun 2008 06:26:25 -0400 Flashpacking Europe with our clothes on... ;)
Amsterdam, Netherlands

<Brian's brief chronological list of "highlights" (and of whinging)>

- Today Terry offered to be our tour guide and take us around in his car, so we did so. We were to meet him in Chinatown at 11am so walked around Chinatown and the Red Light District to kill time... this area was kinda scary in the early morning coz all the older grandmas were "working" their booths, hoping for some business... we eventually did catchup with Terry for his tour.
- The first place on Terry's tour was a cheese making place... here we saw how the cheese was produced and got to taste the different cheeses and we also tried stroopwaffels... kindof a sweet syrup caramelly waffle thing that is delicious... can be bought in all supermarkets in Amsterdam... we obviously bought more later on! We also saw a clog making place... they made clogs of all kinds, sizes and colours... even personalized ones so you can have Nike clogs if you so wish.
- The next place was a small town or a village as they call them here. Here, Terry took us to get costumed up in classic Holland dress for photos... I unfortunately had to wear a Russian style hat and ended up looking like one of those monkeys that play the cymbals for money. We also ate some raw herring and smoked eel which is a local delicacy.
- Next place on the tour was a set of five windmills... this required an extremely long drive coz Terry got lost due to lack of GPS... we got to see the airport and planes taking off and landing though. The windmills were kinda average... maybe it was due to the lack of colourful tulips like they have in their postcards and photos... the windmills were also kinda rundown and falling apart.
- This was pretty much the end of the tour and we went to the cinema to watch Iron Man. We had watched it earlier on the EEE-PC, but since Terry hadn't seen it yet, we opted to watch it again... it was still pretty good... good movies don't really come out that often anymore! Still need to watch Indiana Jones 4.... Watching it here isn't that good an idea anyways since there are dutch subtitles annoyingly at the bottom of movie.
- Had dinner at a Canto restaurant in Chinatown... annoyingly to Terry, we had bbq and roast pork... we hadn't had any since way b4 the trip so enjoyed it thoroughly.
- After dinner, Terry took us through the red light district... this time he deactivated the Lang forcefield and made her walk in front of us, so I got a few winks from the prostitutes eyeing a potential customer... hahaha. We also went in to see a peep show... we each got into a separate cabin that surrounded a circular room.... We each chucked in 2 euros and the window would unfog and a semi-naked woman would start moving around... um, seductively? Anyhoo, not much else to report here... haha.

<Lang's Extended Version>

It looked like it would be an overcast day again today, but luckily, Terry had our whole day planned out, so we didn't really have to do too much apart from make our way over to Chinatown to be picked up by 11am..

So after breakfast, we slowly made our way over - of course this meant that we needed to walk through the Red Light District again.. Most of the ladies of the night were probably still in bed and those that were out this morning weren't exactly the 'pretty' looking ones.. Brian had an eyeful at the first window.. haha..

We stopped by a cheese making factory/shed to listen to how cheese was made there and even got a free tasting of all the different types they made their.. Our favourite had to be the baby gouda as it was soft and creamy.. But I guess what we also loved was the stroopwaffels, these were round caramel filled waffle biscuits, which we later stocked up on at the local supermarket for half the price..

Across the road they had a clog making place, so the guy there explained the process to us briefly.. It seemed rather simple as most of it was made on the lathe type machine and they used a template to carve out the shape of the clog.. It's a wonder who actually wears these uncomfortable wooden shoes..

Next stop would be to Volendam, which is a fishing or tourist village as there were many tourist there going out on a ship or doing what we were there for - to dress up as they did many moons ago and have our photos taken.. Apparently 'everyone' (according to Terry) gets their photos taken here - even Jacky Chan..

So into the shop we go and I was quickly taken to one side and helped by two ladies who quickly put a skirt, top and bonnet on top of my head.. I was then taken to the other room to pick a pair of clogs to go with my outfit while they dressed Brian up.. OMG, when Brian stepped into the room with his outfit on, I couldn't help but laugh my head off.. It was totally hilarious!!! Think of one of those dressed up monkeys that you see in cartoons playing the cymbals, that was exactly what he looked like..

Anyway, we had a few photos taken and then headed out to check out some souvenir shops and a bite to eat while they processed them for us.. For lunch, Terry shouted us to a fresh herring and smoked eel.. The herring was a bit too gooey for my liking, but wasn't too bad as it tasted a like sashimi. As for the eel, it was quite nice actually, just difficult to eat with all the bones.

It was 2pm when we picked up our photos, then headed to Zaanseschans to see the windmills.. It wasn't that great, but I guess it is typical of Holland, it was just missing those gorgeous tulips that appear in all the postcards.. Late May is a bit late in the season for tulips, so unfortunately I missed out the tulip fields that I so wanted to see.. poo... next time...

As Terry had gotten lost on the way to Zaanseschans, it was about 5pm when we left and decided to go to the cinemas to watch Iron Man.. I guess the 2nd time round is never as good as the first, but I still enjoyed it.

Yup, as Brian mentioned, we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant with bbq and roast pork, something we were wanting after eating fried potatoes, schnitzels, wurst etc for the past few weeks.. It really hit the spot..

Since Chinatown was just a street away from the Red Light District, that's where we headed after dinner. This time Terry showed us the way and made sure that Brian was walking on his own to see what reaction he could get.. Well, he did get a wink from one of the girls, so that made his night, I'm sure.. Either that or the peepshow we saw.. haha.. nah, the girl dancing around wasn't exactly a looker.

Oh, on the way back to the car, we saw a couple of the girls trying to entice a guy from a group in for a 'service'. The girls go to them "we won't tell you wife..." In the end, the guys weren't convinced, so they walked off.. it was pretty entertaining to watch, nevertheless!
]]> Sex, Drugs and.. Jews.. — Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1211859480/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1211859480/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/flashpackers/1/1211859480/tpod.html Mon, 16 Jun 2008 21:48:12 -0400 Flashpacking Europe with our clothes on... ;)
Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

<Brian's loooong chronological list of "highlights" (and of whinging)... >

- Arrived in Amsterdam... the transit people aren't as helpful as you would think and give very vague non-useful directions. We eventually catch a tram to one of the canals and walk to our accommodation.
- Lang says there is a free walking tour at the train station at 1pm, so we catch another tram and walk back... unfortunately she doesn't know where at the train station... so we have no idea where to meet the tour guides. We end up walking around the touristy shops looking at souvenirs.
- We looked at the list of things to do on our list and the closest thing was Anne Frank's house... I of course had never heard of her (and neither did any of the guys at our hotel) and Lang had to tell me the story that she had read when she was younger. Anyhoo, the line was pretty long to Anne Franks house, but we decided to wait anyways as it did move, but wasn't really getting any shorter. 45 minutes and 15 euros less later, we were in... yeehaa. So... the story basically goes the Nazis were rounding up the Jews here and Anne Franks family decided to go into hiding in a hidden top floor of the building where her father works. This works for quite a while until someone rats them out and they all get taken away to concentration camps... of which only the father survived... but he finds the diary that Anne had been keeping and decides to publish it. The house itself is pretty interesting, hidden away behind a bookcase (its also booby trapped since Lang banged her leg into a metal post and got bruised... drawing blood... ick). The house has excerpts from her diary and videos everywhere from the employees that helped cook and keep their secret hiding place... suspiciously though, the 2 employees that were in all the videos were the only 2 of 5 employees that weren't taken away by the Nazis... hmmm... I wonder who dobbed the family in eh???
- We were out of clean clothes, so time for a laundry run! We asked the feminine guy manning the hotel desk and he suggested a Laundromat across the road from a club he regularly eats at. The Laundromat charged around 6 euro for a wash and dry, but there was an offer for 8 euro someone would do it for you, saving you the trouble of sitting around for an hour or so. This sounded like a good option so we followed the directions to go to the club across the road to ask for this service... Lang went to scout it out and came back with a sheepish look on her face, telling me to go as well coz she didn't want to enter a gay club on her own... URGH. So when we built up enough courage (and there were no / less witnesses on the street), we went in. At the counter, Lang went and asked the dude about the 8 euro laundry, the dude looked at both of us and said the service was no longer available. Lang later remarked that had I gone in to ask by myself, he would probably have said yes... but since I didn't want some gay guy sniffing through my boxers, we decided to just wash it ourselves.
- As the clothes were drying, we met Terry, an online friend of Lang's for over 10 years. Once the drying was done, we dumped it back at the hotel and went to a bar for a few drinks and some local Dutch food which turned out to be ham and cheese on toast. We then walked Terry back to the main train station, after he showed us a fast food shop the locals use that have vending machines inside for the fast food... the fried food wasn't half bad, and relatively cheap too, so that was good.
- After we went for a stroll through Chinatown. I was quite excited to hear Cantonese in the Chinatown district and very little to no Mandarin... mainly coz I can speak one and not the other. Turns out Amsterdam has a vibrant Canto community.
- And finally of course, the (in)famous red light district. Terry had pointed out a few streets that he frequents where the hottest women were, so we made it a waypoint on our way back to the hotel. Basically, there's a few alleyways with what appears to be little rooms all along it... each room has a glass door where a bikini clad female shows her wares and if a gentleman is interested, he opens the door, goes in, door closes, curtain gets drawn... something something... man comes out with a happy smile and an emptier wallet. I of course had my Lang forcefield shield of invisibility on and none of the gals looked at me... damn. The quality of the girls ranges... from the young blondes to the old grandmas *shudder* The price is controlled by a standard set by their union... so who would pick the post war leftovers is beyond me.... Hoooooooooooooooooo!



<Lang's Extended Version>

We woke u this morning in the middle bunks of our cabin as everyone else was leaving. Outside looked wet and grey.. Great! Typical that I would need my rain jacket so often now, especially after I had lost it a couple weeks ago..

It would be another couple of hours on the train until we reached Amsterdam, so we decided to take our packs to the proper seating area and sit up for the rest of the journey. I ended up snoozing for most of the way while Brian of course played on the DS while listening to me snore..

At about 11am, we had finally arrived.. What a miserable day outside.. That, coupled with the lack of good sleep, just made Brian grumpy as we didn't have a clue how the Dutch transport system worked and the Tourist Information desk at the station wasn't any help at all. We ended up buying a 2 Euro map and working out the system ourselves to get to our hotel to drop our packs off.

After disposing our packs, we headed back to the station again as I knew there was a free walking tour leaving from there at 1pm. Unfortuately we had no idea where abous in or near the station, so we walked around aimlessly for a little while.. We also bumped into an Americcan couple that went on the Potsdam tour with us in Berlin, who were also lost looking for the free walking tour..

Unfortunately the guide in the red shirt could not be found, so we gave up and walked around town ourselves..

There were souvenir shops everywhere selling anything and everything including the usual t-shirts, magnets and postcards, as well as the unusual penis shaped salt & pepper shakers, marijuana lollypops, unusual condoms etc etc.. Sex shops were abundant too..

Anyway, we eventually made our way to the Anne Frank House, as this was something I really wanted to see as I had read her diary many years ago, probably when I was about the same age as Anne when she wrote it.. As for Brian, he had no idea who Anne Frank was until a day or two ago when I had to explain to him that she was a Jewish girl living in Amsterdam during the Hitler regime, so her family as well as 4 other Jews went into hiding in the back of an office.. During this time, Anne kept a diary detailing her thoughts and experiences, until they were betrayed and sent to a concentration camp. Sadly Anne died at the camp a month before it became liberated..

The line to the entrance snaked around the corner, but we waited around anyway as we had nothing better to do at the time. After about 45 minutes, we were in...

There were videos running continuously items on display and quotes from Anne's diary written on the walls.. For someone who had known nothing about Anne's plight, the museum was great as everything was explained in a logical manner. You even get to see the bookcase that hid the door to the secret annex and also walk inside and stand in the very rooms that Anne and her family lived for the 2 years..

We headed back to the hotel after and gathered all our dirty clothes - yes, it was laundry day again.. We were debating whether to leave our clothes to get washed or to do it ourselves for 2 Euro less.. However, when we got to the Laundromat, the service window was closed and there was a sign telling you to go across the read to ask if you would still like it done by them...

Unbeknownst to us, the shop across the road was a gay porno shop, but we went in and I asked anyway to see what the deal was.. Apparently they don't do the service wash anymore (hey!! Not that kind of service!!), so we went and done it ourselves.. I reckon the guy would have said yes if Brian went in to ask on his own... hahaha...

Well, the only reason we even bothered to go and ask was that I was going to meet an old online friend of mine at 6pm, and it was already 5pm by this stage..

But being the friend that he is, Terry walked over to the Laundromat and met us there.. Wonderful place for a first meeting, hey? It was great to have someone else besides Brian to talk to.. =P

Once our laundry was done, we dumped it back at the hotel then walked over to the Dam and stopped by the Irish Pub for a drink and the 'local snack'.. The so-called local snack happened to be a grilled cheese sandwich.. haha.. so to keep up with that theme, Terry then took us to Febo, a local fast food joint which sold frites with mayonnaise and stuff out of something similar to a vending machine.. Basically you insert some money, pull down the flap and grab your croquette out of the individual grills. They weren't too bad to be honest.. guess it is fried food afterall..

Terry left to catch his train back home after organizing to pick us up in the morning for a trip out to see some windmills and also to take some 'traditional' dutch photos...

We finished off our meal then made our way to the Red Light District, since that was what Amsterdam was famous for (that and pot, I guess).. Terry had marked down a few small alleyways we had to check out - yeah, he seemed pretty familiar in this area, but lets not go there..

It was definitely an eye-opener but Brian was somewhat disappointed that the girls in the windows were not topless.. I don't know what gave him that idea.. So we wandered around for a little while, walking through the streets and alleys, passing by the girls fairly quickly. Some were dancing in the windows, others were smoking and looking bored, while otheres were talking on their mobiles.. They were all wearing skimpy clothing of some sort trying to entice the customers to go in for their business.. Apparently the regulated price, whether you were young or old, pretty or not was about 50 Euros for 20 mins..

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