Hey All,
Welcome to my next blog entry! I hope you all have not missed me too much, but in the past month, I have travelled to the Houston (Texas), Manzanillo (Mexico), Amsterdam (The Netherlands) and Paris (France)! This blog will focus on the last two destinations, but I have slightly felt that I have been disconnected from the world because I have rarely checked my email in the past 30 days and I only worked 8 days in April! I guess one of the things I love most about living in London is the great ability I have to travel. Now, onto the next entry!
Due to all the Bank Holidays we had in April, I decided to book a fun multi-destination vacation! I started out flying into Amsterdam on Friday to Sunday, where I took a train to Paris until Wednesday.
Amsterdam
My friend Anne accompanied me on the first leg of my journey to Amsterdam. We arrived on Friday night and, after checking into the our accommodations, we set out to find a nice place to spend our first night. After walking around a bit, we saw this pub that looked like it would suit us fine. We sat down and proceeded to order Belgium beer after Belgium beer, in which each one was more interesting than the last. After a couple delicious brews, and some good conversation (I found out that the colour white is apparently “IN” right now), we headed back to the hostel to catch some Z’s.
When we awoke, I was awestruck by how beautiful the city of Amsterdam actually is. We walked around for a bit, fervently trying to avoid all the bikers constantly ringing their bells at us. Amsterdam is sometimes compared to Venice, because it is a city of many canals. For example, in Chicago or Milwaukee, we have one large river that goes through the centre of the city, however Amsterdam has around 5 large canals that form a circle around the city centre, meaning there is no lack of waterfront restaurants. After a delicious lunch at one of these canal restaurants, we headed on to the Free Amsterdam city tour. By the way, Anne had a yummy goat cheese, pine nut and pesto sandwich, while I had a mouth-watering Dutch cheese crepe. So good.
Free tours are something I try to do in all the cities I visit. While they are free to do, I always end up tipping the tour guide because the tour was so beneficial (most people do). But to the good thing is that if you are on a budget, you can just come and watch for free. Anyway, we did the tour and it was amazing to hear the history of the city. Probably the most interesting things discussed on the tour was the Anne Frank House and, of course, the Red Light District. I am one of those who has not yet read Anne Franks diary, however, after this tour it has moved to the top of my book list. I cannot believe that a girl at such a young age had to endure so my pain and suffering, only to not survive… To this day Amsterdam still has the house where Anne Frank and her family hid for over 2 years! It was also interesting to hear about the Red Light District and it’s origins. For example, it has existed almost as long as the city itself, as it was generally a port where many sailors landed, who immediately went looking for ways to release their long pent up desires. The interesting things is there is this LARGE church right in the middle of the district. The story behind it is fascinating. Apparently, back in the day, you could buy redemption for sins committed, and if you paid enough, you could even buy a ‘get out of jail free card’ to allow the forgiving of a sin you are about to commit. Well, since this church was in the middle of the Red Light District, it saw a lot of traffic. As such, the church kept adding on expansions to be able to contain all the ‘sinners’ seeking redemption from the church after their visit to the Red Light District.
On our last day, we ended up renting a Bike to use for the day… Wow, this is something I highly recommend and I actually wish we got a bike the first day we were here. We became one of the fervent bell-ringing bikers who bike everywhere in Amsterdam. We were able to see all the little side shops, ride along the canals, and, of course, visit the beautiful flower shops along the river. Amsterdam is now at the top of my list as my favourite European city! I wish I had more time there, but either way, I know I will be back to visit at least one more time before I head back to the States to live (whenever that might be).
Paris!
What an amazing city. Now, I really did not think this at first. I took the Eurostar from Amsterdam to Paris, and when arriving at the French Train Station (Gare du Nord), I was blown away by how NOT PRETTY France was. I was very immediately met by many ‘rough around the edges’ immigrants outside and was thankful that I arrived mid-day as opposed to later in the evening. I proceeded to find my hotel, which was located in the 10 Arr. I chose this hotel because of both the price and the central location. This was the first time I had used booking.com to make my reservation, I now wish I used my Platinum status with the Marriott to make a reservation with them. When I arrived at my hotel, if you can call it that, I immediately though of the movie hostel… While this was not a hostel, it still looked like something that you would find in a Saw movie, not something in Paris… Anyway, I checked in and I was told that the doors were locked promptly at 1AM. What??? Am I really staying somewhere that locks you in? No, I found out that I just needed to ring the bell and WAKE the night man if I came home after that. He then added on that between 3AM and 4AM was his time, so I needed to be home before 3 or after 4. Well, noted….
After checking in and such, it was close to around 8PM and starting to get dark. I went and bought a bottle of French wine, some cheese and a baguette and then returned to my room to settle in. Man, was the bread, wine and cheese amazing. I then went out to a couple of French bars a friend of mine recommended to see the city life. After a couple drinks I headed back to get an early start to my day the next day.
I woke up around 9, thinking that was early enough to start my day (I was wrong). By the time I took the train to the Eiffel Tower, I looked around and there was already a 3 hour line there! I guess it was mainly because this was a bank holiday weekend and it appears that all of Europe (and plenty of Americans) had decided to go to the top of the tower. I looked at the line and decided I would try later in the week, the lines were just too much. Next stop, walk along the river to the Louvre. Again, the lines were just insane and I could not justify standing outside in them for hours just to get in, so I went for yet another stroll. I ended up by the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and it was amazing inside. The line was moving quite quickly, so I hurriedly made my way inside. It was beautiful!
I also wanted to check out a specific museum while I was in Paris. As random as it was, I was in a short Sundance film back in my college days that eventually made it’s way to the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Since I was one part of an exhibit at this museum, I thought it would be neat to visit the museum.
• http://davidrobbinsics.com/sundance
• http://davidrobbinsics.com/paris
Haha, the first clip is the actual short video I was in (yes, I had hair) and the second link is a link to the exhibit that was in Paris in 2004.
Well, after my day of touring, I met up with a friend of mine who took me to some fun bars for the night. Before bed, I was sure to buy my ticket to the Eiffel Tower for 12:30 the next day. When I arrived, the lines were just as long as the previous day, the only difference was I was able to walk right up to the front of the queue and get the ‘Reserved’ elevator to the 2nd level. Nice… Next, I went to the Louvre, but instead of going in the big pyramid entrance, I went in the ‘secret’ entrance in the tube. I avoided the three hour line in front, and went straight to the gift shop to buy my ticket. This was great because it enabled me to use the entrance for ‘ticket pass holders’ and a very short line. What a day!
My favourite thing about Paris was the fact that I simply enjoyed sitting at the little bistro’s and people watching! I had just come back from a long vacation where I was go go go, so it was nice to come back and have a nice relaxing one.
As usual, thanks for reading. My next blog should be coming out relatively soon as I want to write about the Royal Wedding! Also, I am going to Brighton (in the UK) and San Sebastian, Spain, later this month so I will be writing about that too!
Lastly, I added a new ‘subscribe’ function to my blog. If you like reading it, sign up for alerts when I make updates! Also, if you want me to visit a certain city and write a blog about it, you can also use the 'support' me function above!
Talk to you all soon, and thanks for all the support so far!
