Beatles, Big Ben, and (insert B word)

It seems my great days here come in blocks. One week might be boring, the other might be tainted by unwanted drama, but the best are highlighted by some of the best days of my life and ones that I certainly won't ever forget. I was fortunate to experience the latter last week. Yeah, maybe I skipped a few classes to go, but in those classes I didn't miss much, and I'd rather miss nothing than miss a trip to the Royaume-Unis.

Thus, I met my buddy Scott in Liverpool on Tuesday. It was an awesome flight. I'd had been a few months since I had flown, and when I did it was dark out. This time, it was in the middle of the day and I could see everything. And lucky for me it was a cloudy day, because we were flying over white puffy clouds. Though I've never been to the North Pole, in my head, the tops of these clouds made me think that this is what it might look like. Rolling hills of white with blue skies on top. No polar bears though. Anyways, it was nice just to listen to music and enjoy the calmness above a crazy world. There are no economic crises above the Cumulonimbi.

We landed in Liverpool and I took a bus to the center of the city. I can't seem to put my first impressions of the English landscape into words. There were lots of brick houses, open spaces, front yards, winding roads. I think the reason why I can't describe it well is because I haven't seen anything like it. It didn't blow my mind, but there was a subtlety about Liverpool that made me feel welcome. After I got off the bus, I had no clue where I was. Fortunately, they let us off right by a travel center and I hopped in there to ask them where the hostel was that I was meeting Scott at. They directed me on a map that it was clear across town. Scared by what looked like a daunting distance on the map, I was pleased to hear from the teller that it was only about a 15 minute walk. I've been so used to looking at Paris maps and expecting 40 minute-2 hour walks to go somewhere that this short walk was refreshing. I made it to the hostel, met up with Scott, and we quickly hurried across town (again only about 10 minutes power walking) to catch the Magical Mystery Beatles Tour. This was great. Liverpool is the true home to these guys, and they were anything but shy about it. They wrote a bunch of songs about this place, including Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields, both of which were quite charming.

After the tour, we had a pint a local pub (I got a free silver beer bottle opener out of it, more on that later) and then went back to the hostel to go online to use the internet to find train tickets. Unsuccessful at that, we made the decision to just go to the train station and buy the tickets there. If they were for the next morning, so be it. But the nice gentleman at the terminal, after cracking some lame jokes, helped us to find some cheap train tickets from Liverpool to London, with only one stop in between and a three hour journey total. It left ten minutes after we got the tickets, and we arrived in London around 11:30. Navigating the buses and underground metro (which they call the Tube) we arrived at Roehampton University and snuggled into our cozy living room resting place of a very wonderful host (a million thanks to Whitney and her roommates).

Wednesday: Scott and I headed out in the morning to catch another tour. This one was held by the same company that I do my tours for, New Europe. And it was a great tour, I won't go through it in detail but we saw pretty much everything in the center of the city like Buckingham Palace, the National Gallery, Westminster Abbey, Parliament and Big Ben. Each place was accompanied with one or several anecdotes/stories, in true New Europe style. A great tour, kudos to Pip. We then met up with Whitney again and she took us to see the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, just more of the regular skyline scene in London. Afterwards we retired back to the cozy apartment after a long day of walking.

Thursday: Scott left the next morning, and Whitney, her roommate, and I went to see some movies at a nearby movie theater. Yes Man is hilarious and you should all go see it. Classic Jim Carrey. But between our double feature, we stopped into a pub (which I guess was run by an umbrella company that owned a bunch of pubs), and I got some fish and chips and a cup of coffee. The meal was great, but what made it taste even better was the fact that it only cost 3.20 pounds, a deal unheard of in Paris. After our movies, we went back to the apartment and laid around, watching more movies, and preparing for the next long day.

Friday: Whitney and I had decided, after spotting one on Tuesday, that we would go out hunting for space invaders on Friday afternoon. By space invaders, I mean tile grafiti art that a guerilla artist puts in cities all over the world. They are in Paris, London, Amsterdam, LA, New York, etc. And to go hunting for space invaders is a great way to get out an explore the city. Which we did. Going through place like Covenant Gardens, SoHo, Chinatown, and other little nooks and crannies, we were able to stumble upon 3 space invaders that day, which brought our London total spotted to 4. After our wandering, we went to a sushi bar. Strange I know, but I had never been to one, and it was one of the bars that had the conveyor belts with plates of sushi and you can pick which one you want off of the belt. The ones I picked were absolutely delicious and have made me excited for the next time I get to eat sushi. Delish.

Saturday: I left. I took the London Luton Airport back to Charles de Gaulle in Paris. All my flights went very smoothly, the only pain was Paris Beauvais, where I had to pay 13 euros to get out to the airport and then another 10 to pay with a credit card. But the travel was relatively easy and comfortable, which makes me excited for the EuroTrip coming up. At least the travel will be nice, as for the hostels... well you will hear about that soon enough.

All in all, London was awesome. The people were friendly, the prices were great, the city itself was extremely clean (compared to Paris), and I got to speak English which was a nice break from having to always formulate my sentences before I talked.

Highly recommended. And I would definitely go back.

A bientot!
Justin

Makes you feel like a kid again.

Disneyland Paris.

Mixed reactions when this was the answer to the question other people posed to me as to what I was doing for my New Years Eve. It was either "Oh my gosh I'm so excited for you. That'll be so fun." or "Oh my gosh you're probably going to hate it. It's extremely lame."

That being said, I agree with both sides. It was extremely good fun, and it was also extremely lame fun. But it was fun nonetheless. Helps when you have good company too.

Katie and I started off the day early taking a train to just outside of Paris where Disneyland is located. It was cold and rainy/snowy when we got off the train and continued to be that way for the first two hours while we were there. However, while we were in line for our first ride, STAR TOURS, the precip let up and it was a bit more enjoyable. I can't say the same for Star Tours though... not so enjoyable. First of all, I didn't know how the Fast Pass worked yet, so we waited in line for 90 minutes for a 5 minute "ride". I had a few problems with it. 1) The droid was talking in French, and it's very difficult to understand droid talk in French. 2) It was a simulated Star Wars virtual reality ride to Endor that took us to the Death Star where the rebellion was attempting to destroy the FIRST Death Star, which was located by the planet Yavin. Different sides of the galaxy. 4) In the simulation, some other pud blew up the Death Star instead of Luke Skywalker... seriously? -- It just didn't compare to the Star Wars ride that I went on at least 3 times when I did DisneyWorld. I was hoping it wasn't an indication for what was to come.

It wasn't, because we figured out the Fast Pass system and got ours for Space Mountain. We came back and did it later in the day, and though it doesn't compare to American roller coasters, it was pretty fun.

But in between Star Tours and Space Mountain, we did a few other things. We looked around in some gift shops, wondered around and explored the park (which wasn't terribly large but still had plenty to see), and ate lunch. I had the Fish 'n Chips and Katie had the fish sandwich. Both were expensive, but good. They don't to a lot of catering to the American crowd since not a lot visit. Rather they take American cuisine and give it the European twist, whether it's Fish n Chips for lunch or Balsamic Vinegar for your Taco Salad at dinner. Not recommended to mix with Guacamole and Salsa.

Of course, we went on as many rides as possibly, many of them one could deem "lame". But they kept us warm on a cold day and gave us some good laughs. We went on the Phantom Mansion ride, Pinnochio's ride, Pirates of the Caribbean (which has 0 reference to the popular cinematic adventures), and to complete the experience, It's a Small World. The highlight of this ride was us pointing out which country was which, and finally coming upon America which featured a football player and a fan eating a greasy snack. Hilarious.

It started to fall into nighttime and they lit up the place. Except for the Western Frontierland, which they kept extremely dark. I guess it was for the ambiance of being on the Frontier, but we could literally not see where we were walking. After taking the train to the Frontierland, we stumbled upon Woody's round-up here, where there were a few characters out and about. We saw Donald Duck and I got a picture with Jack from Nightmare Before X-Mas. And we took a photo with Stinky Pete.

We went on one more ride before the New Year, Buzz Lightyear's Laser Adventure, which was pretty cool. For those of you who have been to Silver Dollar City, it was like the Great Mine Shootout. Needless to say, I kicked Katie's butt. Then we made our way over to get a spot in front of the castle, and there was a "DJ party" going on. It basically consisted of loud European Techno, American 80s songs, and people getting there dance on. But the castle was magnificent and they put on a brilliant fireworks show (which I got a little video of). It was quite magical.

The train ride back, however, was not so magical, because we had to wait an hour to even get on a train and by the we were very tired. But we did make it back and finally went to bed after a long day.

So that's the magic of EuroDisney. Of course it doesn't compare to Disneyworld, but Americans just know how to do entertainment better than Europeans. There I said it.

A Bientot
Justin

Aaaaaand it's back!

Hey everybody.

So, sorry I've been slacking on the blog posts. My last one was in November so you can imagine my month of December was pretty crazy. I learned and started giving tours, finished papers for school, and had Katie visit for 2 weeks, all while dealing with a psychotic, delusional roommate. I was a tid bit busy.

But here's the update:

Things have been going very well. I've started giving walking tours of Paris, of both the center ville and an area known as Montmartre which has the Red Light District and Sacre Coeur. I basically work off of tips, and so far, the tips have been good. People are very generous even when they are traveling, and though I was worried at first it wouldn't be enough to get me through the year, I just might pull it through. Of course, that means I won't be able to indulge in too much of the Affligem anymore, which is a wonderfully flavored Biere de Noel that comes out during the winter time.

However, I am planning on doing a bit of traveling. Next week I will be going to London and visitng a friend there and doing the New Europe tour there. In February, myself and Ryan Godke who is studying in Vienna are doing a EuroTrip, visiting Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Stockholm. I'll be taking lots of pictures for you all to see.

Of course, Katie came and visited me for Christmas. I was fortunate to get to talk to most of you on Christmas Day, but for those of you who haven't heard from me yet, here's the round-up:
Katie arrives in Paris a few days before Christmas. She comes on some tours with me, we go eat at some really good restaurants and some not so good restaurants, she takes advantage of the great shoe shopping in Paris, we spend Christmas Eve on the top of the Eiffel Tower and eat Tiramisu afterwards, we spend New Years Eve under Disney Castle watching brilliant fireworks, she gets more tours of Paris, and eventually (unfortunately) she flies back off to the real world.

I plan on giving you a post about Disneyland soon enough. Should be entertaining.

What has also been entertaining is the roommate situation that has played out in the past month. It's a horribly long story that I will share with you all sometime when I see you, but briefly:
-Roommate throws a fit about having to live with guys
-Decides she's going to keep 2 of the 4 mattresses in the apartment to herself because they "belong to her"
-Has a lock installed on her door and accuses me of picking her lock, breaking and entering, theft, slander, among other things.
-Has excluded me in the process for selecting my next roommate
However, on the bright side, she is leaving us all here in France to go back to the States (where you will unfortunately have to deal with her). Sorry, but good riddance.

Other than that: January should fly by. And soon if will be February, and that will also fly by. March will be long, but come April, I will be visiting for Easter and I'm very much looking forward to that.

Blog posts to come:
Disneyland
Stop by Stop of the Walking Tour of Paris
EuroTrip (in February)

We'll talk soon. ;-)

Justin