Switzerland continued!

Zurich Day 2: CHOCOLATE

We slept in the next day because we were so exhausted from the night before. There isn't too much to do in Switzerland, but we really wanted to get a better look at the Alps so we thought we'd do an excursion of some type. We looked through some pamphlets and the Let's Go book and (from the book) found out that you can rent bikes for free until 9:30. We thought that we'd bike a little ways and see how we felt. Well, our little bike ride turned into a 5-hour marathon that almost got us the entire way around Lake Zurich! Our first priority, however, was to find the Lindt Chocolate Factory. We had seen it on the shore during our boat cruise (my camera broke when we saw it so I don't have a picture, but I'll just say that it was a beautiful sight). It felt like we biked forever and we still couldn't find it (it didn't seem that far on the boat cruise). I turned to Katie and said "I wonder how much farther we'll have to go." Maybe two seconds later, all three of us were saying "OMG."
I can't say that I have ever found the smell of a sidewalk delicious, but this was unbelievable. The entire block smelled like chocolate. I could practically taste it in the air, the smell was that strong.  We had finally found the factory, but we couldn't find the gift shop! After some searching we managed to locate it and there were FREE SAMPLES. I only took a couple, but they were perfection.

happiness

beauty

I got a dark chocolate caramel Intense bar and loved every bite of it. It didn't last very long. We continued on our trek around Lake Zurich and towards the Alps! I loved the way the houses were set up along the lake. It is hilly all around, so the way the houses were set up almost every one of them seemed to have a great view of the lake unobstructed by the house below it. On our way, we stopped to take a drink and ended up next to a herd of sheep. They started ramming up against the fence and baa-ing like crazy at us! My friend has a video of it that is pretty funny, I will try to get a copy. I didn't realize how much havoc we would cause in the farmland! 

new friends!

We kept riding and looking for a good spot to get some pictures. The Alps are amazingly majestic. It's hard to really understand how giant and towering they are without being there but here are some pictures to help.

breathtaking

Me + Alps!

stunning

I really don't think there are enough adjectives to describe what it was like riding through the Alps. The scenery was the most beautiful I had ever seen. I could definitely get used to living on Lake Zurich! Though I would probably need to rob a bank to even consider it. The skiing must be incredible! That night we just hung out at a bar in the hotel lobby. The cotton-eyed joe came on and no one danced so naturally we had to get up and show them how Americans do it! We got a lot of stares. I guess they aren't used to line dancing. They did this strange dance to a German song, and we ended up hearing it again and again at Oktoberfest. Thankfully we had some practice from Zurich! Here a couple last action shots I got of us riding on our bikes. It is not easy to take a picture and ride at the same time!

We <3 free bikes

dominating the Tour de Switzerland

Stop Number 2

Zurich Day 1: Bratwurst and Boats

We arrived in the Hauptbahnhof in Zurich and there was some weird stuff hanging around. I'm not really sure what these things were supposed to be, but it is probably some type of European art that is way over my head.

train station or club?

??????

Anyway, we continued into Zurich and found ourselves in a very cute, small city. It's the biggest city in Switzerland but it only has about 370,000 people. There were hardly any cars in the city - there was one main road along the river and besides that they were all just for walking. The cobblestone roads were adorable! Pretty much everyone walks everywhere it seems. It is super expensive there though. For a small coffee at Starbucks, it was about $4.50! We didn't really eat much because we couldn't afford it. Even the tap water at the restaurant we went to cost money! The first thing we did when we got there was help ourselves to some bratwurst (there is a strong German influence in this part of Switzlerland)

scrumptious

Zurich was definitely a totally different feel from Paris - a lot more small and intimate. Here is a shot of me by the Limmat River, which runs through the city into Lake Zurich

Limmat!

So at this point, we were absolutely exhausted. We had hardly slept on the train (French customs officials were very scary) and we needed a break. Thankfully we had our Let's Go Europe guide book! We found the cheapest boat cruise and went for a cruise for an hour and a half and it was beautiful!

baby Alps

just cruisin' around the lake

The cruise was a nice, relaxing thing to do when we didn't have a lot of energy. Plus, it wasn't that expensive, and Zurich was definitely the single most expensive place I have ever seen. We didn't really do much besides wander around Zurich that night because we had zero energy. I think I fell asleep at about 7, woke up at 11, got a snack, and was back in the bed by midnight. We had a few crazy nights though and we had big plans for the next day! Will tell soon!

More from the trip!

So I am realizing that I really need to catch up! It's been two weeks since Paris and I have so much more to cover. Alright, to continue...

Paris Day 2: Trapped in the Louvre


We again woke up at 1 pm (but hey, that's only 7 am on our original time) and headed back into the heart of Paris. We had basically covered the Right Bank on Tuesday, so we got off the metro at Hotel De Ville and walked towards the Left Bank. We started our trip with some shots of the back of the Notre Dame:

awesome

We continued our walk to the Left Bank, looking for the Pantheon. Naturally, instead of actually looking for the Pantheon, we stopped at every patisserie we encountered. We had had pastries the day before, but let's be real, we're in Paris.  The presentation is exquisite, even at a local patisserie. Here is a shot of my second of the day:

yum

It was a thing of beauty. The inside was filled with a delicious coffee flavored cream. I could have sat around and ate pastries all day, but I was pretty sure that I should see the sights. We finally made it to the Pantheon where many philosophers/thinkers are buried. Having little money, we didn't take the tour, but we did get some pictures outside!

thinking about life

I really felt like I could have taken a picture of every building we passed. The architecture was stunning. In the United States, our "old" buildings are a couple hundred years old. I'm pretty sure the Notre Dame was built in the 13th century! You just can't beat the elegance and intricacy of the work. We continued our journey to the Luxembourg Gardens, which are absolutely stunning. This is only a few blocks away form the Sorbonne, and I'll just say that those are some very lucky students:

wildlife

another museum we could only afford to take a picture with...still beautiful

We spent a while lounging by the pool in the middle of the park. We needed some rest. Somehow we had done this all in two days so far! We were also just trying to kill time before going to the Louvre, because it costs less on Wednesday nights (guide book suggestion). We spent some time wandering around the Left Bank, going into stores and drooling over more patisseries.  I could have spent the whole day listening to the French speak. The language just flows. After much lounging, we made our way to the Louvre.

This was the section of the blog I knew would be the most challenging. Of all the things that I saw in my week of travel, and there were many amazing ones, the Louvre absolutely blew me away the most. We started by taking plenty of pictures with the upside down pyramid (being Da Vinci code fans):

not sure this is legal but whatevs

The Louvre is monstrous building, I can't even begin to describe how big. The second you get in there though, every sign points towards the Mona Lisa. I have to say, the Mona Lisa was a bit of a letdown. It's not a particularly big painting, pretty small in fact, and it's the only painting on a giant wall in the middle of a room. There are about ten thousand people taking pictures of it, so there is no way to really even get close. And to be honest, I have no idea why it is so significant. I think you have to know more about art to appreciate it. Here it is nonetheless:

good ol' Lisa

Having seen the single most famous piece of art, we were ready to really appreciate the Louvre. I have never seen anything like it. Every work was a masterpiece. The ones that impressed me most were the biggest ones. Thirty by thirty feet paintings that were just so perfectly created. Here are pictures of me with a few of my personal favorites:

very large painting + me

need to get me on of these

I've been to a few art museums before, but nothing will ever compare to this. We continued to the sculpture areas, and these also were astonishing. It amazes me that someone can be given a slab of stone, and make a statue out of it. The time, the patience, the skill, everything it takes to create something like that are incredible. Here a few of my favorites:

hangin' out with Venus

me + Athena= twins

can you spot the non-pharoah?!?

I have to say, I was very sad to leave the Louvre. We probably saw about 1/20th of the entire place. I need to go back, there is an entire half I never even stepped foot in and we were there for at least three hours! When it came time to go, we got really confused. In Europe, there is a sign with a little green man running to point towards the exit. Well we got to a point where the little green men were running straight at each other, and neither was running towards an exit, so it was pretty hopeless. We could see outside, we just had no idea how to get there!

really, really confused

Somehow we managed to make it out. That meant another trip to Monoprix! We got a bottle of wine for about twice the price of the night before (which was still less than 4 dollars) and then headed out for a nice dinner. We decided to go back to the nightclubs we had gone the night before, but the atmosphere was a little different. They only played French songs! Absolutely everyone knew the words except for us, it was a little awkward. We just danced around like fools until the morning light. Unfortunately for us, we also had a train to catch to Zurich at 8:24. So naturally we just stayed up right through and went straight to the train station! Here is us looking pretty fabulous at around 7 am, just back from Banana Cafe and on our way to Gare du L'est:

loving life

Zurich chapter coming up soon!

Paris Day 1 continued!

Alright, time to keep going! So we left the Arc de Triomphe and headed towards the Eiffel Tower. I don't think I've taken more pictures of anything in my life (this includes my outfit at the Britney Spears concert, which was my greatest creation ever).  It is quite the sight to see. Here is a little glimpse at some of the pics:

it really doesn't look much taller than us...

but it's pretty tall...

...and beautiful.

So the lines to get up to the top were crazy so we decided to get dinner and come back at night. We went to a restaurant nearby and I had my first duck! It was delicious!

i <3 duck

So from there, we decided to go back to the Eiffel Tower to go up, but unfortunately there was a bomb threat and we couldn't get close. It was actually kind of scary, there were people with machine guns everywhere. We still got some awesome pictures of the light show though!

i throw my hands up in the air sometimes...saying aa-yo gotta let go

light show!

beautiful

So that pretty much sums up our first day! Later that day we did a little shopping at Monoprix, which is like Target and it was so cheap! We got a bottle of champagne to celebrate for a euro and 29 cents (that's about $1.60). I'll just say we got what we paid for. We went out to some clubs in Paris and these people know how to go all night long! It 3 in the morning and no one was even thinking about leaving! We met a lot of interesting people and they all were very nice. They were all impressed that I knew all the words to the songs. I mean, they played the David Guetta remix to Bad Romance, who wouldn't know that? Finally, at 6 am, we were home and in bed after an eventful and amazing first day in Paris.

By the way, the name of the day "Mange. Mange. Mange." means "Eat. Eat. Eat." We kept seeing posters for Eat, Pray, Love and I decided our day was more like "Eat. Eat. Eat." so i went with that!

Will continue with Day 2 soon!

So it begins

Alright! I am finally ready to start telling the story of the last couple weeks. Sorry for the delay (it's been a strange/hectic week) but I am ready to start. Before I start I just want to say thank you so much for that guide book! It was so so so useful everywhere we went. Not only did it save us from having to hold up giant maps like extreme tourists, but it also gave some great ideas about things to do. I'll be sure to note that each time.

Let me introduce some of the characters in our story before I begin as they will likely come up often:

Karen (from the block) - my mother, born and raised in the Bronx

Katie - BFF from Penn, born and raised in Philadelphia, going to King's College this fall

Garrett - other BFF from Penn, born and raised in Philadelphia, going to Goldsmith's College this fall

Britney - Pop princess, born and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, not going to college this fall or ever

Gaga - fellow Pop princess, caught in a bad romance, may go to college just to surprise people

Chapter 1: Sitting, Waiting, Wishing


So I hardly the slept the night of the 11th because I was way too excited for London. I felt like I have been waiting for it for years! Karen doesn't take any chances so we left for the airport at 11 am. My flight wasn't until 7:30 so we were being pretty generous but we still thought there might be traffic. Naturally, we didn't encounter one minute of traffic and were at the airport by 2:30. I said goodbye to my bags (and Karen) and spent the next few hours going through that book looking for things to do. Our flight was delayed four hours and by the time we left it was almost midnight.

So I don't know if any of you have taken an overnight flight anywhere but let me just say, no sleep gets accomplished. That was the most uncomfortable 7 hours of attempted, unsuccessful sleep of my life. I maybe was asleep for 30 minutes. But hey, they gave us dinner and breakfast so what's not to like? I've learned to appreciate the value of food and money this last week.

When we finally arrived in London it was 11 am, and I could barely keep my eyes open. Katie and Garrett are obviously thrilled with the flight:

Loving life

I was pretty frightened of customs, but it turned out to be a piece of cake. It was actually kind of disconcerting how little he wanted to check. He didn't even ask for my offer letter! I guess I am not that threatening looking, but still, I could be dangerous.

Anyway, we finally got out of Heathrow and were on our way to my friend Hilary's house to drop off our stuff. 30 minutes and 60 pounds later, we were in front of 86 Palace Gardens Terrace. We left our stuff at her house and went for a little walk through Kensington. We got to see a little bit of Kensington Gardens, but we were far too tired to walk much further. Here are the few pictures we took that day:

Kensington Palace - future home

random flower shop

So after a few hours of tired strolling, it was time to go to Paris. We made our way to St. Pancras International (first tube ride - thanks for that oyster card Lindsay!)

St. Pancras - this is where I ate my first of many baguettes this trip

...and boarded a train to Paris. A sleepy two hours, we were in the City of Lights! We walked to our hostel (Peace & Love - I know, it sounds like a haven for hippies but everyone was actually pretty normal) and took a little stroll around. We finally called it a night after looking around Canal St. Martin. Shockingly, our room was not terribly big but the purple color was pleasing to the eyes:

so spacious

there's almost room for all three of us to stand!

Chapter 2: Paris Day One - Mange. Mange. Mange.


After our exhausting day Monday, we slept in until about 1 on Tuesday. We took out our handy guide book and followed it right into the heart of Paris. Every building was magnificent - I actually just wanted to take pictures of all of them. The first sight we came across was the Hotel De Ville, which I believe is the City Hall of Paris and right across the Seine from the Notre Dame:

a little better than Philly's city hall

This building was absolutely stunning.  We continued our walk across the Seine to the Notre Dame

Me + Seine= love my life

us in front of the Notre Dame!

me inside the Notre Dame. NBD.

i don't know this man

unbelievable

Next was the Notre Dane which was also absolutely stunning. It was amazing being in all of these places that I had read so much about. The books never do them justice. The artwork, the architecture, just the feel inside the place was unreal. We left the Notre Dame and walked towards the Louvre. Along the way we stopped for a crepe. O.M.G. I got a nutella and coconut crepe. It was absolutely the most delicious crepe I have ever had. I mean, I love the creperie and all, but this was heaven on earth. 

ECSTASY

After the deliciousness that was this crepe, we continued onto the Louvre. I could not believe how giant and magnificent it was. And someone used to live there! I don't know how you could ever find anything there. 

need to find me a place like this

gorgeous

From here we decided to go to the Arc de Triomphe. We figured since we could see it, it probably wasn't too far. INCORRECT. It took us forever to get there. We did have a nice stroll down the Champs Elysee though. Along the way we ran into one of those street performers dressed as various things. Me, being me, didn't realize that this was a real person. Why I thought there was a statue of an Egyptian in the middle of Paris I may never understand. Either way I got a fantastic picture!

hangin' with the pharaoh

A while later we were at the Arc de Triomphe!

lookin' pretty triumphant

us!

Well I am getting tired so I am going to take a break. This is only day one! Part one will be finished later day hopefully! Enjoy!