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Published: July 16th 2005
Hi All,
We have left Paris and arrived in Brugge, a nice relaxed town of about 60,000 people.
Paris was quite the chaotic city, we saw some very neat stuff but we have to say it is nice to be out of there. The temperature was crazy hot, especially when carrying a 40 pound backpack. There were many weird smells we'd get wafts of and the body odor was pretty intense. There is no A/C and EVERYTHING costs money and is very very expensive! WE found the people to be nice and helpful for the most part. There are also no bugs, just a few flies here and there. In Paris all of the buildings were very tall and the streets were narrow, so all you could see was just a bit of the sky and down the street about a block. There are also no lines in the roads so driving is complete chaos. There are many motor bikes as well which we thought looked like death traps. Whoever cuts the other driver off first gets teh right of way. Contrary to prior belief, we did not find Paris to be very romantic and no, we did not get engaged - sorry guys. Some highlights we saw was of course the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame which was absolutely breathtaking - we even went to mass and had communion, but we did not understand a word that was said because it was all in French, but it was still pretty neat. The Louvre Museum was amazing. We saw the original Mona Lisa and some paintings that were up to 20 X 30 feet! Napolean's Apartment was also located here which was mind blowing, it was absolutely gorgeous. The Picasso Museum was another highlight, however the Cocacola there was 3.80 Euro just for a 12 oz can! The last stop of the day was the opera house. We didn't see a whole lot, but it looked gorgeous inside where they perform but we could not get in there, only look through windows. Our second to last day in Paris was Paris's Independence Day or something so everything was closed, there were fireworks at the Eiffel tower ( we didn't go because we were warned of the huge crowds and pickpocketers adn crazy partiers). The last kick in the teeth in Paris was buying this stupid tour bus ticket. We thought it was only 22 euro per person for 2 days and you get to ride on top of this 2 story bus and view all of the popular sites. The bus we accidentally got on ended up being 28 euro/person and took FOREVER to get around town. We only used the bus for a couple of hours. The last day we were going to try to ride th ebus to near our hotel but we could not find the right color bus, it was ridiculous and we ended up spending more money for that bus when we should have just used the metro, which we did anyways in addition to the bus. Oh well!! Live and learn.
Travelling from Paris to Brugge went alright. We have renamed our backpacks "the anti-christ" We have also developed our specialty roles and duties for the trip: Justin is in charge of keys and opening doors (because I can never figure them out!), he is also in charge executive decision making with hostel bookings because I get too inpatient to look through them all on the internet and lastly he is in charge of the compass (which he loves to death and always makes sure we are going in the right direction!). I am in charge of navigation and the Eurorail. We also do not have stamps in our passports yet, which is really odd.
Tomorrow we leave Brugge and head to Amsterdam. Brugge has been amazing. The buildings are not quite as tall as in Paris and the cars are bigger. The buildings are gorgeous and our hostel is great. Its got a real fun atmosphere with great staff and a pub and restaurant. Today, we walked around for about 4-5 hours exploring the town. We went to the Basilica of the Holy Blood where we were able to see and touch the Relic of the Holy Blood of Jesus, that was really neat and the church was very detailed and pretty as well. We also toured a diamond museum which was a bit disappointing because they didn't really have many diamonds on display, just the history of diamonds. Otherwise we just walked around all day, saw a few canals which are always nice. There is a market place here and a huge clock tower which is amazing at night. There is always someone playing music in the market centre and many fun restaurants and pubs.
Right now, there is no way for us to charge our camera because we only bough the adapters and not the converter, so we have to conserve camera use and justin's parents are sending one to us in Germany. After we get the camera charged we'll get some pics put on the website, but we have taken lots of cool pictures and can't wait to share them with you all!
Take care and hope to hear from you soon!!
Beth & Justin
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Angie
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Amsterdam - call me!
If you guys need tips or ideas of where to go, what to do in Amsterdam give me a ring! Can't wait to see pics and hear more! Miss you lots.