Blogs from France, Europe - page 1572

We had not thought about going to France until I saw a television programme about Andorra high up in the Pyrenees mountains. It was much later that I saw a further programme about Perpignan. I was in love and needed to see for myself this beautiful, magical place. There is an airport at Perpignan but our destination was on the coast at Canet. Checking the internet for flights resulted in us choosing to fly from Barcelona and drive into France. We collected the hire car, once we had found the car parks (the airport is massive) then off we went , down endless tunnels, trying to keep in the correct lanes and follow the signs, fortunately we had with us a new toy satelite navigation, it kept us on the right road until we got to ... read more

Today was the second day of meeting with other IES students, so I’ll backtrack a little to yesterday. Thursday I slept until 10:30, got ready and straightened up my room a little. I took my first metro ride (by myself!) to get to IES. It’s actually very easy because it’s just a five minute walk to the station and then six stops down the line. It takes about 20 minutes total to get to the center but my commute is much shorter than most other peoples are. Yesterday they gave us a bunch of practical information about insurance, evacuation plans and cell phones and then a quick tour of the center. We met only in a group of 30 so I still didn’t get to meet everyone. I met some girls afterward who wanted cell phones ... read more

7:30- Use internal clock and get up with sun. Get ready in 10 minutes and eat long breakfast. Decide metro is far to easy, so we opt to urban hike Paris instead. 9:00- Race elevator up Eiffel Tower. Beat it no problem. 12:00- Start hike to Louvre. We would have swam the Seine, if we still had our swimsuits. 13:00- Re-fuel bodies with salmon sandwiches (or panini, or bocadillo, depending on your roots). 14:30- Battle tourists to get glimpse of Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa, only leaving a few casualties. 15:30- Prefer looking at French statues... in the unpopular area of the Louvre. Reuse the "I spot titties!" joke we heard earlier from a fat American passing a topless beach on the Riviera. 17:00- Urban hiked to Notre Dame to please grandmothers. Said a ... read more

5:45- Arrive in Paris, read Metro map and Paris street map as if we designed city. Arrive at pub aka hostel. 8:30- Upon review of wash closet, shower is too sketch, they're over rated anyways. 9:00- Fuel body with pastry and cafe au lait. 9:45- Return to train station. Buy tickets to Switzerland for 6 euros. 10:00- Focused sight seeing begins: opera house? check. 10:20- Perform Elephant Love Song medley (with harmonies) outside the Moulin Rouge. Bypassers mistake us for 2 Nicole Kidmins. 11:00- Metroed to a closed Marche de Puces. 11:01- Turned our frowns upsidown and marched to Arc de Triumphe. 12:00- Choked down chicken panini. Made a few Orangina jokes, pronouncing the "gina" part of Orangina as if it had a "va" in front of it. Haha. 13:00- Catacombs. Made like Indiana Jones and ... read more

We're sure Marseille must have been a beautiful city years ago, but unfortunately it looked like it was having a hard time keeping up with its population. The rumor is that the city has a lot of crime, although better than it used to be. Interesting because, right outside the train station on some massive flights of stairs there were men in camo with huge machine guns slung on their shoulders! We walked through the city to the Vieux Port to take a 10 euro boat to a nearby island where the Chateau d'If, fortress turned prison that is famous by the Count of Monte Cristo story resides. The funny thing was that the boat passed the island giving us a nice view of the famous prison and then continued on to another island farther out ... read more