greetings from the alps!!!

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hello all,

wow it's been a few weeks since ive done one of these and what an insane few weeks its been

after i last sent out a group email ive been all over the place!!!!

first off was barcelona which was AMAZING.... its such a chilled out place and the weather was amazing... I spent a lot of my time just walking around and having fun at the beach which by the way, so far, european beaches, or spanish beaches, have NOTHING on the beachs back in australia, the sand was really dirty, it left a brown stain on the back of my board shorts.. awkward... and in the ocean it was all peebly and not so nice..... but still it was nice to be at the beach!!!!

i so desperately wanted to go to the dali museum which is just outside of barcelona but alas it didnt happen, so i settled instead for the picasso museum which was really interesting, they didnt have many of his most famous works but they had a lot of his early stuff and it was really interesting to see where he came from and how he developed as an artist... i liked it!!

we also went out to this fountain one night, every sunday night i think it was, this fountain does this amazing show with lets of water, music and lights, it was wicked. Me and siobhan went there with a bunch of other people from our hostel (which was like little australia, there was an australian in almost every room, it was great!) we went with a girl from perth, a guy from new york, and a guy from cape town in south africa, it was really cool spending all our time with these people. I love making all these random friendships along the way but i'm starting to really hate saying goodbye to everyone, that parts not so fun!!!

but i think that the standout incident in barcelona was when we were walking through the streets one day, in this busy square listening to some live music, a man walked past us, wearing only a pair of walking shoes, and a back pack... he was completely naked!!! Me siobhan norman and emma were dumb founded.... it was the strangest and most hilarious thing thats happened to me in a while... haha!

after 5 amazing days in barcelona, we took a night train out to paris.. THE paris!!! You can imagine i was pretty excited considering paris is one of the places ive been wanting to go for a very long time!!!! And while i was excited to be going there i was a little sad to be leaving spain, i really really love that country, it's had an effect on me and i'm sure im going to be going back there again and again and again!!!!!

but paris was AMAZING!!!!
our first day we just went roaming and we went to the sacre coure, which is this beautiful basillica on the top of a hill that over looks the whole of paris (it's where amelie sends that guy on a crazy chase in amelie 😊) this church was so amazing, it was incredibly reverent and we even sat in on a mass there... it felt humbling to be in such a holy place, i really liked it, i even lit a candle in the church 😊 we also walked around for the rest of that day and saw the moulin rouge (not as amazing as in the movies, the windmill looks like its made out of paper mache') the arch d'triomphe (my french spelling is appaling) and the champ elysee which is this big stretch of shops and cafes, very very very expensive... the only thing I purchased was a small fries from macca's.. hahaha and lastly we ended up at the eiffel tower!!! which is sooooo huge.... i didnt expect it to be so big but its really massive... we came back the next night and had dinner underneath it and watched the sun set over it... and once the sun sets its does this prettty lights show and lights up and flashes... its really beautiful

the next day we went to notre dame cathederal which is an amzing building but in terms of churchness and being respective there were tourist everywhere taking photos and talking and stuff so it kind of took away from the whole atmosphere of the place... but it was pretty funny when we sat down and siobhan bent over only to be farted on by the asian guy sitting in fornt of us! we tried so hard not to laugh beacuase we were in a church but it was so hard to keep a straight face... we oculdnt look at each other for the rest of the time in the church...

the next day we went to the lourve... the mother of all art museums and my god i didnt think a place could have too much art but this place does! it's an old chateau thats now a gallery with every room of the chateau filled with art, i did get to see the venus d' milo and the mona lisa, which had flocks of people around them taking photos... which you're not allowed to do because it wrecks the art but the guards couldn't care less... that made me angry... damn disrespectful people!!!!! but by about 3 i was completely exhausted... i couldnt look at another painting, sculpture, or anything artistic... my mind was like jelly!!!!

the day after though we trained it out to versailles, the chateau where marie-antoinette retreated too before she had her head lobbed off in the french revoloution! and this place was amazing... we didnt go in beacuse it was a ridiculous price to just walk around the castle so we opted instead to see the gardens, which cost only 3euro, but we saw no security guards so we just walked in... hehehe.. but these gardens were amazing... i got lost in them they are so massive, and despite the place being full of tourist i didnt have to walk far until i was all by myself amoungst the very gardens that marie antoinette herself roamed.... it was amazing! at the end of the day i sat by the man made lake with rowing boats in it and just sat by the banks writing... it was really nice!

on our last day in paris together we went down into the catacombs which they filled way back when, when there were too many bodies in the parisian cemetaries so they moved all the bones out of the graves and turned a massive part of underground paris into a mass grave, i overheard someone saying theres 7 times the amount of living people in paris today buried underneath the city.... it was very very creepy... but also really cool in a macabre sort of way!

the next day siobhan left for england and my train wasn't til late that afternoon so i went to THE paris hilton, it was pretty easy to get into :P then i went to parsons school of design in paris, which for all you project runway fans (sam and esther) is where they went for the paris trip in one of the seasons!!!! it was my brush with fame... oh speaking of which, we saw gordon ramsay (the tv chef) at the eiffel tower promoting some new thing, i think it had something to do with vegetarianism because they were all wearing shirts with french things written on them like, i am a vegetarian tart... oh and there were can can girls... odd! later that day i went and sat in a park and had my lunch and i saw these french scouts doing some sort of ceremony.. it was funny to watch... and all was good until i got crapped on by a bunch of pidgeons and had to spend the rest of the day with dried pidgeon poo on my shoulder!!! hahaha

anyway, after paris i made my way too lausanne switzerland where i've been for the last 2 weeks! ive pretty much been just chilling out here, coz there's not a whole lot to do! but its good to take it easy for a bit, the other day though i walked to the top of this mountain/hill and from the top i could see the whole of lake geneva, and all the surrounding alps, both swiss and french!!! just across the lake from me is mount evian where the water comes from and in montreux, the next city along the lake is the nestle head office... im in consummerist heaven! oh also the best thing is i got a half a kilo block of chocolate the other day for about 2 australian dollars.... mmmmm it was GOOOD

on monday i am off to milan and im finally back in italy!!! it felt really good to ring up and book my accomodation actually knowing the language! i cant wait to be back there...

also ive been busy uploading all my photos at....
http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/joelspants/
along with all my other emails/blogs, i'm still uploading all my ones from paris and lausanne though

also as of today it's only 3 weeks til i start in poland, and ive been away from home for over 2 months and as of monday pueblo ingles finished a month ago... i cant believe how quickly time is going... i'll be home before i know it... i both like and dislike that!!! but i'll be very happy to get to poland and be in the one place for more than a week! woo hoo
any way i must be off
love and miss you all
-Joel
xoxoxoxoxoxox

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Photos

sacre coure
beautiful

arch di triomphe
my french spelling is terrible

eiffel tower from a distance
my french spelling is terrible

sun setting over the eiffel tower
i took WAY too many pictures of this damn tower

eiffel tower again
i started experimenting with the camera