Gatzing Out: backpacking

Showing posts with label backpacking. Show all posts

Thursday, June 6, 2013

The End

Well, it's my last night in London. Tomorrow I arrive back in the States--barring any airport/flight shenanigans--at precisely 5:35 pm. (Set your watches.)

Now that my homecoming is nigh, I'm wishing that I could stay longer. (Also wishing I got to use the word "nigh" more.) London is without a doubt among my favorite cities in the world, if it isn't actually THE favorite. As soon as I got here I felt happier, more relaxed, less homesick.

But I've covered that before. It IS my last night, though, so I think a little looking back is in order.

First, I'd like to pay homage to the casualties of this trip: my only non-broken hair clip, every hair elastic I started this trip with, innumerable bobby pins, the headband that was blown off my head by a gale in Cassis, possibly my black t-shirt (unclear, but I haven't seen it for a few days...), and my clothesline, which I think was stolen by a stupid person who mistook its little carrying pouch for a wallet. Joke's on you, dim thief, enjoy drying your clothes.

Okay, sorry, I have to interrupt my own blog post for a second. I'm writing this in the Criterion Theatre as I wait for the play I'm seeing to start, and this whole place is full of Americans. I don't think I've heard a single person with a British accent aside from the usher who has to keep explaining everything to these numbskulls. And really, they're almost all stupid. And some of them are sort of rude. It's like a parade of stereotypes, I don't know how this guy hasn't cracked yet.

It is NOT that hard to find your seat in a theater. I know this. Not only have I managed to find my own seat in many a theater, I was once an usher for Merrimack Repertory Theater. You know what the extent of my training was? Getting handed a name tag and being told, "Rows are alphabetical and seats are numbered. Have fun." (That was actually a pretty sweet job; I got to see every show I ushered for free and I got paid in ticket vouchers which were also redeemable for gift certificates. Oh, MRT, how you spoiled me.)

But seriously. Can you count? Do you know the alphabet? Can you read signs? Then you don't need an usher unless you want a program or someone's in your seat. Simple.

But back to what I was saying. Now that I've paid homage to the possessions that I have accidentally scattered across the continent we can turn our attention to happier things, like the highlights of this trip.

Every place I stay, someone asks me what my favorite city or best experience has been so far. And every time I'm asked, I hem and haw and eventually give the thoroughly uninteresting answer that they were all great for different reasons. It's true, though. Even in cities where I had bad luck, where things went wrong, when I got bored or felt homesick, there was something that caught my attention or made me smile. Some of the cities I did not expect to enjoy much, like Rennes, ended up being hidden gems.

I met people from all over the world and learned a lot from them. I tried new foods (vegetarian haggis is delicious--who knew?), explored, took risks, had adventures (both good and bad), and became my own best resource for problem-solving. I feel ever-so-slightly more capable and confident than when I left.

But sad as I am to leave London, there are some things I'm looking forward to about coming home. I'm going to close this entry by listing them, so as to end on a positive note rather than a bittersweet one. And although my trip ends soon, still have tons more to write about it--I'm behind on travel updates, as we all know, but also on Eats Across Europe, Eats Across Europe: Candy Edition, and that post with pictures from my train rides that I've been promising you guys since practically day one. I'm definitely planning on adding posts about all that (as well as more photos, which I know is the part everyone really cares about) in the near future, so check back when you can!

Until then, thank you for following along with me on my grand adventure. I've enjoyed blogging about it and I hope you've enjoyed reading it!

THINGS I CANNOT WAIT TO DO WHEN I GET HOME

1. Take a shower without wearing flip-flops. Dry off with a real, non-travel towel. Use all the shampoo, conditioner, and body wash I want.

2. Read a book that's not an e-book...although I don't mind them nearly as much as I thought I would, I'm afraid I'm still a snob about the inherent superiority of real books over virtual ones.

3. Use my laptop instead of my ipad. The ipad is great, but I'm looking forward to having my laptop keyboard and comparatively giant laptop screen back.

4. Drive.

5. Cook. I mean real cooking, not hostel cooking, although I have made a béchamel sauce precisely three times in the last week. But béchamel sauce barely counts at this point...where's the challenge?

6. Cry. I'm not upset about anything in particular; it's just that I haven't had that emotional outlet available to me at all for the past month and there were some times when I really, really wanted or needed it. Having forced myself to hold in my emotions and soldier on for five weeks on end, I've found that I'm much more likely to tear up over relatively innocuous things, like war memorial plaques and the audio guide description of Thomas Becket's assassination. So I think a good, long, cleansing cry is in order. Recommendations of sad movies--who's got 'em?

7. Listen to my music at full volume without having to wear headphones. Sing along as loudly as I want.

8. Return to my boring routine. Do you know how adrift I've been without my boring routine of flossing every night, being in bed by 11, and waking up at 5:45 every day? REALLY adrift.

9. Wearing clean clothes every single day. Over the course of this trip I've mostly taken an "eh, good enough" approach to personal hygiene. I wore everything over and over until it started to smell. I am so sick of almost every article of clothing I bought on this trip and I think I'll have to wash everything twice before wearing it again to make sure all the ingrained grime from a month of trekking around is truly gone.

10. Not having to mentally convert prices into US dollars. Sure, 60p doesn't seem too expensive for a single postcard, but in American money it would be about a dollar. Yikes.

11. Really, really brushing my teeth. As part of my "good enough" philosophy, I've been brushing my teeth with hardly any toothpaste, as my tube has been more or less empty for the past two or three weeks and I didn't want to spent £2.50 (at least $4) on a tiny travel-sized tube of toothpaste.

12. Seeing everyone again! I've missed you crazy people!

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Paris, Part Two: The Part That Didn't Totally Suck

When we last left our heroine (aka me), she was sulking in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, wondering what she had done wrong in life to deserve such an unrelenting stream of bad luck.

Luckily, things were only going to (mostly) get better from that point forward. After about an hour spent indulging in self-pitying and childishly wishing to be at home wrapped in a blanket, hugging a teddy bear, and quite possibly reverting to thumb-sucking, I picked myself up and walked back toward the Mosquée de Paris with a defiant air and a look of steely determination. "Forget you, Paris," I said in the FCC-friendly version of my inner monologue. "Forget you and forget your mother. I am Renée forgetting Gauthier, and you have not beaten me yet. Forget, forget, forget."

I arrived at the mosque and found the ticket counter. There seemed to be some sort of hullabaloo; aside from the ticket seller, there were two men standing nearby shouting in Arabic and banging their hands emphatically on the desk. I waited from a safe distance to see how this apparent dispute was going to lay out, but the ticket seller merely smiled at me, took out a ticket, and motioned me forward past the other two men, who were apparently simply having some sort of heated debate rather than engaging in a customer service dispute.

The upside to this was that the ticket guy sold me a student-price ticket, which I was not going to argue with. Despite the fact that I look about eighteen years old, I have not been able to claim student discounts anywhere because of my lack of a valid student ID. It's been killing me, because every place I go ticket sellers will ask, "Are you a student?" and then I have to say no and pay full price. Adulthood: it ain't all it's cracked up to be.

Anyway, the mosque was cool. It didn't blow my mind with its supreme beauty or anything (the fountains were dry and the gardens were sparse, since it was still rather early in the season), but I'd never been to a mosque before and it was cool to look around.

La Mosquée de Paris

After the mosque I headed toward the Seine to meander in the general direction of Sainte Chapelle. I'd never visited it before but my 501 Must-See Destinations book had recommended it and I'd generally heard good things. Along the way I checked out the stalls of used books along the river and cheered up as the sun finally made an appearance after a morning spent hiding behind forbidding-looking clouds.

My first views of Notre Dame reminded me of my last trip to Paris which, it must be noted, had gone rather more smoothly than this one. Nevertheless, the return to somewhat familiar territory brightened my spirits considerably. I thought about taking another look inside Notre Dame, but the line--which stretched all the way across the square and then continued on for a block or so--quickly dissuaded me, and I continued on to Sainte Chapelle.

Sainte Chapelle, built by Louis IX between 1239 and 1248, is a magnificent chapel that was once part of a royal palace within the city. Today Sainte Chapelle and apparently part of the Palais de Justice next door are the only parts that remain of the old building.

The chapel is divided into two floors: the Lower Chapel (which houses a lot of souvenir stalls these days) is relatively low-ceilinged and heavy-looking, with squat arched columns and moderately-sized stained glass windows. The ceiling is painted dark blue with gold stars, although I suspect the paint job was done more recently than the thirteenth century. The Lower Chapel was built for the use of palace staff. It's impressive in its way, but the main draw lies upstairs, in the Upper Chapel.

The Lower Chapel

So up I went, climbing a narrow stone spiral staircase. At my first glimpse of the chapel, my breath caught in my throat. It was, to quote the French lady standing nearby, "magnifique." Sainte Chapelle has gorgeous stained glass windows that stretch nearly from the floor to the heights of the soaring Gothic ceiling. It seems like there is more glass than stone making up the chapel walls, and this gives the chapel an air of extreme delicacy and fragility combined with extraordinary strength. It's really quite remarkable to think about how these glass windows have survived the Reformation, the Revolution, and two world wars, plus eight hundred years of general wear and tear. I mean, I can't even make a pair of boots last beyond a season. (In my defense, Dartmouth winters are really hard on shoes, especially when the pathways get over-salted. My knowledge of medieval chapel maintenance is admittedly limited, but I'm pretty sure road salt doesn't come into it.)

Windows of the Upper Chapel

Sainte Chapelle, now with added scaffolding for your viewing pleasure!

Not even the hordes of tourists could detract (much) from the splendor of this place. The only major distraction was the scaffolding covering three of the windows, which were being restored. (Hey, when you get to be 800, you need a facelift or two. I'm sure Joan Rivers would back me up on this.)

The cloudy weather (the sun had disappeared again) couldn't even ruin the effect, although I can only imagine what Sainte Chapelle looks like with the sun streaming through all the windows. It's easy to see why it's nicknamed "the jewel box."

When I had been waiting in line for Sainte Chapelle, I'd noticed a flyer advertising a Bach concert for around 7 pm. On the way out I decided to be impulsive and I bought a concert ticket for the reasonable price of 16€. Then I walked around in the rain looking for a place to eat dinner. I got soaked through despite my umbrella and the quiche I eventually ate was thoroughly underwhelming, but by this point I had a concert to look forward to so things seemed okay enough. Plus nothing could be worse than the beginning of the day.

I slogged back through the downpour to Sainte Chapelle and took a seat for the concert. I had high hopes that the chapel would warm up a bit once the doors were shut, but no such luck. I was sopping wet and shivery throughout the entire program, but it didn't really dampen (see what I did there?) my mood. Like I said, sometimes it takes the morning (okay, morning and previous evening) from hell to put things in perspective.

The concert was good. Was it the best I'd ever heard? No, but it was still quite lovely, and you really can't beat the venue of an eight-hundred-year-old church. The acoustics were surprisingly underwhelming, but I could hear well enough even though I was near the back.

Much more distracting was the middle-aged Russian lady next to me who seemed to think that stage whispering was the same as actually being silent. Let me just list, in order, the things she did during the concert:

1. Started a conversation with her companions in the middle of a piece

2. Pulled out her cell phone, turned it on, checked for texts

3. Pulled out a SECOND phone, turned it on, started texting

4. Pretended to be a bunny rabbit (?!?!)

5. Giggled uncomtrollably at her own rabbit impression

It was entertaining, I guess, but I would have rather enjoyed without interruption the entertainment I'd actually paid 16€ for.

But after the concert I went back to the hostel, took a long-anticipated hot shower, and had a sound night's sleep free of both annoyed hostel employees and Russian bunny people.

Paris, maybe you ain't so bad after all.

The closest I got to the Eiffel Tower on this whole trip

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Pictures, Pictures, and More Pictures

Remember that post where I summarized my trip and then cheated you all out of seeing photos? (You do now, I guess.) Well, here you go. Photos!

Adorable toy store in Montpellier ("The Little Queen's Apple")

Alley lined with racks of postcards, Montpellier

Chateau Chenonceau on the River Cher

Long Gallery at Chenonceau, formerly used as both a ballroom and a war hospital

Beautiful weather and beautiful flowers at Chenonceau

St. Gatien Cathedral, Tours

Inside St. Gatien

Place Sainte Anne in the medieval city of Rennes

Loch Ness and some temperamental Scottish weather

The ruins of Urquhart Castle on the shores of Loch Ness

London Calling

You might be pleased to know that, in terms of luck, London is turning out to be the anti-Paris. It's been more or less smooth sailing ever since I arrived. Actually, things were going quite well even before I arrived.

For starters, my train ride from the Cotswolds was free! The ticket office was closed in the village train station and there were no automatic ticket machines at the station, so a sign informed me I'd have to buy my ticket on board the train. Well, I waited and waited for a conductor to come around so I could buy a ticket, but no one ever did. I have integrity, but I wasn't going to buy a ticket once the train ride was over and I was in London. That one's on you, First Great Western. SCORE! Money saved: $53.

Then I had to take the tube from Paddington Station to my hostel. In Oxford I'd met another traveler who was coming from London, and when she found out I was headed this way she gave me her Oyster card (the commuter card for the Underground). "I don't know how much is left on it," she said, "but I don't need it anymore." Turns out there was £5.80 left, which was good for at least a couple free tube rides. DOUBLE SCORE!

Since then things have continued on quite well. The hostel is nice, my roommates are cool (half of them, anyway), the weather is sunny and mild, and yesterday I had a nice day wandering around the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, and Somerset House (all free!) and shopping/browsing in Piccadilly Circus and Covent Garden.

Woke up feeling a bit under the weather this morning, but three pieces of plain toast later I'm feeling like a human being again. Grabbing lunch with Sede, a fellow English department thesis-writer who's doing her grad work in London, and then tonight I'm seeing Matilda in the West End, so today's shaping up to be pretty awesome as well.

I'm still looking forward to coming home, though not quite as desperately as I was. I love London, and returning here felt like a mini-homecoming in a sense...partly because I have my bearings and can remember enough about the city to find my way around fairly well, but also because I just get that homey, familiar, welcoming vibe from London. It's tops on my list of "Dream Cities in which to Live Someday," perhaps (gasp!) even higher than my beloved Lyon.

But things are winding down, I'm taking it a bit easier (it's nice not having to pack up and move every other day...at five nights, London is my longest stay on this whole trip), and things are going quite well.

Also, I think I saw Christopher Eccleston on the tube. (Either that or he has a very convincing doppelgänger.) in any case, London > Paris.

Paris: A Really Un-Funny Comedy of Errors

May 18, 9 pm

Arrive at hostel after lugging backpack through the rain, following iffy directions from GoogleMaps. Reception informs me that instead of two nights I've booked in the eight-bed mixed dormitory, I've been assigned one night in a six-bed female dorm and one night in the mixed, which means I'll have to check out in the morning, shove all my stuff into a locker in the hostel basement, and then re-check-in in the evening.

The sole consolation I get from the receptionist: "Usually the six-bed room is more expensive, but we'll only charge you for two nights in the eight-bed dorm." You'll only charge me for the services I actually ordered?! Wow, that's big of you. Thanks.

9:15 pm

Arrive in room to find that bed A, the bed I've been assigned, is taken. Bed C appears to be the only available bed in the room. So I take bed C.

May 19, 1:25 am

Awoken by hostel employee shoving some sort of check-in paperwork in my face and demanding "Is this you?!" in French. The form belongs to the person who apparently belongs in bed C. I summon all the French I have available in my mentally muddled state and try to explain the situation. Considering that I had been fully unconscious not one minute earlier, I think I do a pretty good job. Hostel guy is unimpressed and says--rather snottily in my opinion--"En fait, le lit etait disponible," which means, "In fact, the bed WAS available."

Oh, was it really? Sorry, it's clearly MY fault that no one changed the bed and it therefore appeared to be in use. I should have used my PSYCHIC POWERS. My bad.

1:30 am

Hostel guy goes to get fresh sheets for the other bed for the girl who was supposed to be in bed C, and I check the time and promptly freak out because I think it's 1:30 in the afternoon and that I overslept by six hours. (In my defense, the room was very brightly lit and I HAD BEEN UNCONSCIOUS FIVE MINUTES AGO.) Once I figure out it's 1:30 am (after the other people in the room enlightened me to this fact) I crawl back under the covers, now both a time-telling dunce AND a bed-stealing jerk.

8:30 am

Oversleep.

9:30 am

Set off for the Catacombs, the one thing I want to do most in Paris--and possibly on this trip. You can't get me down, Paris! I still have the Catacombs! (OMINOUS FORESHADOWING)

10:00 am

Metro police kick everybody off the metro because the line is going out of service due to construction. Were there signs about this? Sure, but they all said the line wouldn't be affected until four or five stops later. Good one, France.

10:05 am

After many flights of stairs and two MOVING WALKWAYS I finally make it to the subway platform of the line to which I'm transferring, just in time to see the train pull away. Fabulous!

10:12 am

FINALLY get on the right metro. Catacombs, here I come!

10:25 am

Start wandering around the square looking for the Catacombs, which are supposed to be RIGHT THERE.

10:35 am

Still wandering, but on a boulevard now.

10:45 am

STILL wandering, and now I'm nearly back where I started. Time to pull out the map.

10:50 am

Found them!

10:50:30 am

Found the sign that says "The Catacombs will be closed Sunday, May 19." There is no explanation offered.

10:51 am

Fighting the uncontrollable urge to cry in public in front of strangers. Also zipping through the five stages of grief, except I keep getting stalled on anger and denial and seem unable to land on acceptance. This was the thing I wanted to do most on this trip! It was basically the reason I came to Paris, and I checked the hours of operation a million times! This cannot be happening!

11:00 am

Stalk back to the metro station, quite tempted to just go back to the hostel and nap forever. Decide to check out a Sunday market, swing by the Mosquée de Paris (Paris Mosque) which is supposed to be pretty cool and unique, then go to Sainte Chapelle if I'm feeling up to it. I give myself full permission to mope and wallow in self pity once these things are done.

11:15 am

Sitting sulkily on the subway, I become convinced that I am going to be mugged today, because hey, why not? Also that I am going to miss my flight tomorrow, lose my passport, and spend the rest of my trip in the American Embassy trying to get my life together.

11:30 am

Arrive at market. Eat a pretty good galette (a savory crepe, basically). Am feeling a bit better.

12:25 pm

Start wandering around, casually searching for the mosque, which is in the same neighborhood as the market.

12:45 pm

Found it! There it is, towering about a block or two away.

12:55 pm

Oh hey, can I check out the mosque? NO, because it's closed from 12-2. What the actual hell. What is this day?!

By 1:00 I had lost all faith in Paris. As far as I was concerned, it sucked. Worst city on the planet, and it obviously hated me. But 1:00 proved to be a turning point. Don't worry, this story has a happy ending!

Well, happyish. Spoiler alert, I never get to see the Catacombs. But I get to see some pretty cool other stuff. That story (with pictures!) will be posted soon.

Until then, let's leave me sitting forlornly on a bench in the Jardin des Plantes under a cloudy sky. It's more dramatic to end that way.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Technical Difficulties

Hey, guys, greetings from Oxford! It's been awhile!

The reason, aside from sheer laziness, that I haven't updated in what seems like eons is that I managed to fry both my ipad charger and my universal plug adapter in one go. The technology-frying venue? A hostel five miles from the nearest small rural town, and hours from any major technology-selling city. I was also there for three days. (Sad trombone/trumpet/whatever-instrument-that-is noise.) I had also pre-paid for three days of wireless internet access on a device that no longer worked. (Sad noise again.)

So my first order of business this morning in Oxford was amending that situation. I needed an ipad cord and a plug adapter, and I figured in a university city like Oxford it would not be overly difficult to find either.

I started by asking at the hostel. Sometimes hostels will have plug adapters, seeing as their client base consists almost entirely of poorly-prepared foreign tourists. No luck. The guy at reception even checked the lost and found for me to see if I could snag somebody else's abandoned power adapter, but alas, it was not to be. So I did some googling on the hostel's computer and then set off.

My research, however, had not extended to getting directions to the possible vendors of said items. So after I hit the Staples that was literally steps down the street from the hostel, the universe was like, "Should have prepared more, suckaaaa! Enjoy wandering around the least picturesque parts of Oxford!"

I went to the train station, as I remembered seeing plug adapters in stores at other stations. As luck would have it, the convenience store at the station--the one selling magazines and candy and generic Oxford souvenirs--had a universal plug adapter. I bought it and tore that sucker open only to realize that it was converting British plugs to every other type of plug in the world, when what I needed was the EXACT OPPOSITE of that. This led me to two (very legitimate, I think) questions:

1. How can one bill such a product as a "universal adapter" when it clearly only works for people whose universe happens to be based in the UK? I mean, I know "the sun never sets on the British empire" and all that, but "universal" and "convenient for British people" are really, really not the same thing. Down with all remaining vestiges of imperialism!

2. Why, why, WHY would you need to buy an adapter for OTHER COUNTRIES in Oxford? If you are in Oxford or traveling through Oxford, odds are pretty good that you are going to be in the UK for the foreseeable future, as it is not a border town (the UK has no border towns, it's an island, guys!), nor does it have an international airport. Is Old Joe Englishman just wandering through the train station one day like, "Dum diddly dum, must kill some time in Oxford before my train to another equally British town. Maybe I should buy a plug adapter so all my electronics will work in Africa, Asia, and/or North and South America! It never hurts to be prepared, cheerio!"

So I spent £19.99 (that's like $35 for those of you keeping score at home) for a plug adapter that was literally just as useless as the one it was meant to replace. In fact, it turned out to be EVEN MORE USELESS (more on that in a sec). So I was quite unhappy. I chucked the packaging in a bin in a manner so perturbed that it clearly marked me out as an Ugly American (TM) and not a Polite, Proper Brit. Then I stalked off down Botley Road because there was an electronics store located at 3 Botley Road Retail Park. In my mind, this meant that the retail park would be located at 3 Botley Road. The British had another idea and said retail park was nowhere to be found. So I stomped back up the street in search of the Westgate Shopping Center, where an Apple dealer was located, thinking that maybe I could at least replace the ipad cord.

And then I had a horrible thought: what if ipad minis weren't in wide release in the UK yet? What if the cord just wasn't sold overseas?

This trip is sucking, I thought. I am so tired of being a grown-up and having to deal with all the--my mom reads this, so I'll censor--muddyfuddling poo life throws at me. One day with no problems! One day! That's all I ask!

The adult, logical part of my brain stepped in and tried to smooth things over: "It's okay. Stop and think: you're in Europe on a backpacking trip for a month. Do you know how many people would kill to have an experience like this? Are you seriously going to let a dead ipad and a rapidly depleting camera battery ruin everything? Just because you can't take a million pictures everywhere you go doesn't mean you've seen or experienced it any less."

Shut up. What are you, my mom?!

"Hey now, there's no call for that. Your mom is a lovely lady and you didn't get her anything for Mother's Day AND it's her and Dad's anniversary today and what have you done? NOTHING.* You are not winning the Daughter of the Year Award, stop lashing out."

I'VE GOT OTHER STUFF ON MY MIND, OKAY?! LEAVE ME ALONE!

It was an unpleasant walk down Park End Street because I was giving myself the silent treatment, which was obviously awkward. But I did manage to locate the Westgate Shopping Centre on a bus station "You Are Here" map, so there was that.

Made it to the shopping center (CENTRE, sorry, Great Britain) and was immediately shown an ipad mini cord exactly like the one I needed. Sweet Jesus in heaven, a miracle! While I was there I asked the salesguy where I might find a universal plug adapter. He recommended Argos, a store across the street, and, failing that, Curry PC World in the shopping center--CENTRE! ~~Dammit!~~ Gosh dang it! (Sorry, Mummers)--a block away.

That being settled, I went into Primark, the discount department store across the mall corridor, and engaged in some serious retail therapy. Let it be known that I generally despise clothes shopping. You can get about ten minutes of browsing out of me before I'm like, "Take me either to food or a bookstore, 'cause I ain't havin' no more of this. Uh-uh." (I get sassy when presented with the prospect of an afternoon spent among clothes racks.)

However, today I walked into Primark and was like, That's blue. I'll take it! This one has side cut-outs, which will undoubtedly not flatter my body type. I'll take it! This one isn't even the right size. I'LL TAKE IT!

I filled up a bag with a LOT of clothes and then actually tried them on, where cold logic prevailed: "Sweetheart, this makes everything about you look saggy and sad. I don't care if you like the pattern, you cannot buy that."

Even so, I spent £55 ($90...eek) on three dresses, a pair of pants, a shirt, a comb (I lost mine), hair elastics (I'm down to one really stretched-out one), novelty bobby pins, a blingy necklace, and a mud mask in a hermetically sealed pouch. You know how people say you should never grocery shop when you're hungry? You should never go clothes shopping when your entire wardrobe for the past month has consisted of the same three outfits worn over and over, sometimes for days in a row. (Yep, that's right, I've officially become THAT person. Sometimes I don't feel like digging around in my backpack for a clean top, so I just wear the one I wore yesterday or, if I'm feeling particularly lazy, I just put a bra on under my pajama top. Voila! Dressed and out the door in five minutes!)

Primark cheered me up (I mean, the deals! £55 for all that stuff?! What a savvy shopper!), so I headed over to Argos feeling confident, only to have my bubble of happiness punctured by the lady behind the counter. Upon examining the dead adapter I'd lugged along as a visual aid, she said, "No, I've never seen anything that looks like that. Ever." (Fab.) So off to Curry's PC World in the OTHER mall in the middle of downtown Oxford.

I had much more luck here; although I was doubtful about the adapter that was shown to me, as it did not have any clear-cut spot for American plug prongs, the salesguy assured me that American plugs would fit into the holes on the adapter. "I've sold millions of these to millions of people," he said, which seemed like a bit of an overstatement but I just rolled with it because MY ICKY ERRANDS WERE DONE AND NOW I COULD SIGHTSEE IN OXFORD!

I was so excited about this that I accidentally shoplifted two postcards from a knick-knack store down the street. I made it all the way to High Street before I noticed and walked shamefacedly back, expecting every second to be tackled by a stereotype of a British bobby and thrown into British jail (GAOL, sorry Brits, I'm the worst) where, with any luck, I would at least be given a free cup of Earl Grey. But once I'd paid my £1.40 (quite the heist I'd pulled off there) my day remained mostly crisis-free. Until...

Until I got back and tried to plug my camera charger into the adapter. It wouldn't go in.

It'll be kind of hard to describe, but I'll give it a go. The actual slots in the plug adapter are, for reasons unknown to me, in-set into the design of the device. Imagine the adapter in the shape of a Roman arena (ie, the Colesseum), and the slots are at the lowest part in the middle where Russell Crowe yells "ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!"

I was not amused, as it turns out, because my camera battery charger does not have, like most appliances, a plug attached to a cord that will easily fit within the walls of the arena. Instead, the prongs stick straight out from the back of the rectangular charger, and the rectangle shape was preventing the prongs from reaching far enough to connect in. It was the Three Stooges "poke-in-the-eyes" gag but without any of the amusement that usually accompanies physical comedy.

Since my camera charger was the only device for which I needed the adapter, I was pretty unhappy about this. (All my Apple devices can be charged at a computer.) But then a stroke of genius combined with a stroke of luck.

My old universal adapter, the one that I murdered, had a bunch of interlocking pieces that could be used in various combinations depending on what country you were in and where your electronic item was from. (It, unlike the adapter I got at the train station, was truly universal. Just saying.) By a stroke of luck, the American-to-European plug piece had not been in the adapter at the time of the murder, so it presumably still worked. And the charger I'd just bought had a spot for Euro plugs. Success!

And now I'm sitting at the hostel's PC charging my ipad (it does not like the new cord very much, as it insists that it is "Not Charging" when it, in fact, is), and all is right with the world--for now, anyway. I'm sure that tomorrow will bring some new challenge and all I can say is, "Universe, ~~I am ready. Bring it on!~~ Please don't hurt me. Yesterday I cried over a U2 song on a bus. Leave me alone."

*HAPPY 25TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY, MOM AND DAD!!!!!

Sunday, May 26, 2013

...And Then I Fell Into an Alternate Dimension

The long-awaited (?) tale of my further adventures in the mountains.

Last Sunday, the twelfth (still behind on the blogging, sorry, guys), I took the train to Montpellier from Marseille to meet up with my relatives. My Aunt Linda, Uncle Ed, cousin Chris, and his girlfriend Stephanie have all been visiting my cousin Nick, who lives in Montpellier. The five of them have been traveling around France but were making a stop in the city for about three days, and I had arranged to meet up with them there.

We were all sitting at dinner when Chris asked me what my weirdest experience so far had been. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I realized I had a truly bizarre backpacking story; I was only surprised that I hadn't thought of it right away.

Things had started innocently enough. I'd been sitting in Sospel after my hike up Mount Agaisen. It was around two o'clock, I think, and the next train back to Nice would not arrive for nearly two hours.

I did, however, have a train schedule in my bag, and some investigating revealed that there was a train going in the opposite direction that would be by in about forty-five minutes. "Hmmm," I thought. "Now that's a possibility."

The truth is, I felt like I was not being nearly impulsive enough on this trip. Planning was, of course, necessary in order to see everything I wanted to see on a reasonable budget, but I felt like my tight schedule was keeping me from the quintessential backpacking experience of just hopping a train a going somewhere, anywhere. So I decided to be impulsive and hop a train. It wouldn't cost me anything extra, since the day's travel had already been covered by my rail pass.

I checked the guidebook pages I had stored on my ipad for some guidance as to where I should get off. The only relevant town mentioned was Saorge. "Saorge is the prettiest spot in the Roya Valley," the guidebook gushed. "Set in a natural amphitheater high over the river, its slate-roofed houses are tiered between narrow alleys in the style of a typical stacked village."

Sounds cute, I thought, and one of the train stops on the schedule was Fontan-Saorge. Awesome!

If only I'd thought! If only I'd known!

I took the train to Fontan-Saorge, looking forward to checking out some slate-roofed houses in a natural amphitheater. What I got was a barren wasteland...in a natural amphitheater.

Things seemed okay when I first stepped off the train. I mean, the conductor didn't do anything like ask, "Really? Are you SURE?" when I got off, and there were a bunch of other people disembarking as well, which would seem to imply that Fontan-Saorge was, at the very least, not an undesirable location. But once the train had pulled out of the station, things got REALLY different REALLY fast.

First of all, all the other passengers hightailed it to the parking lot, got into waiting cars, and cleared out of there as quickly as humanely possible, leaving me standing in the middle of the cracked, empty pavement all by myself. If we'd been in a cartoon there would have been a giant dust cloud that cleared to reveal me standing alone in the parking lot as some stray tumbleweeds drifted by.

Second, the train station was locked and empty. It looked as if no one had been inside in quite awhile. Weird, but not SO weird, since a lot of the smaller train stations are locked up most of the time.

But things got weirder. Now that I was by myself, could take full stock of the situation. The train station, unlike most French train stations, was not located in the middle of town or even on the outskirts of it. It was unceremoniously plunked down between two towns, and my only guidance was a signpost with two arrows, one pointing to Soarge, one pointing to Fontan. There was no mention of the distance to either.

I walked to the sign and looked around to get my bearings. To the left, the road went through an underpass built to accommodate the train tracks and then swerved around a corner, so I couldn't see anything beyond it. To the left, the road to Saorge entered what appeared to be a fairly long tunnel dug into the mountainside. I had no desire to be hit by a car while walking through a dark tunnel, so that narrowed down my options considerably.

And then: oh happy day! There was a hiking trail going up the mountain, away from the road. This seemed like a godsend, since I was starting to feel sort of uneasy and exposed standing alone on the road next to what appeared to be an abandoned train station. I set off up the path.

It was immediately clear that this trail was not nearly as well-traveled or maintained as the GR 52 in Sospel. It looked less like a hiking trail and more like a path that animals or errant hikers had created accidentally. Branches and thorns crisscrossed the pathway, which was overgrown with grass and weeds. I soldiered on anyway, despite my realization that this steep, pretty exposed path would be difficult to hike back down without falling on my butt.

Adding to the general Twilight Zone atmosphere was the natural amphitheater aspect of things. While it was kind of cool in theory, in practice the amphitheater meant that all the sounds from miles around felt like they were being bombarded straight at me. I kept thinking I was coming upon a waterfall or something, but it was really the sound of the river far below being projected into the mountains. The distant highway made it sound and feel like I was going to be run down by an eighteen-wheeler at any second.

I kept climbing until the path simultaneously entered a patch of woods and turned a corner. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by a totally illogical, primal fear, like when you turn off the lights and you suddenly think, "What if there's someone lurking in here with me?!" Obviously, it's crazy and unfounded, but it's one of those feelings that's hard to ignore.

"What if there's a crazed mountain man behind that corner?!" I thought, freaking myself out even more than I already had. "What if there's a yeti (or whatever the Alpine equivalent of a yeti is), but instead of being shy and gentle it has an insatiable hunger for human flesh?!"

"That's stupid," said the logical, adult part of my brain. "There is no yeti or mountain man back there...but if it's all the same to you maybe just go with your gut and turn around anyway."

Even the LOGICAL, ADULT part of my brain was freaked out. This is what Fontan-Saorge has done to me!

I got back down the mountain more quickly than expected with the aid of a branch that I used as an impromptu walking stick, but when I got to the bottom I still had forty minutes before the train to Nice came to return me to civilization, where people hardly ever have to worry about yetis or mountain men.

So I walked up the road toward Saorge, past an abandoned basketball court and a deserted tennis court. A car stopped and the driver asked if I wanted a ride. "Non, merci," I said, heart hammering, before turning around and walking in the opposite direction, looking more and more like a mentally confused vagrant with every passing moment.

I walked through the underpass and around the corner and was treated to view of a town I assumed to be Fontan, which was just far enough down the road to make walking there pointless given how much longer I had before my train arrived. So I decided to just walk back to the train station and hope for the best. When I got there I saw three teenage girls sitting on the platform waiting as well, which made me feel ever-so-slightly more secure. I sat down on the next bench over. We waited.

Just when the feeling of having been dropped into some Twilight Zone-y parallel universe was beginning to abate, two skinny, mangy dogs came trotting up the train tracks, looking for food. They had collars with string leashes dangling off of them--but there was no sign of their owner. At all.

The scaredy-cat part of my brain and the logical adult part of my brain, for once in perfect agreement, clutched each other for dear life and cried, "Dear God, we're going to die in a post-apocalyptic wasteland surrounded by scavenging dogs and snotty French teenagers and probably a mountain man and a yeti! WHYYYYYYYY?!"

This anecdote has been pretty amusing when I re-tell it over dinner with my family or via Skype to my best friend, but let me assure you that it was pretty darn unsettling at the time. I mean, I could recognize the humor as I was experiencing it--the dog thing: really?! I couldn't have planned a better capper to the whole experience if I'd tried--but it's harder to appreciate the humor when every instinct in you is going, "Nope. Nope. Nuh-uh. I DO NOT LIKE THIS ONE BIT."

When I look back at the whole thing, it almost feels like a dream I had. You know what I mean, the sort of dream where everything sort of makes sense but seems really...off, and then once you wake up, you feel very strange and on edge?

Yeah, it felt like that. Thank God I woke up.

Friday, May 24, 2013

Caffeine 1, Renee 0

In case you did not know it, guys, I'm a lightweight. I had a pint of cider--with dinner!-- last night, and before I was even finished, I was in no state to do things like drive or operate heavy machinery. I wasn't drunk, but I was well on my way there. Off a PINT. Of CIDER. Like I said, lightweight.

But I'm also a caffeine lightweight, too. Betcha didn't even know that was a thing, but it is. Ohhhh, it is. I'm super-sensitive to it. I had to stop drinking Mountain Dew when I was sixteen because it made me act like a really, really energetic drunk. The final nail in the coffin came when I drank a can of Mountain Dew and then kept incessantly challenging those nearby to race me to various area landmarks ("Let's race to the flag pole and back! Come on, it'll be fun! I'm winning! I'm winning! Hahahaha, run faster, loser! Just kidding, I'm STILL WINNING!").

I also had to stop drinking chai tea lattes after 4 pm because I realized they were keeping me up literally an hour after I would attempt to go to bed. This was a much greater sacrifice than the Mountain Dew, because chai lattes are infinitely more tasty. (Your heartfelt pity is appreciated, thanks.)

But today in Edinburgh I learned about a drink called Irn-Bru, which our tour guide jokingly referred to as "Scotland's OTHER official drink" (aside from whiskey, obviously) and touted as being a Scotsman's go-to hangover cure.

"It's full of sugar, full of caffeine, and full of quinine, which is a mildly addictive painkiller," he told us. "In the U.S. it's a controlled substance."

"Sounds like something I should drink and then blog about!" I said to myself. "I wonder if I have a greater tolerance for caffeine than I used to. Experiment time!"

So I bought myself a can of Irn-Bru. It cost 39p, or about 65 cents. Quality stuff here.

I would like to quote to you the ingredient list--and accompanying WARNING LABEL--in its entirety:

INGREDIENTS: Carbonated water, Sugar, Citric Acid, Flavourings (Including Caffeine and Quinine), Preservative (E211), Colours (Sunset Yellow & Ponceau 4R), Ammonium Ferric Citrate (0.002%).
Sunset Yellow & Ponceau 4R: may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children.

!!!

Like I said, quality stuff.

But I drank it anyway. I did it for you guys! This is an act of self-sacrifice so you never have to let something as suspiciously innocuous-sounding as "Sunset Yellow Colouring" ever enter your body.

It tasted like orange soda and bubblegum flavoring mixed together. If this sounds only barely appetizing to you, it's because this is only a barely appetizing beverage. After the first couple sips the flavor became sort of moot and I would mainly just call it bubbly, cold, and wet.

I wasn't even halfway through the can before I caught myself drumming my fingers against it at a pretty rapid clip. Fifteen minutes later I had drunk face going on. "Drunk face" is what I call the numbed sensation that creeps over my mouth, nose, and cheeks once I've had anything beyond a couple sips of alcohol. This was mildly surprising and slightly disconcerting.

I couldn't finish the can and threw it out while there was still a quarter cup of soda left. The aftertaste was still present ten minutes later but other than that I seemed to be suffering no other ill effects. I was a little disappointed at the anti-climactic nature of it all, as I had been hoping for some caffeine-induced hijinks to ensue. (Hijinks generally make for entertaining blog posts.)

An hour after I had drunk the Irn-Bru, I started having hot flashes in my stomach. Weird, but then they spread over my body. I had two or three really decent, fevery hot flashes. Odd, but then they subsided. I was still surprised at how I'd gotten off scot-free, so to speak (ha! Scot!).

The afternoon progressed normally until I realized around 5:30 pm that I'd been stifling an inexplicable urge to weep uncontrollably for the past half-hour or so. And that I was tearing up over army uniforms in the Scottish War Museum--not exactly normal behavior for me. By the time I'd reached the gift shop I realized that my hands felt so limp it was like they were two floppy vestigial appendages uselessly attached to my wrists. This might have been the result of being out in the chilly Edinburgh weather all day, but I've been sitting indoors typing this for a good forty minutes and I've still got some seriously shaky hands.

Perhaps chasing the Irn-Bru with a hastily-downed half-pint of Magners at lunch was ill-advised. Maybe combining a depressant with a stimulant has been the thing that has kept me from challenging strangers to foot races on the Royal Mile. Either way, I can safely say that Irn-Bru and I are not friends and will never be so, and that it has successfully beaten me even as it ostensibly protects me from malaria (thanks, quinine!).

But now I need to pop off and get dinner somewhere. I'm actually getting pretty tired of eating out but the closest grocery store appears to be a bit of a hike from here. What's more is that I seem to be hurtling headlong toward a caffeine crash despite never having actually experienced the caffeine buzz that's supposed to precede it. What's a girl to do?!

Eat chocolate I have hidden in my backpack somewhere? Ehhh, sounds like a plan!

EDIT: The night that followed this one was noteworthy not only for the fact that it took me AGES to fall asleep but that my stream-of-consciousness thought process was approaching James Joyce levels of insanity. "Scotland Scotland I wonder what movies are playing these days if I were in a movie I'd be pink dress big grin dog on a leash Scotland Edinburgh murderers be crazy I wonder what drives people to become serial killers vampires dogs on leashes shouldn't have drank that soda drank drunk oh geez my grammar is horrible laundry okay stop. Slow down. This is just the caffeine, take a deep breath. This is crazy. Crazy. Crazy like serial killers I wonder what makes people become serial killers I wonder who thought up vampires pink dress I want a pink dress I don't have a pink dress Confessions of a Shopaholic Legally Blonde VAMPIRES!!!"

It was a long night. I recall there being a lot more random insanity, but for the life of me I can't remember what it all was. I think it might be better that way.

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Sightseeing in Prague? CZECH.

Okay, awful pun, I know. You know what the only appropriate response is? PRAHAHAHA.

So it's my second day in Prague/Praha (first full day, really) and BOY did I do a lot of sightseeing. It was a great day, though, and I felt much better/more confident than yesterday, when I sort of felt like I was the guy in the third verse of "You Can Call Me Al."

The morning started out overcast and drizzly, so my umbrella and I left at around 10:15 to meet up with the free tour that leaves the Old Town Square at 10:45. By the time I'd made it into town it was POURING, so I was quite happy to have my umbrella with me.

I wasn't thrilled about the rain or anything, but Prague is one of the things on my itinerary that I wouldn't mind having wet weather for. I'd much rather tote an umbrella around Prague than on a hike in the Alps or the Cotswolds.

We covered a TON on the tour, which lasted into early afternoon, and then I decided to take the Castle Tour in the afternoon, which covers the part of the city on the opposite side of the river. It ended up being a really good choice, so hooray.

Prague is actually a very interesting city. Architecturally, it came through World War II with almost no "casualties"--the Old Town Hall was destroyed by a Nazi bomb just days before Prague was liberated (or, if we're going to be real about things, we'd say that it was just days before Prague was taken over by the Soviets instead of the Nazis). Otherwise, the city has tons of buildings that have survived for literally a millenium.

We visited a whole bunch of these (I was walking around from 10:45 until after 6, with only a couple of 20-minute breaks in there) so there's no time to talk at length about them--or even mention all of them. I'll try to cram as many as I can in, though.

I unfortunately cannot remember the name of this church on the Old Town Square, but it's noteworthy (among other reasons) for its "Adam and Eve towers," meaning that one (Adam) is bigger than the other (Eve). The explanation is that Adam is meant to protect Eve from the elements, but it's actually more likely that two work crews working with inconsistent measurements were the cuprit (so says my tour guide, anyway).

Church and statue of Jan Huss in the Old Town Square

We stopped by the astronomical clock, a must-see Prague site. On the hour, the clock comes to life as figures of the twelve apostles parade across. Unfortunately we weren't there at the right time, but we did learn about the stationary figures on the clock, meant to represent vices--vanity and greed--along with death and pagans (the guy with the lute). The "greed" statue used to have a very stereotypical and anti-Semitic pointed beard, but it was removed because the Communists (in power from the 1940s to the 1980s) thought it looked like a caricature of Karl Marx.

Continuing around the city, we got to listen to these guys play a song written about the Vltava River, which runs through Prague.

By the time we reached the Jewish Quarter, the sun had come out and it was a beautiful day. (I haven't checked in a mirror yet, but I can tell my face is sunburned. Oh, well, it's a small price to pay for a day in Prague.)

We visited a number of synagogues constructed in several different styles and used for a number of purposes. Only the Old-New Synagogue, where the famous Golum of Prague supposedly lies hidden in the attic, still has services. The others are all museums or concert venues or the like. The Czech Republic, it turns out, has the highest number of atheists of any officially Catholic country in the world--70 percent. For that reason, many of the churches are used for a myriad of purposes as well, housing bars, restaurants, concert halls, and so on.

I'd had the chance to visit the Jewish Quarter yesterday afternoon. It was a quick visit, since it was evening and the sites run by the Jewish Museum were closing, but I did get to see Pinkas Synagogue and the Jewish Cemetery. The Pinkas Synagogue was sad and fascinating: it's inscribed with the names of the 80,000 Czech Jews who lost their lives to the Nazis during World War II. It's a really striking, impressive sight and I would have loved to take some photos, but they were not allowed. (Two other women were unfazed by this and took copious amounts of photos. I was quite annoyed by/jealous of their wanton disregard for rules.)

Upstairs there was an exhibit of art produced by children while they were imprisoned in the Terezin concentration camp. It was really moving, especially since each drawing with a known artist was accompanied by their date of birth and death--and a lot of those dates were far too close together.

Outside, the Jewish Cemetery was an odd combination of peace and chaos, as the headstones all compete for space. Since Judaism forbids cremation and Jews in Prague were not allowed to be buried outside the ghetto, bodies in the cemetery had to be layered on top of one another, making the cemetery rise above street level and leading to a mish-mash of stones jockeying for positions in the tiny graveyard.

The Jewish Cemetery

But back to the sites we covered today. In the afternoon we went across the river to the so-called "Lesser Quarter," where many nobles once had their homes. (Today most of the buildings are owned by the state or are home to foreign embassies.) The gardens of Valdštejnská zahrada, which are free and open to the public, are steps from the entrance to the Malostranská metro station (such a weird juxtaposition...to me, anyway).

Valdštejnská zahrada. There are peacocks living in the gardens!

We took a tram up the hill. (Prague is built on seven hilltops, and some of them--this one, for example--are doozies.) Our first stop was a monastery famous for its beer. The monks no longer make it themselves, but a brewery on-site uses the same recipe. I did not partake in any beer-drinking due to my general dislike for it, but I really debated it for awhile because hey, in the Czech Republic you've gotta try the beer, right? I ultimately decided against it because I was running low on cash (many places here still don't take credit cards) and didn't want to find another ATM.

We headed for Prague Castle, stopping on the way to admire the Loreta, a shrine to the patron saint of women in bad relationships. (As our tour guide noted, there really is a patron saint for everything.) Loreta wanted to be a nun, but her father forced her to marry. The night before her wedding, she asked God to prevent it. The next morning she had a full beard and her husband-to-be was like, "Awwww hell to the no!" The story ends with Loreta dying anyway, so it's still a downer, but hey, at least she scored a pretty pilgrimage site (a lot of comfort to her, I'm sure).

Step right up, see the amazing bearded laaaaaaaady!

Next up: Prague Castle. It's sort of a misnomer, really, because it's actually sort of a village unto itself--more like a quarter or borough of a city than a separate, private complex. We got to watch the changing of the guard, and then we explored some gardens. One of the highlights was a sort of ampitheater-in-reverse (an antitheater? DONE. Coining it now, you heard it here first). Anyway, you stand on the raised platform in the center and speak normally. Everyone around you hears your voice at a normal volume, but you hear it amplified back to you. Even though part of me suspected this was some story meant to lure gullible tourists into proclaiming "Hi, my name is ___!" in the middle of a little ampitheater (ANTITHEATER! Darn it!), I tried it anyway. And not only does it work, it's the WEIRDEST. You can't really understand what it feels/sounds like without experiencing it, but the closest description I can give is that it sounds like one of those toy echo microphones kids love. Super bizarre.

The castle grounds were lovely and lush. One of the emperors--I forget which--used them as a hunting ground. It's not an odd fact except that he would shoot the deer from his bedroom window and then make servants go and get the carcasses. Even weirder: he would dress in full hunting gear to do so. Personally, I would stay in my pajamas, but that's just me. It's not like I spend a lot of time hunting, though, so what do I know?

Inside the castle proper, we visited a few sites. The second courtyard is surrounded by buildings whose facades were all altered to neo-classical style (I think) by Empress Maria Theresa of the Hapsburgs, who thought that Prague Castle didn't look enough like a castle because it was too much of a collage of architectural styles and historical periods. Once you're through the second courtyard, you can begin to see some of the different architectural styles, like the Gothic and neo-Gothic St. Vitus's Cathedral. Construction began hundreds of years ago but was halted when the Protestant workers didn't feel inclined to continue construction on a Catholic church. The cathedral was finished in the 1920s--a fact referenced in the engravings above the door, which feature the twentieth century architects in business suits.

Let's play "Spot the Stylistic Anachronism"!

We also passed a huge building--the largest non-secular hall in Europe at the time of its construction--that was built so one emperor (sorry, they all run together after awhile) could have indoor jousting matches with his pals (oh, the royals).

We then checked out the Golden Lane, named, according to legend, after the alchemists that worked there. The houses were rented out as homes until the end of World War II, and one of them belonged to Franz Kafka. I personally can't imagine how anyone could live in these tiny houses, especially in modern times. I practically had to duck through some of the doorways, and we all know I'm no Paul Bunyan myself. But the street was very cute and picturesque.

Franz Kafka lived at number 22.

After some views of the city we checked out the site of the Defenestration of Prague (the second one, the one that in 1618 started the Thirty Years' War). There have actually been three defenestrations of Prague, but this one is the only one that didn't end in fatalities. Or it didn't end immediately in fatalities, I guess I should say, since it did kick off a war that killed 8.5 million Europeans. (The Catholics who were pushed out the window--which is what a defenestration is, in case you weren't up on your obscure methods of medieval murder--landed in a dung heap and survived. According to the Catholics, this was a miracle and it meant there were angels guarding them. According to the Protestants, the Catholics were both full of and covered in shit.) The history nerd in me LOVED this. It was worth the price of the tour ticket for that alone.

It's not as high up as I'd imagined.

Whew, it's getting late and this is long so I'll wrap things up. I know you guys really only want the pictures anyway.

So we checked out the view from the castle hill (where we were serenaded by a cellist playing the most beautiful and badass rendition of a Red Hot Chili Peppers song):

It was "Otherside," in case you were wondering.

Checked out the John Lennon Wall:

Originally painted (and painted over) in the Communist era, it contained Beatles lyrics and paintings of the band. Today it's open for anyone to decorate.

Observed this European phenomenon:

Couples inscribe their initials on locks and then attach them to bridge railings as a symbol of lasting love.

Crossed the Charles Bridge:

Possibly the top tourist attraction in Prague.

Rubbed this statue for good luck (only the right side, which grants good luck and a return to Prague. The left side gives you bad luck and apparently guarantees that you'll never return. This was one of many things I rubbed for good luck in Prague. Also on the list: golden curlicue designs and a statue's golden penis. I really ought to have the best luck ever now.):

You can't really see it in this picture, but there are two engraved panels on the base of the statue. Those are the parts you rub for good (or bad) luck.

After that I grabbed dinner with Jenny, a woman my age who I'd met on the tour, and then we walked back to the tram as the sky whipped itself up into a fairly impressive thunderstorm. Not a lot of rain, but a lot of thunder and lightning.

Ooh, ominous!

And now it's off to bed with me. I've been typing much longer than I'd anticipated (and I initially got on here to do some freelance work--aka the writing I'm actually paid for). Since I have to catch the train to Munich at 9:15 tomorrow, I should probably head to bed. I expect to sleep quite soundly tonight, but not as soundly as yesterday, when I fell asleep, exhausted and jetlagged, at 9 pm (after an hours-long struggle to stay awake for the sake of a normal, non-jet-laggy sleep pattern). There were some German guys talking loudly (one of them was mere feet from my pillow), and they had the lights blazing and were banging doors shut and whatnot, but it didn't even matter. I was dead to the world for a good ten hours and woke up feeling loads better than when I'd fallen asleep. WIN. If I can recapture even a fraction of that level of rest tonight, I will be so very happy (but it's Saturday night and people are definitely in a partying mood, so we'll see how this goes and what the noise level is like).

See you in Munich!

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

No Title Can Contain the Appropriate Level of Excitement

It's coming! It's coming! YOU GUYS, IT'S ALMOST TIME FOR MY TRIP!!!!

I leave TOMORROW for Europe and I won't be back for FIVE WEEKS!

FIVE WEEKS!

I'M FREAKING THE HELL OUT!!!! (Clearly.)

I finally managed to get my backpack down the paltry carry-on weight allowance. (Eight kilograms? Really, AirBerlin? Do you find that most of your passengers tend to carry on nothing but a tiny clutch containing a single sheet of paper and, like, two saltines? What gives?) The bright side to this absurdly low weight limit is that I will have no problem trekking around with my possessions (all eight kilograms of them) strapped to my back. The downside is that I had to jettison my more stylish outfits for practical things. Now all the Europeans will know I'm a tourist. I mean, if the giant backpack didn't give it away. (Okay, so maybe I'm not that much worse off than I was.)

My rail pass and train tickets have arrived. I've got fancy-schmancy Rail Pass Insurance that will protect me from Rail Pass Thieves. I have--get this--not just any rail pass but a first class rail pass for the entirety of France! (RailEurope was running a special promotion and first class rail passes were actually cheaper than second class.) You know that this means? Do you?! It means a SLIGHTLY WIDER SEAT and SLIGHTLY MORE LEG ROOM! Because if there's one thing most 5'2 women need in their public transport, it's more leg room. Regardless, I am excited to travel across my beloved France in theoretical, if not actual, luxury.

But I haven't confined my travel preparations to simply buying train tickets. Oh no! I've been--if you'll allow me to use the technical term--"GoogleMapping the shit out of everything." And I don't mean that I plugged in some addresses for directions from the train station to my hostel (although I've done that, too). I mean I went up into StreetView and spent a morning tootling around the English countryside so I could effectively plan the hike from my really remote rural hostel to the bus station. I made my mother "accompany" me. I made up a "Walking to Town" song. I think I might be more emotionally attached to GoogleMaps than I am to some people. Believe me when I say that I'm taking this crap SERIOUSLY.

And speaking of taking things seriously, can we talk about my itinerary? It is a six-tab GoogleDoc spreadsheet extravaganza that details not only my daily activities but also contains every detail of my trains, flights, and accommodations. It has directions to and from all my hostels. There is an entire tab devoted to foods I want to eat. Basically, it is your go-to reference if I disappear and you want to tell the State Department about the activities that led to my unfortunate demise. It can also double as a plot outline for the ludicrously-named Lifetime movie that will be based on my disappearance. Let's start spitballing titles now! I like The Trip of a Lifetime--it sounds suitably melodramatic and ominous and it advertises the network right in the title! Efficient--almost as efficient as my method of knapsack-packing (roll, don't fold)!

And yet, I still have a ton to do. I have to repack my backpack, since halfway through this week I realized that I was not done wearing some of the clothes that I'd already packed. There are prescriptions to fill, checks to deposit, international data plans to figure out (damn you, AT&T, why can't anyone give me a straight answer?!), batteries to charge, and lists to double-check, triple-check, and quadruple check. I have a lot on my mind, to say the least.

But this time tomorrow, I will be somewhere over the Atlantic, (hopefully) sleeping peacefully and gearing up for what will be--for better or worse--a grand adventure.

Allons-y!