I have a ton more to update for London, but this computer is not the usual qwerty keyboard. It is the azerty keyboard and it is making me angry trying to hunt and peck for the keys.
Anyway, we have made it to Paris! The Chunnell ride was uneventful and much less exciting than we thought, but cool none the less. Navigating the city has been pretty smooth. We have seen TONS of stuff and taken over 1500 photos. Jon is outpacing me 2 to 1 for photos.
Tomorrow morning we leave for Milan on the way to Venice. I’m really looking forward to the 13 hour train ride just so I can relax for a while. We are averaging about 400 stairs a day. Pretty sure 1/2 of the people who visit Paris need knee surgery when they get home!
We are on the lookout for new and bizarre foods. At M&S we did not eat the pork pies, but found some normal potato chips…the convenience store across the way, not so much.
The seat to my left had been empty, and then this ancient South African mofo moved to sit by his travel partner.
He complained about EVERYTHING! He yelled at the 2 stewards that his reading light wouldn’t work.
Here’s a recap: Old Mofo: YOU need to maintain these planes! I paid a fair price! Steward: I do? (like me personally?!?!) OLD: The lights aren’t working and I’m trying to read here. Steward: Oh, I’ll reset your seat for you sir. OLD: I can’t fly in the dark, I’m trying to read, and if it is dark I get nervous.
–And scene.
This is the same fucker that was wearing a sleep mask a few hours later.
We were pretty much stranded in Vancouver for the night, so we ended up staying with our friends Adam and Kelly. Totally unexpected drop in on them, but it was a good visit, and nice to see their “new” house that they’ve been in for 3 years already. New to us, not so much to them. Obviously it would have been better to have not missed our flight at all, but we met their sweet pets, Cosmo, Newton and Gilligan and saw their latest vacation photos.
The virtual safari and safari guide Kelly were absolutely amazing. Thanks Adam and Kelly for making a horrendous situation better!
We had a couple of options as to when to go to Vancouver to be ready for the airport. I REALLY wanted to leave Friday night for Saturday night’s flight. Jon wanted to leave Saturday with Coquihalla prone to closures, poor conditions and accidents, I thought we could use some buffer time. And I was right–we missed our first flight even though we got to the airport with TONS of time to spare. We were the first people to “check-in” for flight AC854 on Saturday.I passed Jane (you’ll see why I know her name later) my passport–no go. I brought my OLD one that expired in 2006. New one was at home 3 hours away in my dresser.
Needless to say, breaking all land speed records wouldn’t have even helped to get my passport to me in time to check in.
My brother had already left us at the airport. I’m pretty sure you can’t even guess how panic stricken I was. After about 100 phone calls home to my parents and making my brother turn around and come back to the airport–we confirmed that my current passport exists (THANKS MA!) and had my fazh drive to meet us in Chilliwack to do the hand off. (THANKS FAZH!)
Passport crisis over, but day 1 in London gone. Sadder.
And then I see Venice! Bet you though I was gonna say something about underpants! Tricked you.
As if anyone wants to hear about the economy right now, but it actually helped us out! Hotel prices in Venice went WAY down, so we switched our accommodation to something nicer for the same as we were already paying. (Note: We’re not going deluxe apartment in the sky, but it is still a cooler hotel and a SWEET location.) We’re staying at the Hotel Caneva which is about 2 minutes from the Rialto Bridge, and about 3 minutes from Piazza San Marco. Check out the photos of the hotel it looks pretty cute. It should be a fine place to stay for the few days we have in Venice.
Only 7 more days to go, and it is a good thing too, because we’ve changed some of our travel plans within the last week. If we had more time to look at other interesting stops, we’d be in trouble! So now instead of London, Paris, Venice, Rome. We’re doing London, Paris, Milan (train station only–because that’s where it goes!), Venice, Orvieto, Civita di Bagnoregio, Rome. Both new stops look super interesting. They’ll be a nice change after busy cities and tons of museums.
Orvieto’s Duomo and St Patrick’s Well look like they will be well worth the added stops on the itinerary. The footbridge that connects Civita to the old city of Civita di Bagnoregio is rather impressive considering there are only about a dozen people who actually live there year round! That’s quite the infrastructure for a tiny population. We have a couple more things to sort before we leave, but we’re pretty much ready to start packing up the back packs. It is going to be an amazing trip.
When we were looking for accommodation in France, one of the places that made the short list was in Montmarte near the actual café that was in the movie Amélie. If you know me, you know that I LOVE that movie! Eventually, we decided not to stay in Montmarte after all, and choose a location closer to the sites that we’re going to see. After reading a ton of reviews, and looking for location and price, we ended up booking a hotel that has a few sketchy reviews about the area it is located in. Let’s hope it doesn’t turn into a nightmare.
Tomorrow, I’m going to re-read the travel books and make a list of places that are a must see, places that are a hopefully see, and places to fill the time if we have any left over. I’m sure between the Eiffel Tower and Versailles we won’t have much spare time. After re-reading the travel books, will be movies–Amélie for sure, and Marie Antoinette. Even though Kirsten Dunst is moderately annoying, I’d like to see more of Versailles.
How could we go to London and not do all the touristy things like see Big Ben & Parliament? And true to total geekfest style, I’ve been reading up. Of course everything you read on the wikipedia is gospel! Who knew that Big Ben’s official name is actually the Great Bell? Or that it chimes on BBC radio every hour? Or that the bell weighs 13.5 tonnes? I’m sad that overseas visitors can’t go on a guided tour of the clock tower—only locals are allowed to, and only if they arrange a visit through their MP. Anyway, I’ll be seeing it soon enough even if I can’t climb to the top.
Adventures of a couple seeing the world 2 weeks at a time.