Amsterdam, Day 1

We got up early, by sheer chance as we don't have an alarm clock and got our last French pastries. Oh how I will miss thee!
Then we packed up and went to the local internet cafe where I had left my keys the night before. Luckily they were still there! They had my apartment, my luggage, everything for my entire life is on there.
The hotel we were staying at didn't have a phone (?) so we asked the guy at the internet cafe to call us a taxi and he handed me a phone number. The first one didn't work but I managed to mangle the French language long enough to order the cab.
My bags were too heavy to carry. I've now got about 30 pounds of magazines from the Archives in Paris I'm carrying around with me. The cab driver nearly had a heart attack putting it in the boot.
Our flight was delayed at Charles de Galle, our boarding gate said the destination was Madrid, there were no information boards. I think we're the first people to ever fly Air France.
When we got to Amsterdam we took the train after a very rude lady gave me attitude for 5 minutes behind the ticket counter.
Upon landing in Amsterdam, it is totally different to anywhere I've ever been.

There are rivers everywhere and bridges, the entire city is built around them.

They have tiny cars:

There are no elevators so all the houses have hooks on the top so people can use a pully to move their stuff in. This pully is about 6 stories up:

Also it's hard to take a picture of but I guess because all the buildings are so close to water they all lean. MAJORLY lean. Like a house may lean in different directions on either side of the house. It's wild.

We walked along the river after checking in. Oh, they gave us a booklet on how to find Jesus and they have free bibles. A map? 1 Euro. Internet? 1 Euro for 20 minutes. A can of Coke? 2 Euros. Jesus? Free.
They also told us about their bible services and prayer group meetings. Keep in mind this hostel is IN the red light district. There is literally hookers in the window across the street. There is no age limit here so there's some old people and a lot of unsupervised children whose parents I'm guessing like Jesus and liked the curfew.
Anyway, we walked along the river and I found a cat:



I miss my cat. He was friendly and very old, he looked about 14 or 15. The centre of town had a huge fair:

I wanted to find this shop I had seen on the net, Gays and Gadgets, and we did:

But it wasn't very good. Lots of post cards. I found one I liked, it was 2 Euros. Too expensive! They also had a collection of ceramic pigs that misbehave in different ways. My dad said "You probably want to go in by yourself" and went to get a tea but he needn't have, it was a bust.
We did some shopping.

Prices here were very good compared to everywhere else in Europe so I spent about 50 Euros and got a sweater, 2 shirts and a pair of jeans. The shirts and jeans were the European style you can only get here that people pay through the nose through back home, too. It was the first store I found that had clothes that fit me. The one in France was made for people who had not eaten in the last 2 years. The metro there is FULL of steps, I think one elescator. So let's say you want to change to a different direction within the metro. Down 1 flight of stairs, up 2, down one, 5 minute walk, down more stairs, then up, then down and you're there. I was collecting pledges. No wonder these people are thin.
Some great articture here. I love this building with the red doors:

Dinner was a veggie burger (yeah!) and then we went to the Casino. I have never gambled in my life but have always wanted to. Unfortunately these machines were not in English, any of them, but by pushing random buttons I kept winning for some reason. My dad lost instantly, every time. Every machine I played I put in 2 Euros and ended up with 4. I'm a natural. Then I dropped one on the floor and it rolled behind the machine. They discourage people from walking around on their knees under the machines for some reason.
So after the initial fun of pressing random buttons wore off, I switched to roulette, which I also doubled my 2 Euros on and finally blackjack, which I ALSO doubled my 2 Euros on. It was fun, I sat there for about 30 minutes and played, occasionally talking to two locals on either side of me, and made 2 Euros! Good time. When we got out of there it was dark and we went to the Red Light District.

First of all, the smell of pot is everywhere in the air here. Secondly, the red light district has no men. The only thing I saw with men was a couples show where they have live sex for 25 Euros. But it was a rotating schedule and they were currently on "Banana show" and I don't really want to think about that.
So you can't take any pictures and you walk down the street and there's women in bras and panties in the windows. I couldn't look after a while, I don't want to look. It seems exploitive. But if there were men, I'd be looking. Although I still don't think I'd go in.
We got back to the hostel and borrowed an alarm clock, actually a wrist watch with an alarm from the lost and found, and will be getting up at 8 am tomorrow for the Anne Frank house so I gotta go!

Paris, Day Five

Well, I'm actually in Amsterdam but I'm going to pretend I'm in Paris as I was too tired last night to organize any pictures or type anything. As I sit here in the hallway, I am surrounded by a school group of kids, about 14, none of whom seem to have any parents/guardians/manners.
So yesterday.
We started out going to the Paris Opera House:

where the Phantom of the Opera lives. Apparently he's not as big in France as he is everywhere else but someone recommended I go and I'm glad I did, it was the nicest building I've ever been in. Here's the opening hallway:

and a small shot of the interior:

It was cool, all the red divisions are separate boxes lined in red velvet. You walk in, hang your coat on the hook and you have your own private box.
This is the great hall:

Amazing place. Stunning.
I'm listening to Madonna right now, I was really stunned by the divorce news and wanted to read more but good luck. The internet here is 1 Euro for 20 minutes. I bought a British newspaper at the airport, The Sun, with the headline "Ritchie's bitchy (after seven-year itchy)" but it didn't say much. That woman needs to write a book. I brought her brother's book with my, so far I think I've read 20 pages.
Anyway, then we went to the Centre Pompideau, the modern art centre. I wanted to go there first because after the Musee D'Orsay I didn't want to be stuck in another boring museum all day at the Louvre. There was a great view from the top of the building:

And most of the art was crap, but they had a few things that really caught my attention. I thought this was really colourful:

and I love this statue, I took about 20 pictures of it.

Then we found this cool men's store with a bunch of designer stuff in it right by the gay district, about 5 floors, and we spent about an hour browsing in there. The prices were outrageous so we didn't buy anything.
Then we had dinner, I'm back on the vegetarian kick. I ate ham and felt very bad after for the pig. I love pigs. Luckily Amsterdam has a lot of vegetarian options.
So we got to the Louvre at about 7 and it closed at 10. They had intense security to get in and I wanted to have a cigarette before we went though security and my dad came up 2 flights of stairs with me and waited, without complaining. I was very impressed. I think I would have complained.
So we finally got in the Louvre. It's huge:

It's all the buildings you can see in the photo above and more.
The first thing we had to see was the Mona Lisa:

Everyone on the travel message board was saying how small it is, I didn't think it was that small.
They also had the Venus de Milo:

And they had I think the gayest statue I've ever seen:

and actually a lot of cool statues. I skipped through a lot of the rooms, like they had about 15 rooms with giant pots in them. How much pot do you need? All the religious art I skipped. They had a lot of statues, including this French layout:

It was funny, my dad wanted to see the British paintings room, it had about 7 of them. Very small. An afterthought.
When we were leaving I stopped and bought a guide book to the collection and I noticed they had a very famous gay painting of a man bathing that I hadn't seen. So we had to walk up 3 flights of stairs and to the other end of the building and ask at information and still my dad didn't complain! Wow!

It was a very cool painting.
We got home about 10, I got to talk to my mom for 12 minutes and we packed. On to part 2.

Paris Partie Trois

Another great day.
I got up about 8 and went to get us coffee and tea and 2 chocolate croissants. These are of course to die for, and we need more French pastries in Toronto.

We then went off to the Catacombs. It was about a quarter of a mile down and then a mile of tunnels under the ground. There are more bones there than you can imagine. Millions. Everyone was buried there to keep disease away from everyone else. Even the guy who wrote all the mother goose books and Cinderalla, his bones are chucked into one of the piles. It really reminded you of your humanity.

When we left the guy checked my bag to see if I had stolen any bones. I don't want to touch those things, what am I going to take one home for?

Then we went to the Musee d'Orsay. It was okay, it didn't really rock my world. The building was quite nice and the centrepiece of the building was a statue gallery which was also quite nice. The building is an old train station.

I wanted to move pretty quickly through there as classic art doesn't do much for me. I liked one statue, that's all I really remember.

Afterward, we went to les Invalides, which is shut. It's where Napoleon had his army.

In behind is his tomb, which was open and was STUNNING.

His coffin is huge:

each of his family members has a seperate room, he has a huge chapel.

It's the biggest building you can see from the Eifel Tower, it's massive.

Afterward I recognized a spot from the boat tour where they said Princess Diana had died and people left flowers. I asked someone how far away it was and she said a 40 minute walk, so we gave that up as we still hadn't been to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Now I have.

The sign advertised a 45 minute wait to get to the top but it was only about 10 minutes. It's super high up, but the pictures don't really look that different from the lower levels.

Dinner was pizza and good, then the internet cafe, where I tried to call my mom again, and AGAIN got her voicemail! Busy woman!

Then I posted yesterday's blog so I'm a day behind. Tomorrow is my last day en Paris, so I want to see the Opera house with the Phantom of the Opera and the Louvre, and Centre Pompideau. The time has flown by so quickly here I can't believe it.

Paris Part Deux

How was today day 3 already?

So yesterday after I left the internet cafe my dad and I went to the top of the Arch de Triumphe. That this is huge, massive.

It was cool at the top, it's right in the centre of town and all the streets begin from the Arch.

Afterward we had a GREAT dinner at an Italian restaurant. Vegan or vegetarian food doesn't exist here. I was told it didn't exist in Berlin, but it does more so than here. There is nothing vegetarian. You either eat meat or starve. I asked if they had a spring roll in the Chinese restaurant, "Yes, with pork!"It was nice being with the guys from the Paris Archives as they were very friendly but it was a little difficult with one speaking only a little English and the other speaking none. I find I'm able to express myself well, as I can just substitute words I don't know for other words, but when someone's talking back to me, they speak very fast and don't know what words I don't know and it makes it harder. At the end of a good day yesterday, I was ready to say goodbye to them as speaking in French all day was giving me a headache. My dad, to his credit, doesn't really try, he just rushes right in with the English and usually gets someone who can understand.

Ok, so today we got up early again and went to a cemetary near our hotel where Jim Morrison, Chopin and Oscar Wilde were buried. It wasn't on my agenda but the guys from the Archives helped me find it.The day went a little slowly as I kept stopping to smoke or blow my nose, and my dad kept stopping to take pictures. And pictures. And pictures. I believe he took 400 in the cemetary alone.

Next to Jim Morrison's grave was this cat that you could tell slept on the moss a lot as it was covered in cat hair.

He was very friendly and sat with me for about 10 minutes. I may be there with him still if I had been alone.Next was Oscar Wilde's grave. This place was HUGE, it took like 30 minutes to walk to the other end of the cemetary. his grave was covered with kisses so I kissed it, and it also had some notes and momentos from people which was nice.

Finally the grave of Chopin, about 10 seconds before 300 people showed up.

From there off to Notre Dame.

We stopped at this cool fountain first and got a hot guy to take our picture.

Notre Dame is huge from the outside, and just okay inside. It was started in 1169 and is easily the biggest church I've ever seen.

The line for the roof view was really long so we skipped it and looked around for a cafe.

We found one, the kitchen was closed at 3 pm and the waiter was rude as can be. He's like "What do you want?" and I said an "Iced tea" and my dad goes, "What do you think about the..." and he was gone. Crazy. Plus a Coke was 3 Euro 50, or about $6.

My dad bought a hat and I now refer to him as Pierre.

We then found a cruise of the Seine and it was nice to take a load off my poor feet.

The commentary was in French, English and Spanish, and it was one too many and a bit quiet, I could really not understand even her English. The only thing I caught was that when the Eiffel Tower was built it was the tallest building in the world. The only way up was 1,700 steps. Now there is a huge elevator that goes sideways and is cool.

On the way back to the Metro we stopped and watched some guys do skating tricks and I gave them a Euro.

Then off to my play. Acutally my dad stopped and bought an earing and got a pair so I'm wearing the other one. I went a long way, about an hour, including a 25 minute walk to get to the play. I got there at 7:30, picked up my ticket and couldn't find the way into the theatre. It was general admission so I wanted to be near the door but where was the door? I didn't want to chance my French and have anyone ask why I was going to a French play if I didn't speak it well so I just hung around. The show was supposed to start at 8 and at 7:58, tons of people came from the restaurant beside me and stepped in front of me in line. I thought seeing as it is a Monday night in the middle of a month long run for an author only I have heard of it would be empty but the thing was jammed to the rafters, they had to turn people away at the door. The show starts and I fell asleep. I think I would have fallen asleep if it was in English. It was a one woman show, the stage was all black, and she was standing in front of a red sign, flashing sentences like "Thomas is happy he has finished his exams" but in French. She was wearing a white jump suit and talked about how she was a famous singer and then sang like Yoko Ono. Then I woke up and she was saying how she was dead now, then I woke up again and she had her top off but no boobs. She was talking about blurring the line between man and woman. Was she born a man or just as flat as Manitoba? Don't know. When it was over I sprinted for the door.

I don't think we're going to get to the Monet house and we've fallen a bit behind on our agenda, there is so much to do here! One of the best things is the French bakeries everywhere. Delicious. I see like everyone buying a baguette but never butter or cheese. What do they do with it? Club each other?

I sent some of the items to myself that the archives gave me. They don't provide boxes for regular mail, only courier, so one box with 6 magazines was $50! It should arrive by the end of the week but I wanted it to go slow and cheap. I kid you not, there was 4 people helping customers at the post office and 20 people in line. I stood there for 20 minutes, the line did not move. Finally the line is getting ready to move and some old lady with a cane cut in front. I would be there still if the courier woman hadn't pulled me aside. So I'm going to have to do some creative packing on Wednesday night.I called my mom for 1.5 minutes, that was nice. I wish I had longer.

Gotta go to sleep! More tomorrow (hopefully, stupid internet!)