Mind the Gap Between the Platform and the Train (Adventures with MooReece and Jill con't)

London England is the BEST! Ok, so I'm just overly JACKED about the weekend that I just had. No I would not want to live in London permanently, as I would not want to live in Paris permanently - BUT London (as Jill and I are keeping score) is MAJORLY kicking Paris butt (what is it like 32-5 or something?) AND we were only in London for 48 hours or so. I can just imagine how I had the chance to hang around longer. We were speed-tourisming but our main reason for eurostarring it across the Channel was to go see Wicked the Musical. Everything else was just gravy (ok so I don't like gravy but I did have the BEST Cottage Pie EVER and it had gravy and it was FANTABULOUS!)

It surely wasn't all smooth sailing from the get-go. Before even leaving Paris I open my big mouth at lunch and tell Jill that I bring my "gift" with me whenever I travel for 2 reasons (and these 2 reasons ONLY I SWEAR!):

1) It's the 1 thing other than my passport that I'm terrified to lose so when I travel I wear it so I know where it is (you all know how paranoid I can be... this saves me the stress)

2) It's brought me good luck when travelling. I have not run into any real "travel" problems since being in Europe.

HA! That'll teach me! Don't we get to the train station only to be trying to fetch our tickets from the wrong kiosk - TWICE! And after finally asking the info desk and told to go up to Eurostar (holy DUH AMY!) we find a specific Eurostar kiosk and our tickets spit out with 3 minutes to spare before the train is set to leave (I thought they would all give me our tickets... NEVER ASSUME FOLKS - I should listen to my own rules). Little did we know there is "check-in" with Eurostar and it closes 20 minutes PRIOR to departure - we missed our train. Luckily the lady working at the counter was nice enough to exchange our tickets free of charge...who knew you had to go through airport-like security to get on this baby? Happily the next train leaves only 30 minutes later and by the time we get through security and passport control (2 more stamps!! WOOHOO) we just make it to the 3:13pm train. Arrival in London 4:36pm (it's a 2.5 hour journey but London is 1 hour behind so we gained an hour which was nice). The Eurostar is a nice train, comfortable, roomy and fast. It doesn't seem to go that fast from inside the train but we cross the Channel in 20 minutes MAX! You aren't in the dark for very long that's for sure. Super cool to go from Paris to London in less time than it takes to drive to Barrie (and just as cheap too if you get your tickets early enough). SWEETNESS!

Our first mission in London: figure out the transit system. Our 2nd mission: ABBEY ROAD! We found it without much trouble at all - a little walking never hurt no one (except our blisters) and it is a BEAUTIFUL and PEACEFUL end of town. Leaves all over the place, kind of felt like the Fall. Not too hot either for once - BONUS! It's plain to see that the locals are used to people crossing the street back and forth all day long and they are really quite patient (at least they were when we were there). There was no crowd though so that's always nice too. Jill and I each crossed and then grafitied the Abbey Studios gate wall with some love for the boys!

We had dinner in Leicester Square at Chiquitos. Yes we had Mexican in London ok? It was TERRIFIC! We then made our way back to the Hotel. What they don't tell you is that in London they use the weekends to work on the underground lines and so there are often, if not always, lines that are completely non-functioning. Luckily for us we didn't run into too many problems but we were staying near Heathrow and well it was a long haul. What a treat to stay in a lovely hotel though. Hey - when you've been sleeping on a 6 inch piece of foam for 2 months and a pillow that's flatter than a crepe - you look forward to staying in a hotel. PLUS we get continental breakfast... SCORE! AND ENGLISH TELEVISION!!!

Saturday consisted of a delicious breakfast complete with real English Bangers! :D We then headed to Madam Tussaud's wax museum but were floored to find a minimum 2 hour lineup outside. Hugely dissapointed we go search for the planetarium but can't find it so we head over to the London Eye where we spend the rest of the afternoon by the Thames. After our ride on the giant ferris wheel we go out to eat before the main attraction. We stumble upon The Albert this cute English Pub where you order your food from the bar and they bring it to you. In our case we ordered from the specials which are served from a buffet and we both got the Cottage Pie with peas and carrots. Gluttony at its FINEST! The plate was ENORMOUS and I ate every last bite. OY! :D We stuck around longer because we loved the atmosphere of the pub so much and ordered tea and sat there together and enjoyed tea time. I LOVE THE BRITISH!! What a lovely LOVELY day! Now to the theatre!

WICKED was WICKED! Nothing else can possibly describe this musical and do it justice. It is AMAZING and MAGICAL and FANTASTIC! We had goosebumps and tears and left there GLOWING we were so moved by this performance. By far the BEST stage performance I have ever been to and probably in the top 3 shows (concerts included) I've ever seen in my life. The show alone was worth the trip. Everything else was like I said - gravy. We were buzzing back at the hotel and not even tired and didn't get to bed until after 2 am I believe and had to be up early because we wanted to try and get to Tussaud's early enough. No luck - we got there but still had no time to see it so we decided to explore London some more before heading back. Another lovely day, we walked through St-James' park, seen Buckingham, Trafalgar Square, the Canadian Embassy, the Quebec Embassy?, and a building we are curious to know what it is... I also bought myself a whole pile of stuff! I know, I know... I have NO IDEA how I am going to bring everything home.

Home... now that's a sad thought. I am in denial everyone! Europe has won me over and GB has won my heart! I may be ready to go home but that doesn't mean I want to anymore. 4 more days... 4 more days..............

Guten Tag, como estas mon ami? I'm well, gracie. Tchuss! (Adventures with MooReece con't)

So many countries, so little time. My head is spinning! I spent the weekend visiting my friend Genevieve (from Sudbury) in Germany. Finally made it to the vaterland. I'm so happy I made it there even if just for a few days. My séjour would have felt incomplete without at least a pitstop in the land of my ancestors. But before I get into that, I should explain the title of this blog. For some bizarro reason, I could not for the life of me speak and stick to 1 language in Germany. Everytime I went to a restaurant, store etc and spoke to someone I kept having to pause and contemplate what I wanted to say, not because I couldn't remember the German words but because I kept wanting to speak a freaky-deaky hybrid language of Italian, French and some German. Not to mention the French and Italian tendency to say "please" when they bring you something so I kept saying "Danke Bitte" when someone would bring me something instead of "Danke Scheun". Good GRIEF my poor brain cannot keep all these languages straight. And THEN Genevieve wants to take me to the Netherlands to hear some Dutch!

European culture is so much fun. In the time it takes me to drive from Sudbury to North Bay I can drive across 2 borders and go from a region that speaks only French to a region that speaks only German and with not much of a buffer zone in between. In fact you can often clearly see the dividing line just by looking at the architecture. No I won't get into an architectural seminar right now (although I do have this new wealth of knowledge about it) but know that if you ever need to know anything about any of the buildings in Paris - you know who to call! (No, not Ghostbusters!)

After a very pleasant train ride with some entertaining and stimulating conversation with my cabin mates and a bottle of Jack, I arrived in Germany around 7pm on Friday and after looking mighty confused staring at the train schedule and REALLY CONFUSING transit map of Aachen Germany (and surroundings), a rail worker came over to ask me where I was looking to go and politely informed me I missed my train by 30 seconds or so and the next would be in 20 minutes. Note to Aachen: I would not have missed my train had your schedule been more CLEAR! And NO that's not due to my lack of proficiency in German thank you very much! I finally make it to where Im supposed to be and Genevieve comes to meet me *insert happy reunion and giant hugs here*. She cooks me dinner and then takes me to a party that could not feel more like home. Beer Pong and 25 drunken German men singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" at the top of their lungs. Not a dull moment. They were all very nice and welcoming to the foreigner and most speak English quite fluently and were more than happy to chit chat with me - this is by far my favourite passtime in Europe - talking and meeting people from every corner of the globe! I have lived such a sheltered life by comparison - UGH. A late night of catching up had us sleeping in much later than we'd planned but we still made it out the door and to the Netherlands by 1pm.

Maastrict is such a CUTE city! It is sooooo DUTCH! Everything there is like you see in the movies. It's clean, quaint and adorable. It makes you want to skip. The weather was unbearably HOT which made for an uncomfortable promenade and the town square was closed because André Rieu was performing. We didn't pick the best day to visit apparently, but I had a great time anyways AND I got to visit the world's largest bookstore inside a cathedral. HEAVEN ON EARTH! The only thing it didn't have was a Starbucks (which is where I am currently sitting as I type this up). We shopped, I bought some stropfwaffels (Mmmmmmm) and we had Thai food for dinner. We attempted the unattemptable in Canada (or anywhere else for that matter) but SOMEONE (not me) didn't have her ID! SHHHHAMMME!!!! HAHAHA Turned out to be a good thing though in the end as Gen was starting to feel ick!

Sunday was spent touring Aachen with my own personal and very knowledgeable tourguide. Again, WAY TOO HOT, I couldn't even eat my ice cream fast enough before it turned to gespacho. We decided to catch a play "Der Eingebildete Kranke" (by French playwrite Moliere) to a) escape the heat and b) because why not see a German language play while in Germany....when in Rome right? Didn't understand a word (except for the few that excerpts they kept in French - go figure). Nevertheless it was still very entertaining. We finished off the night with another homecooked meal and the world's most BORING World Cup Championship game. YAAAAWWWWWNNNN! You've never seen 5 people more restless for a game to end. Even the people in the stands looked bored out of their minds. We prayed for a shootout - at least that would have made it interesting... nope they wouldn't even give us that. Eh bin! No more foot...

Germany and the Netherlands were fantastisch! And getting to visit them (even if only for a few days) with an old friend from back home made it that much sweeter. DEFINITELY a highlight of my trip thus far. And before you ask - of COURSE I had beer in both Germany and Holland and YES I kicked BUTT at Beer Pong!

5 Days in Italy with Only 5 Words in Italian... (Adventures with MooReece con't)

Going to a country when you don't know the language is obviously guaranteed to cause you a little stress. I mean how do you find out where your hotel is? How do you find anything really? Sure coming to Europe for 2 months on my own took a little courage on my part (and a whole lot of RA-RA from my friends) but I didn't cross the ocean totally undefended - I chose France for a reason - I can UNDERSTAND the language, I can READ the language and for the most part I can SPEAK the language (at least à la Québecois - although my parisian is getting pretty good if I do say so myself). So coming here, although scary and stressful at first I had an advantage to all my counterparts as I am fluent and can easily communicate to get what I want. In Italy - not so much. Of course being 3 people and a stuffed cow makes travelling in a foreign language country much easier, it was definitely a learning experience.

I learned that if you at least try to get your point across in their language they will be much more willing to help you even if you only know the basic words. These are the 5 words that got me through my 5 days in Italy: Bonjourno!, Graci!, Prego!, Pizza, Ciao! Knowing only these 5 essential words allowed me to communicate with the Italian folk who then sympathized with the struggling tourist trying to make an effort to not look like such a tourist. AND (and I know you should never start a sentence with AND) by day 5 I was getting asked for directions - too bad I had NO IDEA what he was asking, I might have been able to help! HAHA.

Italy was a great and fun idea although we never anticipated having such difficulty getting a train to Paris from there. There is only a night train directly from Verona (at a small fortune of course). We decided to take the June 30th train and only arrive in Paris on the morning of the 1st meaning we got to spend an entire extra day in Verona. Not that we did much as it was the HOTTEST day I have EVER lived through. The Gattopardo Hotel people were nice enough to let us take refuge in their lounge all day so we could keep our luggage there and hide from the heat (although they didn't have AC down there and we still DIED!) I kept going out for walks - at least there is air outside and I got to explore the Dossobueno area. Of course I found a train station not 2 minutes from our Hotel (when we had been taking cabs and busses all week), I found a peach orchard (where I snuck in like a garden raider and stole one right off the tree :D), I found a huge sports complex, my future house and a grocery store. I enjoyed some of the best ice cream yet and relaxed on some benches to people watch. However the heat was definitely not helping my ever worstening head cold and I was slowly starting to feel the effects of minor hyperthermia so I spent the remainder of my time indoors. Italy is so very different from France, and the food is MUCH cheaper, although the variety isn't there. My biggest shock was that beer is MUCH MUCH cheaper in Italy than anywhere else AND MUCH MUCH cheaper than Wine. Wine is expensive in Italy (by comparison to France anyways...).

The midnight train from HELL! We reserved 3 beds and we should have reserved 6 just for our luggage. What a mess! We had no idea what to expect and were really hoping that we would have a cabin all to ourselves. NOPE! We board the train only to find 3 kids already in our cabin and very LITTLE room for our luggage. Did I mention my head was pounding and I was slightly nauseous? After about an hour of debating and moving stuff around we finally came up with something, not bearable but at least workable. Note to EVERYONE - if you are claustrophobic - DO NOT EVER take a night train! We managed to open up the beds but when all 6 are open, no one can sit meaning you are stuck in a coffin like position for 10+ hours with no where to go. No air circulation and you can't just open the windows or doors or move around because you have 5 other people in there with you and no room ANYWHERE because luggage is stacked in every inch of spare space. Needless to say not much sleep happened and I finally dragged myself out of the cabin around 630am and stayed out until we pulled in at around 10am. Never been so happy to get off any moving vehicly in my life! I was ready to kiss the ground - 11+ hours on a train is TOO FRIGGIN LONG!

Did I mention someone stole my money? Don't know how, don't know when... my purse never left my side and I still have my wallet (and my credit card THANK GOD!) But I took out 120Euro at the train station and when I got to my new apartment to pay the cab I had NOTHING left. Even my Canadian money was GONE! I had 10Euro, my receipts, some spare Franks from Switzerland and a bit of Euro change. I was losing it! How did that happen? Could be worst - but still a major piss off! Someone went into my wallet in 2 different places, took the money and put it back. WHAT THE???

Anyways... that's why I've flooded all your inboxes with my screaming and complaining and crying to come home! My toothache (if that's what it is is still around) but at least I'm rested and I did groceries and eating right again. Although I now have to go buy jeans because the zipper on my favourite (and ONLY) pair here is broken. FML! Going to see Les Misérables hopefully tonight if I can get tickets. It's raining so why not?

Hot compresses and talking to you all makes me feel much more normal so THANK YOU!

p.s. I really AM sorry for flooding all your inboxes with my unnecessarily long emails - but you all know me by now - and that's why you LOVE ME :) and *cough cough* MISS ME!!! Well at least I miss ALL of YOU!!!