So, I'm going to Europe for roughly a month starting May 30th. I'm doing this: Toronto > UK > Rome > Basel (Switzerland) > Paris > Montreal > Ottawa (maybe, for like, a day) > Home.
I'm going to try to post stuff here during my trip, as a kind of blog/journal/way of keeping in touch with any of you who still care. Some of my trip I'll be alone, some of it I'll be staying with friends, but I'll probably have experiences that I'll want to tell *somebody*, and I'd rather say it here than just keep it in memory. So, yeah. Stay tuned.
Well, before I get into Europe, I have to comment on a few things about Toronto. It's friggin' huge. Vancouver pales in comparison to the size of this place..well, the sense of size, anyway. Perhaps Toronto just has a more lively core area, but it's intense. And everywhere you go, you see a huge condo being built. And if Shanghai is making headlines for it's construction boom, and Toronto isn't...that's just nuts.
Manchester is ok. It's got a lot of old buildings, mixed with new buildings, but the place is really really...commmercial. Brand stores and franchises everywhere. The last day I was there, I found a neighbourhood that seemed a bit more like what I'd like to see, and ate a delicious bangers and mash meal in a cafe underneath a mod pop boutique. I still had fun, though, hanging out with Junichi and meeting some of his friends. Manchester's a lively place, there's lots of pedestrian traffic along the "shopping" streets, and there's lots of clubs going 'til after 2am. Pubs everywhere, all with tons of draught selections, but it's unfortunately lost on me (reaper and niten, you'd love it). Hehe, we played snooker at a 24 hour place in some basement that was shady as hell 'til 4am the other night. Funny, cuz we all suck at snooker. The tables are HUGE!
So anyway, I'm in Crewe, now, which is where Junichi went to school. We went to a nearby town called Sandbach to go pubbing with some coworkers of his. They were nice, but trying to follow a conversation in a loud pub with their accents was challenging. I'm afraid the ice remained thick the entire evening. I'm going on a day trip to Edinborough and Glasgow on Monday, with a bunch of international students, none of whom I've met, but it's being led by a friend of Junichi who seems like a nice guy, so it should be fun. After that, straight on to London for half a day, then I fly to Roma.
Just a quick note as I'm catchng a bus from Edinburgh to London. Edinburgh is a crazy place, full of really narrow alleys and depressing stone buildings. It is perpetually overcast here, and foggy in the morning, making things surreally Scottish. Haggis is delicious, Scotch Eggs are better at The King's Head, and IRN BRU is the 2nd national drink behind Whiskey, and tastes like bubble gum soda. I came here with a Japanese girl, 2 Greeks, an Austrian, a German, a Mexican, and got shown around by a "Scot" that was actually Icelandic. Add me, a Chinese Canadian, and not a more diverse gang of tourists could be found, I'm sure.
Rome is old. Very old, and also quite beautiful, but I'm sure you all know this. In fact, probably everyone knows this, so I guess that's why there's so many friggin' tourists here. I think my most enjoyable moment was walking up on Palatine Hill, just after it rained, in the evening (about 7pm, the hill closed at 8 i think) and there were very few people around. The sun was setting, and the view was amazing. I could feel the history, and imagined Romans walking where I walked 1500 years ago. You do that a lot, actually, while you're here. The worst moment was when I found Trevi Fountain. It's in a very enclosed area, 6 or so narrow alleyways access it, maybe only one could manage a car. So you just kind of stumble upon it, which is neat, but then you realize that there's so many people crammed into that space, all wonder of the fountain is lost. Lepers push themselves around on skateboards, begging for change. Ten guys all try to sell the same knock-off hand bags. There's even one guy selling a cheap bubble shooting gun thing, which I found particularly annoying. I could barely stand being there, so I just left after about 5 minutes, and I took one picture. It was a woman looking out from a window behind Trevi, enjoying a different kind of spectacle. The Sistine Chapel and the Pantheon were also marred by this kind of mass tourist presence, and I think I'm a little disappointed in Rome. Perhaps I need to come back when things aren't as crazy, like in the extreme off season....but anyway, I'm ready for Switzerland now. Oh, but I'm going to Florence and Venice tomorrow, which will be cool.
Oh, and a little side-story. President Bush was here, visiting the Pope, and there was a huge anti-Bush rally. I read some articles saying about 150,000 people participated. I kind of wandered into it around Stazione Termini, and went with it as it came down to the Vitorrio Emmanuelle II war monument. There were some people organized as a drum and dance troupe, costumed in orange and blue, what seemed like an improv horn section, and a gang of cyclists with a giant banner that read 'no oil, no war'. They would march with the banner facing the sky (where a helicoptor followed the rally) and every once in a while, people underneath would put a stencil to the ground and change bicycle lane markings, adding 'no oil, no war'. People watched from their windows, and the energy was so positive.
I've met some really nice folks here, especially at the hostel. I've also run into some very rude museum\security staff, and bus drivers who are no help at all. Food is good. Pizza here is not surprisingly very good, and interestingly, sold by weight. Espresso here is also very good, and I can find it everywhere. However, I'm glad to note that not a single Starbucks has been seen. .)
I am now on the last leg of my trip to Europe. I should say that Switzerland didn't get it's own post not because it wasn't a good time, but only because it had a completely different pace than the rest of Europe so far. I took my time there to recuperate, in the smallish town of Biel, birthplace of Rolex, and sex/drug capital of Switzerland. It was a very quaint town, with a lake, and hardly any backpackers in sight. I would wake up whenever I felt like it, no guilt over where I should go sightseeing, simply because there wasn't much to see, and I would go to the store and buy some bread and cheese and orange juice (and maybe a lintztorte, which is like a little raspberry pie) and munch on that while surfing the 'net. I went on a hike one morning, and it was strange because it was so close to town. We walked to the gas station behind where Mathias lived (for those who don't know, Mathias is an old Swiss-Canadian friend of mine who's about to graduate as a structural wood engineer from a school in Biel), bought some bread and sausages, then walked about 3 blocks to a burnt out building. Passing by some scaffolding and supports that held a temporary roof over the whole site (Mathias explained they probably plan to rebuild it) we went up some old stone steps. A few corners later, there was a hole carved from solid rock, and about 5m beyond the entrance, was a ravine, complete with white waer rapids. It was the kind of thing you'd expect (well, I expect) to see after a days drive, and a 2 or 3 hour hike through mountains and forest. The hike followed the side of the gorge, the path usually carved from the rock itself, moisture from the rapids below collected and dripped on our heads. About halfway through, there were road bridges built high above us at the top of the ravine, but it was too high for us to hear traffic, and the sight was mostly blocked by the canopy of trees. And almost as abruptly as we came upon the ravine, it ended at a small dam and a little Swiss Inn. We took a break and ate bread and fed a dog that came by, who lived at the Inn (we assumed, because it seemed to know exactly what we were up to stopping where we did, and left promptly when the food was gone.) We hiked up the mountain a ways, and saw some great views of the plains, with the Swiss Alps in the distance, saw small lizards sunbathing on the rocks, and eventually came down by the lake, where we soaked our feet in cold water and fed ducks the last of our bread.. We also had a big fondue party, which had more wine in it than cheese I'd swear, and I also saw a gangfight at the train station, complete with riot police armed with tear gas launchers. But enough about Switzerland, as I am now in Paris.
The flight from Switzerland to Paris was only 50 minutes. It took no time at all. By comparison, it took more time than that to take a train to central Paris, make my connection to line 7 of the metro, take it to the very end of its route, and walk to my hostel. I left Switzerland at about 4, and arrived at the hostel in time for supper at 8. What did I have for supper, you ask? Could it be crepes? Perhaps something in a rich cream sauce? Nope, it was pork bone miso soup, kimchee, and rice. I was sitting on the floor, dining with 5 Koreans and 2 Japanese travellers. Now, I expected this to happen, because of course, Asians travel. And it's not fair that they deal with English at their hostel and French while out on the town, never being able to come home to put their feet up and their electronic dictionaries down. But I wasn't prepared for how Korean it is here. The Korean food is *good*, the same or better than restaurants. The owner of the hostel, a friendly guy who wakes us up himself in the morning at 8 when breakfast is ready (and won't let us sleep in) speaks some English, but mostly speaks in Korean or with grunts and gestures. There's actually no sign outside in French or English, that would indicate that this is a hostel, only a Korean flag in a window and a small sign in Korean. So, after supper, I slept, prepared to make the most of my next day.
I began around 9, and walked until 9 again. Paris is a huge city, and I've hung out in Tokyo. I thought I'd try to walk to the core, where it's interesting, but after 30 minutes, I made it to the next station, and I was about 10 stations from where I wanted to be. I got on the train. When I got to the core, it was amazing. I walked and walked, and oh my, I found a bakery with coffee! I should say that I didn't have any coffee in Switzerland, because it was so expensive (about $4 for an espresso) or it all came from a vending machine, which I tried the first day I got there, and it was bad. So, with hot americano in one hand, flaky pastry in the other, I explored Paris, and quickly discovered prostitutes. At 11am, when cafes are setting up patios, when the air is cool and fresh, there are prostitutes. Old, young, big, small, black and white. In the span of 3 blocks, I saw dozens of them, and they weren't subtle prostitues, either. Nobody wears high heeled boots and leapard print tank tops at 11am on a Thursday. Then I saw some arches (not big ones like the Arc de Triumph, just small everyday ones) and stumbled on a street lined with nothing but clothing shops for kids. Formal wear, casual wear, costumes and uniforms (i think). I kind of felt like a pedofile. I saw some more sights, like Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, blah blah, but I have to go now because it's almost 10am and I have to check out and go to another hostel...