Complete Whirlwind!

So here is the reason I haven't written since the tour began...we basically spend an entire day on the bus and one whole day at the city we are visiting so I haven't had time to go on the internet. We are in Nice, France now. It's beautiful and one of my favorite cities so far. We started out in Paris. Seeing as how I had already seen most of what I wanted to I spent the day just revisiting some sights and getting to know my new tour mates. I have become fast friends with a few people. Chloe is from New Zealand and travelling alone also. Matt and Kane are brothers from Australia. Did I mention I am the only American on the tour?? There are a few girls from Canada and a few from London, but just about everyone is from Australia. It made me a little nervous at first, but I think I actaully perfer it this way.

After Paris we went to Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland, a tiny town outside of Bern. It was by the far the most picturesqu place I have ever seen. Every direction you look it looked like a postcard. We went to some waterfalls that we inside of this mountain that had ice glaciers on top - Juangfrau, is the name of the mountain I believe. Some of the group were going skydiving and seeing as how there wasn't much to do in this little town, we went up and bought some champagne and the guys got beer and we went and put it in the creek by where the skydiving place was and sat around and talked and drank champagne from the creek so to speak.

After Lauterbrunnen we went to Avignon, France, which is an old walled city. Not really what I pictured though. I was imagining a moat and guards. However I was not dissappointed with the city at all. It was quaint and full of culture. We went to a kareoke bar, which as you know I completely dispise, but luckily enough it was dead so we headed to the American Bar. I know, it's completely ridiculous and there really wasn't anything american about it. Avignon was just kind of a one night stop on our way to Barcelona so we woke up the next morning and left.

Barcelona was great! We went salsa dancing and walked around the city at night. I did meet someone on the trip that I ended up walking around the city with our first night, which was really romantic so when I think back on Barcelona that is probably what I will remember. We walked around during the day and saw al of the Gaudi architecture. He has this church La Familia, that has been in the process of being built for like 100 years now. With all the siesta the spanish take it may take them another 50 to finish. Chloe and I ate the entire time we were there. Tapas. Tapas. and more tapas!

We are now in Nice, France. We are heading out to the Grand Casino in Monte Carlo tongiht to gamble some. I probably won't since I would rather leave with some money. Tomorrow we are off to Italy. I have no idea where, but i know Italy for sure. I will try to write more when I can get to another computer.

I have had an amazing time so far and this has by far been the best decision I have ever made and I can't believe I have another 3 weeks to go!!

***I am having a really hard time finding anywhere that I can upload photos. I will add some as soon as I find a place to do so!

Best Day Ever...

Well not really but kind of. So, this morning I woke and decided since I had seen most of what I had wanted to see of Paris I thought I would go to see where Jim Morrison was burried. That would be fun, right? I left the hostel knowing the basic gerenal direction and hopped on the subway. On my way i remembered a discussion i had had the night before with my roommates about making sure you are always safe and aware of your surroundings. I realized about 4 stops in that I really had no idea if the area of Paris I was going to was safe, I was alone and no one knew I was going there and all the people on the subway looked a little too sketchy for me. That seemed like the makings of a bad made for tv movie. So, I hopped of the subway and got back on going back towards the hostel. maybe next time right? I was pretty bored bascially just waiting around unitl i could leave to come to the hotel to check in and lounge around all afternoon in my own room. It took me forever to find the hotel, it was raining, blah blah blah. Once I found it I went upstairs, put my stuff down and left because I was starving and needed to exchange a travellers check so I had money to eat. Please remember I don't speak French and it was probably my fault for leaving all the talking up to Andrea because I had no idea where I was going or how to ask. I went in and out of about 4 banks all of which either didn't understand what I wanted or simply dismissed me because I didn't speak French. I was so upset the tears were starting to well up in my eyes. The day had turned to shit...but wait, what did I see??? The golden arches. I couldn't believe it, I was so happy to see a McDonald's I thought "You know what, Sarah. Screw the Parisians. I have McDonald's" So I found an atm and just bit the bullet and got out some cash. I waited in line like half an hour, ordered a big mac (which I have never actually had before) large fries and a large coke. I was physically smiling as I left. It was like I was skipping back to the hotel (not really but you get the idea). I laid around a while and about an hour ago went to the grocery store across the street, bought a $2 bottle of wine, some chocolate and a baugette and am going back to take a nice long bath and watch Flavor of Love in German. This has turned out to be a pretty wonderful day. Sorry, just wanted to share.

Sightseeing

Andrea and I went to Versailles on Friday I think it was. It's amazing how easy it is to lose track of what day it is when you don't have to go to work! It was so beautiful and huge. We walked for hours through Marie Antoinette's bedroom and the Hall of Mirrors and the massive gardens. The area of Versailles is actually closer to Paris than I thought it would be and it was such a quaint little town. Andrea left on Saturday and I cruised around our area for a while and took a tour of Notre Dame. I am amazed that so many things here are free. Both Notre Dame and Sacre Coure were free. Sacre Coure is this amazing church at the top of the hill here in Montmarte. If you have ever seen a panoramic picture of Paris you will see the Eiffel Tower and then a hill with a white church on top. That hill is the area of Montmarte and the church Sacre Coure. I walked up there and sat on the steps overlooking all of Paris. It was such an awesome view and I had no idea it was even there. There were a few guys playing guitars and singing. I thuroughly enjoyed the renditions of Hotel California and La Bamba. I still find it funny that most of the bars/restaurants/cover bands here tend to play american music, yet most of the people here claim to not speak any english. Yesterday I went to the Louvre. I can't even get over how huge it was. I was there for about 5 hours and saw maybe 30 percent of the museum. And everything is really old and really important. It just makes me a little nervous that all those important artifacts are in one spot. I saw the Mona Lisa. I mean what can you say. It was cool to see it but I'm still not too sure what the big deal is, but I guess now I can say I saw it. Things are starting to get a little pricey. I bought some stamps for postcards and it was about $20. It honestly wouldn't be too expensive though if the exchange rate wasn't sooo awful right now. For the train to and from Versailles and the entrance fee to the palace, it was only 15 euro, which I didn't think was bad at all.
There are definite differences though aside from the prices. I was on the subway yesterday and there were these three little kids all definitely under the age of 9, just riding the subway - alone. I had to switch trains and noticed they got off and switched to another one. AND I saw to probably 12 year old boys smoking!!! IN PUBLIC! I know you probably think I am naive for thinking that's a big deal, but it was just too weird. Where are these kids parents??
My tour starts tomorrow so I am staying in a hotel tonight to get a good nights sleep. I will also be hand washing all of my clothes in the bathtub since it's about $20 to wash one load here and since I don't speak any french I would most likely screw it up and ruin all of my clothes so I would rather do it myself than pay money to ruin my own clothes. Wish me luck!

Paris!

We made it to Paris yesterday afternoon after a bus, plane, bus and then train. It will be nice to be in one city for a few days...my tour starts here in a week. The day was kind of a bust seeing as we didn't get out to get food until 10:30pm and of course there was nothing still open, but we managed to find a little french restaurant that we couldn't afford and went in for some cheese and wine. We were the very last people in the place (the cooks had already left, too) and we had been drinking and talking about what a crazy day it was and we were laughing so hard be were both basically crying and this really handsome guy came over (turns out to be the owner, a guy from Italy) to ask if we were okay because I guess it looked like we were upset...due to the crying. We told him what had happened that day and said we had just gotten in from Ireland and asked what we should do. He said we were coming with him, it was his friends birthday and we were going to this club on the Champs - Ellysee (I know I spelled that wrong). His friend was equally as handsome, owned another restaurant in Montmarte, the area of Paris we are staying in, and was from Italy. We drank champagne and had the most amazing time! Definitely not what we expected our first night out on Paris. We are maybe going to meet up with them again tonight to go out, but we will see what happens. We went to the Eiffel Tower today and ate sandwiches in the park - a pretty great day. I think tomorrow we are going to try to head out to see Versailles, but the best times we have had so far have been unplanned. I will try to add some pictures again very soon.

Welcome to Vertigo

We made it! The flight was less than stellar, but after a long morning nap, we made the most of the afternoon. I tried my first Guinness and surprisingly enough I really didn't hate it. After a few though I kind of felt like I'd had Thanksgiving dinner - tasty, but really heavy and probably not something I will be ordering too often.. Enough about the beer though. We stayed with the sister of a guy that works with Andrea. We only saw her once, but it was nice to be able to stay somewhere we could just come and go. She lived in the south side of Dublin, but we spent most of our time in Temple Bar, which was kind of in the downtown area. We met some really, really cool guys our first night - Eddie, Philip and Padric. They all live in the city, but are from smaller towns outside of Dublin. We hung out with them on Saturday night and went to this club and danced and left at what we calculated was 3am. The taxi driver dropped us off at a "mexican restaurant" which was actually run by Asians and sold Greek food - go figure. Yesterday, Eddie picked us up and drove us all over Dublin and gave us the basic history of the country. Did you know that Northern Ireland is still owned by the UK and the rest of Ireland just recently in like 1927 got their independence from the UK? So he told us lots facts and things like that. He also mentioned that he thought it was funny that we went home so early the night before...clearly we did the math wrong becasue Eddie said we left the bar at 10:30. I figure we'll get the timing right eventually. So then he took us downtown to this kind of industrial area by the river and wouldn't tell us where we were going. I know this must sound super creepy, but it really wasn't. So we pull up beside what looks like the back entrance to like a factory or something and in huge spray painted letters across it said "Welcome to Vertigo" - it was U2's recording studio. It was so cool, people had written all these notes to the band so of course Andrea and I wrote something too. Far to lame to mention what we actually wrote, but it was really cool to see the place. We were going to do a tour of the Guinness factory afterward, but ran out of time, so Eddie dropped us off, we regrouped and stopped by an internet cafe to book our flights to Paris and met up with the guys again for one last night on the town before they had to go back to work on Monday and we had to leave. So ladies, just in case you feel like going to Ireland, Eddie said my friends and I were welcome to stay at his place anytime!
Now we are in Galway and will be here until Wednesday when we leave for Paris. It's sooo beautiful and green and tomorrow we are going on a day tour to see some castles and visit the Cliffs of Mohr, so I can't wait for that. So far so good. Everyone has been super friendly and I have had a really great time. I'll update you more once I get to Paris. That should be really interesting considering I don't speak French nor do I understand it. I'll be there until my tour starts on the 22nd.

Grand European Tour

Below is a link to to the tour I am taking for 28 days...

http://www.topdecktours.co.uk/content.asp?Document_ID=16992&Display_Type=1053