Hello again! I know I fell off the earth but I assure you, all is well! My travels are over and I didn’t update anything since Scotland, dear old Scotland–so let’s see if I can remember most of my journey!
While in Scotland I met a fantastic girl, Marcella, from Brazil. We hit it off instantly so when she asked if I wanted to join her on her way to Paris I jumped at the chance. I headed back to England where I had been staying, organized my backpack for the unknown length of time that I would be traveling and started searching transportation and accommodation for Paris. Marcella met me in England the next day where we proceeded to book a bus from Manchester to Paris and found a flat to rent through a friend of a friend–a fantastic deal and even better decision! I don’t remember how long exactly the bus took, Manchester to Birmingham, a 2 hour wait, Birmingham to London and then London to Paris–thankfully we made a friend on the last bus, Mat from Manchester. The bus stopped for a break somewhere in France and Marcella and I pulled out the bottle of wine I had stashed in my purse and we drank with Mat and 2 guys from Edmonton (Oh Canada!) and invited them over to our flat once everybody was settled where they needed to go.
When we arrived in Paris it was very hot, we got in a taxi and made our way to our flat where we met Alex, the friend of a friend. He showed us the area and took us for a drink then left us back at the flat–we picked up some food and more importantly booze, and waited for our friends to show up–we drank a lot and much of the night is a blur (which turned out to be the theme in Paris). The next day, Mat met us with his ukulele and we went down to a lovely grassed/treed area with a picnic consisting of a baguette, cheese, deli meats, wine, beer and crab dip, we sat in the grass listening to Mat play and sing while staring at the Eiffel Tower behind us, it was surreal. The day had been very hot so we played in a fountain to cool down and waited for dark to come so we could watch the tower light up. We watched a show in the square and talked and finally after watching the light show and getting very sentimental we had a lovely dinner and headed back to the flat. At some point, I grabbed a bottle of wine and went for a walk down the street and began talking to two random gentlemen from Paris, we made friends and they joined us for a few beers before heading back home. The next day it was far too hot so we barely left the flat, then we met up with our friend we had met in Edinburgh and his friend whose flat we were renting. In Paris, Thursday and Friday nights by the Seine are an extremely common drinking ground so this was our territory for the night. We drank, played card games and met random people, when our friends left we continued to wander along the Seine, stopping to play games in the middle of a path with a group of randoms, getting yelled at for petting a security dog (hey, how was I supposed to know?!) and meeting two artists with a castle of an apartment. Most of Saturday was spent hungover and we decided that after we met her aunt for dinner, we would go back to the flat and rest and watch movies as we needed a break from boozing…of course this never happened. Our dinner was good, I ate escargot, frogs legs and duck and was very proud of myself for doing so. We went to the Seine to see if it would be any fun but it was very quiet so back to our flat we went–however while walking the last block with a case of beer, two guys began talking to us–needless to say we ended up at a random French girl’s house party which was FAR too hot, then went to a strip club with horrible strippers–the boys went to a club and we went back home. The next day was spent at home planning our next step–Barcelona. We booked a train and hostel and spent the rest of the day hiding from the heat of the day. On our last day, we essentially ran through the Louvre to see some of the main works, go to the train station and rested on the train to Barcelona–we arrived late so we didn’t do anything that evening.
Barcelona was yet another drunken adventure! We met many fantastic people, stayed far longer than planned, spent time on the beach, I spent a day on city bus tours, saw some clubs, drank on the beach, went swimming, played drinking games, ate Paella and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We also met another Canadian; Jeremy, Marcella and Jeremy hit it off quite well and decided to head to Brussels. Brussels hadn’t really enticed me so I stayed one more day to go on a kayak and snorkel tour then headed to Prague on my own.
A little more about the Kayak and Snorkel tour–I went with Excursions Barcelona, a small company run by 2 gentlemen that are absolutely fantastic–the tour kept getting postponed due to the weather–it was warm but too windy to be safe on the kayaks, they continually kept in touch trying to ensure that I was able to make it to the tour. In the morning, the group meets at a bar in Barcelona and takes a bus to Costa Brava where you are given the snorkel equipment and the kayak–you can go double or individual; being alone I course went in the individual kayak–we received a quick instruction, sat in the kayak and sent into the Mediterranean sea to follow our guide. This was huge for me–I was alone, doing something I had never done before with a group of strangers, on our way to snorkel, something that I had never really enjoyed…I ended up loving the entire thing–I have a new found love for kayaking (at least on the sea–don’t think I could do a river, but who knows!) and was able to relax while snorkeling and truly enjoyed myself; I also got to hold a sea urchin and a starfish. This was one of the biggest highlights from my entire trip.
The next morning, sore arms and tired eyes, I hopped on a plane to Prague–a beautiful city! My hostel was decent and I met a lovely group of British folks that invited me for lunch with them where I had goulash in a bread bowl–tasty! After lunch I spent most of my time in the hostel and met a few others that were staying there. The next day I took the 3 hour walking tour led by a guy around my age–it was fantastic, the Czech’s are very proud of their heritage and of their country, I learned a lot about Prague and took in so much of the beautiful city. Most of my evenings were spent in the hostel drinking with other travelers from all over, I did go out to a club one night and had fun but found myself enjoying the hostel atmosphere better than the clubs. The day I was leaving I went to one of the Jewish Synagogues, the Pinka Synagogue which has all of the names of the Bohemian Jews who died in the Holocaust, it gave me chills and was very surreal.
I bussed from Prague to Amsterdam where I would meet Marcella and Jeremy again. Once they arrived we went for lunch and then wandered around a bit until we could find a cafe we liked–Hill Street Blues I believe was its name. We tried the banana bread and took in all there was to enjoy of Amsterdam. We spent a couple of days hanging around Amsterdam before we went to Den Haag, a city an hour away from Amsterdam–I really liked it there as there was a beach and it was much quieter than Amsterdam. We didn’t do much there, just walked around and sat on the beach. It was at this point that I realized I was ready to head home, I missed my family and was getting exhausted, so my mom booked my flight home (which I kept very quiet), I booked my flight from Amsterdam to Manchester and started preparing myself for goodbyes. Leaving Den Haag was difficult–I had to say goodbye to Marcella, my partner in crime for a month, I’d be lying if I said there were no tears shed. I hopped on the train to Amsterdam, spent 2 hours in line at the Anne Frank house (which–by the way, I loved), went back to my hostel to sleep and prepare to say goodbye to main-land Europe.
I apologize profusely as this is so delayed and there is not a lot of detail but some I can’t share, some sounds boring and repetitive to those that didn’t experience it and some things just can’t be put into words.
This journey was the most incredible thing I have ever done for so many reasons, and there is still so much to share, but I will leave this post as is and will share more later on.
#Devonwashere 