Eiffel Tower-tastic!!

Brad and I spent 2 nights at the Eiffel tower! The first one we spent watching it from the park while having a picnic and the second we spent UP the tower!! Here we go!!

After our aforementioned river cruise we headed over to the lawn in front of the Eiffel tower ... well actually just to the side because you aren't allowed to sit on the lawn just in front. We laid out our picnic of screw top wine (it was less than 3 Euro for the bottle!), chocolate covered waffles and just for good measure some pringles! This was our view!

While we were sitting and waiting, about a dozen African guys started slowly walking towards us and both of us thought that for sure we were getting robbed. But it turned out they were the (illegal) street vendors that we had seen earlier in the day trying to evade the police!! As soon as they saw a policeman they started running through the dark park with all their mini Eiffel towers jingling behind them! 

At 11pm we got what we were waiting for: (I was clearly tired because I took the video sideways... you get the idea though)

After we watched it blink for 5 minutes (it does it at 10pm and 11pm) and finished our bottle of wine we got some crepes and headed back to the hotel! Not before taking some great pictures from underneath the tower!

On our second day at the tower we wanted to climb the tower to be at the top at sunset! So we started our ascent up the tower stairs! No line-up and it was half the price!! Yay budget!

When we finally got up to the second tower this was the view up

We are getting closer!!! But you need to take an elevator up! So we promptly got in the longest and most disorganized line ever. A bunch of people budged in line and then took pictures of it... so that made it ok? Right?? We were getting very very close to the front and this angry French woman started yelling "Let me see your tickets!!! Tickets now!!! The White side!!!!!" She was kinda nuts. Luckily we had tickets and showed her the correct side of them... not sure what would have happened if we didn't have said ticket. I'm sure a punch in the face would not have been out of the question.

We finally reached the elevator and were heading up!! And while we were heading up we caught the 10pm blinking show!

We made it!!

And then we made it up for sunset!!! It was gorgeous to watch the City of Light go from day to night up the Eiffel tower! It was the perfect way to spend our last night in Paris!

The day of 12 million children....

Apparently it must have been "multiple giant groups of children touring at once" day in France yesterday. Lets hope today is different... but because yesterday was Thursday and these kids appeared to ALL be from out of town I think the sights will be equally crowded with 11 year olds today as well :-/

Other than the HOARDS of children present... our day was fabulous!! We headed to Versailles which was fabulous and amazingly ornate!

Once we got inside there were tons of impressive halls! And we got a free audioguide! Sweet!! Check us out learning in the different areas:

Can you believe that this used to be someone's house!?!? I didn't take too many pictures here because there were literally children everywhere.... pushing.. yelling... being annoying... being unsupervised... etc. You would try to get ahead of one group and then you would get surrounded by the next. Sigh. So we got outside to the gardens which are VAST!!

The giant palace that we were in is the small area at the bottom of the map!! We had another picnic lunch here but check out our awesome view!!

We wandered around the gardens for a long while and Brad was discussing how this would be a great place to be homeless in. We had a long conversation with my conclusion being that it would be impossible because they close the gates and there are so many workers... but Brad stuck to his point that if you were homeless this would be the place to be. And low and behold:

It was definitely a homeless man! Point to Brad. We left Versailles and headed to the Orsay Museum! Which I really loved, but it "didn't do anything" for Brad. We saw Monet, Manet, Rodin, Van Gogh, Gaugain, and more!! I loved the paintings, especially some of Monet and Rodin! I don't have any pictures because they weren't allowed. Sorry!! But the museum was awesome!

We took a night cruise after that which was ALSO FILLED with children - like at least 100 children... on a 1 hour cruise that started at 9:30pm. What the hell!! It was a good cruise and we saw lots of cool stuff that we learned about on these giant things

Overall it was a great cruise... except for the stupid tweens that were everywhere. Fingers crossed that today will be less child-friendly everywhere!!!

Our tour finished at the Eiffel Tower which will have it's own post... because that's how awesome it was!!

I Louvre It Here!!

We are in Paris and it's fabulous here!! I totally love it!! I even love the Parisians who correct your French in a way in which I can't tell if they are angry, happy, or ambivalent...

We got in to Paris yesterday night, found our hotel amazingly fast without getting lost and headed out to see Paris at night!! This was my first sight of the Eiffel Tower and I immediately freaked out an took a picture. Even though it isn't a good view of the tower... it was my first!

Today we went to the LOUVRE!! All day long. We got there at 11:30am and left at 7:30pm! And we didn't even see everything! I was getting slightly unimpressed by all of the priceless works of art and artifacts so we knew it was time to go! Here are some of the highlights from our 8 hour day in the Louvre:

It was super overwhelming when we first got inside and the crowds were huge!

Especially around the Mona Lisa!

I thought for sure that I wouldn't be impressed with it because I've seen so many reprints - i mean even my light switch cover is a Mona Lisa - but in real life, the actual painting, it's pretty amazing. There is just something about it and I don't even know what, but I loved it!!

It was so crowded that at one point I lost Brad!! I was getting kinda distressed!! Luckily we found each other! For the record - this time I wasn't the one who wandered off.

We ate a picnic lunch and then headed for my most anticipated gallery - the Near Eastern Antiquities!!! It was far far less crowded than ... well ... really anywhere else in the museum. Perfect!!

Hammurabi's Code was one of the biggies to see (that the museum said) and I told Brad that it was the oldest example of laws ever. And he said "what.. the 10 commandments!?!" ... NO! This predates biblical times!! So old! Some of the laws are very strange like if any child says that their mother or father is not their mother or father the child's tongue must be cut out.

After that it was over to my most anticipated area of my most anticipated gallery - ASSYRIA!! For those of you who don't know, I took several Near Eastern Studies courses in my undergrad at UBC and fell in love with the Assyrians. They just had it together!! Their artwork is amazing and their imperialism was crazy!! Anyway, if you want to know more... let me know... otherwise check out all these awesome pieces!!

5 legged griffin! Protects the castle.

 Fragments of orthostats from Assurnasirpal's castle. Some of the earliest forms of political propaganda!

And finally... the winged genii!!!! Assyria rocks!

Brad also found exactly what he was looking for as well.... the gummy Venus de Milo! (You all saw that episode of the Simpsons). They even let him take a bite:

We ended our day at this painting - it's a little strange and even the audio guide explanation wasn't clear.. but it's interesting none the less and famous for sure:

It was a great day and it's not over yet!! We are heading to the Great Canadian Pub to watch the hockey game LIVE at 2am!! Time for a nap!! Go Canucks Go!!! Tomorrow is Versaille!

I'm loving it here in Paris! Even though my french is sub-par at best! (Credit to Brad for the photo above! Looks like I am sitting on water in front of the Louvre!)

I was right!!

Venice is far nicer during the day! Who would have thought… haha. 

Brad and I went to Basilica San Marco today and I didn’t think I could be impressed by any more churches after St. Peter’s Basilica but I was wrong!! The mosaics in the church are phenomenal! And there is a really nice museum that is far far far less crowded than any that I have been to so far! We spent the rest of the day wandering around Venice with no real plans in particular (I think we are both still very tired from yesterday’s harrowing journey). 

Unfortunately it started raining… a lot… 

but that didn’t stop us from getting gelato! I’m continuously surprised at the amazingness of gelato here… this time we got biscotti gelato! Delish! 

The sun came out by the time we reached the Acadamia Bridge… but we didn’t have our sunglasses and our retinas were susceptible to the harmful affects of UV!! But that didn’t stop us from taking an obligatory picture!! We are a little squinty. 

Today I also bought the ONLY thing I will be buying the entire trip… Italian leather flats. I love them! They are the only thing that I have seen on the whole trip that I thought “I love these….” So I bought them!! Yay!! 

We finished the day with a dinner on the Grand Canal and (obviously) more Gelato! I got caffe and Brad got caramel!! I am going to be ruined for gelato forever! This stuff is just way too good!!

Tomorrow we fly out to Paris! Hopefully there will be better (read: freer) WiFi there than there is here!! Everything in Venice costs money! I’m surprised it’s not an extra charge for blankets or running water. Ridiculous!! 

How to Drive Like an Italian

Our driving experience in Italy has definitely given new meaning to crazy driving for me – although I only thought that we were going to die once. Since we are experienced Italian drivers now, we have come up with some tips on how to drive in Italy ;) Please note the sarcasm!

1.  Seatbelts are far too annoying to be taken seriously. Use only immediately before being pulled over

2. Gas is expensive so get the teeniest car possible! 41 Euro for 25 Litres of gas!! This is not sarcasm! People who drive trucks here must be millionaires! 

3. The teeniest car possible also makes passing large trucks at night in a no passing zone much much easier.

4. The autostrada is a super fast way to get places! Unless you can’t find it due to devastatingly bad signage. It is also NOT super fast when a car accident happens on it … 200km away from where you are… no joke.

5. If at all possible get a motorcycle so that you can drive wherever you want.

6. Hands on the wheel is secondary. Hands gesturing wildly at people passing you or as you pass others is primary.

Good luck to all non-Italian Italian drivers!! Especially those driving standard for the first time in a decade! :)

Our Journey to Venice .....

Our drive to Venice started a little late after a fabulous lunch at Uncle Rosano’s sister’s house (best lasagna I’ve ever had). Due to our lack of GPS, I was navigating in the old school way with a giant map of Italy. We got off to a great start and were making excellent time when all of a sudden traffic on the super fast autostrada came to a complete stop.

We were about 3 hours away from Venice at this point and were hoping to get to the hotel by around 9pm. The traffic picked up again but about 5km down the road – complete stop again! What the heck! So, like all good drivers, we turned to the traffic radio station for the highway. But wait… we’re in Italy… sigh … they were talking so fast in Italian that we could only pick up certain words here or there like “traffica intensivo” … but we kept the station on because they also played music… random. We were stuck (still) and all of a sudden they started speaking ENGLISH! Great success!! Except that they said that there were several accidents. We were stuck in traffic for many many hours. It took us about 2-3 hours to go 30 or 40km. The greatest success at that point was the fact that I found the Mastachone!!!

We thought we had lost it and had really given up all hope of eating it because I couldn’t find it in our teeny teeny car … so it must have been forgotten. But then I thought “hmm… the only place I haven’t checked is under Brad’s seat” and TADA!! There it was. These cookie cake goodies are beyond delicious and the only thing more delicious than Mastachone is Mastachone that you thought you lost!! Back to the journey…

We made the executive decision to get off autostrada which was going nowhere fast and attempt the red lines on the map – the regional routes. It ended up being a great success of old school navigating and we made it to the Marco Polo airport to return the car only 15 minutes late! Now the problem was that it was almost 1am and the water bus (that would have taken us right to our hotel essentially) wasn’t running to the island anymore… so we paired up with some other people and got a taxi to the bus station. We walked across the first bridge at around 1:15am and didn’t find our hotel by San Marco Square until 2am. 

We spent 45 minutes walking through “beautiful” Venice in the middle of the night…. It was scary. It smelled like urine. There was lots of graffiti on all the steel doors covering the windows. It was fairly disenchanting. BUT we made it to the hotel and I’m sure Venice by day will be FAR FAR nicer than Venice by middle-of-the-night. This was probably the worst day of the trip so far but the good news is we found the Mastachone and we didn’t get charged late fees for the car!!