Copenhagen

Copenhagen is a very pretty city. It's not quite what I expected. There is the Nyhavn Harbor, which is that one row of shops and boats that you always see in pictures of Copenhagen, but thats only a very small strip of the city. It's still cute. Everything here is so, so, so expensive though. I thought Amsterdam and Paris were crazy expensive, but this is much worse.

They also don't do the Euro here. In fact, most of our stops from here on out don't take the Euro :,( I hate changing money.

Anyway, our stay in Copenhagen has been exhausting. Today was essentially a day full of walking tours. Chabba joined us today, so staying in the 8-bed hostel room didn't quite work anymore and we had to do a room swap and scrambled to pack up and make it out of the room by 10. This hostel is probably the most luxurious hostel I've ever stayed at, by the way. Its clean and all of the eight bed rooms have their own toilet and two showers. The bar area is nice, but the wireless stinks. It's a battle to long on.

Anyway, back to today.  Our first walking tour of the day was with this tour group, New Europe. We took several of their tours the last time we backpacked. They are free tours that are high quality. The tour guides work off tips and are generally worth a good tip. the walk to the meeting place alone was exhausting. Although we did no more walking than any other day, almost of week of long daily walking tours is starting to wear me down. The tour was okay. The guide was very new, so she was a bit awkward. It was still informative and we saw a lot of the city, including City Hall, the parliament building, the "best restaurant in the world," Nyhavn Harbor, the royal palaces, the opera house, etc. Once that was done, we met back with umma and halmony (who stayed behind), Chabba (who just came in) and Oppa (who ran away mid tour because he was "tired").

The day involved a lot more walking. Unfortunately, everyone wants to go to bed. We start the cruise tomorrow where my internet access will be evn more limited. I do plan to soak my feet in a hot tub as soon as possible.

In any case, ill try to get the second half of the copenhagen post up before we leave this hostel tomorrow morning. If not, you'll just have to wait in anticipation to learn about our encounter with the anarchist commune known as Christiania.

We went to Paris

Don't judge me, but I'm pretty sure that was the title to the Paris post in the other Europe blog. Whatever.

So if you have one day to give people a glimpse of Paris, how would you spend that time?  If you can handle pain, our intierary may be a helpful suggestion.

We started the day at Brussels and had an early morning train to Paris. We were sitting in bunches of two because ordering tickets for the train was an absolute nightmare.  That was okay though. The ride wasn't long and I just listened to Rick Steves podcasts along the way. Once we got to the Gare du Nord station, we had a bit of confusion regarding the cheapest option for metro tickets.

The first leg of the tour was a more historical trip through Paris. We started at the Notre Dame Cathedral and, after some debate, decided to go inside. It is quite a remarkable cathedral, from both the inside and out. Although the line to go in looked long on the outside, it moved very fast so it took a lot less time than I thought it would. Outside of the cathedral,  there is a bronze circle on the ground that marks the center of the city of Paris. We made sure to take a cheesy picture on there that probably will guarantee us a spot on Awkward Family Photos one day.

we walked along the side of the cathedral and stopped by a few tourist shops along the way. Our next stop was the Deportation Memorial, which is a monument made to remember the Parisian citizens who got deported to concentration camps during the Holocaust. It was a simple, yet moving memorial a little underground and right by the river. The woman at the entrance was slightly terrifying though. She yelled at Chris for not understanding her English.

We next crossed the river to explore the Left Bank. We were sure that we would lose Mia to the infamous world of intellectuals and hipsters, but shes sitting across the aisle from us on this train, so she is indeed still with us. In any case, we only spotted a few secondhand bookstores before we spotted a comic book store.  Chris has been pretty tired so far this trip and is still adjusting to the time change. However, he really came to life in the store. I even took a picture of him next to Green Lantern toy. Not that I can talk, I got excited when I saw the extensive collection of french Fables trades.

Once we were able to pry everyone but Umma and mia away from the comic store, we moseyed on to the Latin Quarter for lunch. Still a part of the Left Bank, but full of a multitude of restaurants. We settled on a Greek one with pretty legit kebabs.

After lunch, we walked past the Place St Michel and over the bridge. I wanted to show everyone the epic stained glass window at the St. Chappelle church, but no one seemed into that, so we bypassed it in favor of the Congiergerie, which at one point had been a prison. This prison held many French citizens during the French Revolution before they faced the guillotine. Its most famous resident, of course, was Marie Antoinette.

The rest of the day in Paris was super muggy. We were dying for most of it. Although, we may have also been incredibly tired by then. In any case, from the conciergerie, we took a metro to the Louvre, not so we could bask in some of the worlds most famous artwork, but so Chris could see the pyramids from the da vinci code. For some reason, I thought it'd also be a good starting point on our walk to the arc de triumphe. Yeah..

There's apparently a giant shopping center right next to the Louvre. I got a new Swatch. I wanted the Batman one that came with a Batmobile, but that was too small so I settled on a red one instead. Its pretty snazzy. I love Swatch. We stopped by the Apple store to check our emails and also did a quick tour of the Virgin Megastore. Then, we decided to go back up to our walk.

The next portion of our tour consisted of walking from the Louvre to the Arc de Triumphe. This was a lot harder that I thought. I should, have figured as much considering it was uphill. Also, the walk just from the Louvre and through the park outside of it to the Place Concord was the same distance as our morning walking tour. Needless to say, we took many contemplation breaks.

For those unfamiliar with the terminology, a contemplation break on our last trip to Europe was a break we would take outside of any remotely or arguably famous landmark to "think"  about what we had just seen. Really, we were all just too stubborn to admit to being tired. We took a nice break in the park and argued that we were just acting like one of the many locals lounging around the park and talking.

From there, we went to the Place de Concord which is the location of a giant obelisk and also where many of the executions occured during the French Revolution. Then, a stroll up the Champs Elysees. And by stroll, I mean, a group of exhausted tours dragging themselves uphill.

We made several stops along the way. First, we stopped by the Adidas store, where Chris and Jimmy wagged their tails and Mia took pictures with pictures of Messi.

Then, someone had to go to the bathroom, so we had to run around in and out of the stores looking for one that didn't charge the unconscionable price of 2 euros. We eventually found a McDonalds where we got our obligatory McDonalds visit in. Mia and I took that time to get in two of our Paris musts and split croissants and french macarons. Yum :)

Eventually, but barely, we made it to the Arc de Triomphe. There was some ceremony going on...I think for the unknown soldier? We thought it might have been a funeral, but tourists were posing with the soldiers afterwards, so probably not.

We were far too tired to walk to the eiffel tower at that point like we initially planned, so we took the Metro instead. While at the Eiffel Tower, we took obligatory pictures, almost got crepes and Chris and Umma got screamed at by gypsies.

By then, we we maybe had time for one extra site, but were too exhausted to do so. Instead, we took a metro back to the train station, and ate dinner on tables outside. We were relaxed and happy as we enjoyed crepes. such a rare moment for us.

Shortly after, we boarded our train and most of us passed out during the trip to Brussels. Made it back with no problem.

And that is how you do Paris in a day.

currently we are at Ummas hotel in Amsterdam. Free wireless. Chris, Mia and I are going to be hosteling it up tonight, so we won't be able to partake in their luxorious bathroom experience.