Paris...

My continuing adventure from June 2009...


Taking a night train through Europe, as I learned when I went to Budapest, is not exactly fun. Our car from Berlin to Paris was full (six people, at least five languages) and it was about twelve hours long. Oh, and I was the only guy. I spent most of the time sleeping and practicing what's left of my Spanish (I need to get back on that) and reading. In Krumlov I had picked up a copy of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, and I must say it was a fantastic read.

We arrived around 9:30 AM at Paris Est. Having been there previously with my father for Christmas, I was looking forward to returning to this enchanting city. Meredith, having studied a bit of French in high school and college, was looking forward to finding out just how much she could remember. When we checked in to our budget hotel, we discovered how useful her skills would be. The people working did not speak any English. It made sense, in the same way that many people in the Czech Republic didn't, but it was unexpected. We got it all figured out pretty quickly and we were off to explore Paris.

First we went to lunch near the Bastille monument... there's nothing there now. We headed to the Notre Dame cathedral and crossed over to the Latin Quarter. It was a beautiful sunny day, and we found a park and just sat down and relaxed. Meredith even took a nap.




Later on, we took a boat ride to see all the sites. When I went there in December 2008, France held the rotating title of EU Presidency (which, as of last week, is all changing). They held it for six months straight, and then it moved to the Czech Republic. So the Eiffel Tower was lit up like a giant EU flag. This time I got to see it in all its normal colored glory.


Incidentally, when France was EU president, they spent more than any other country in history on the temporary displays.

We wandered up to Montmarte and had dinner. Paris is a lovely place for a date.

The entire trip revolved around going to the Louvre museum. Meredith wanted to go, I wanted to go, and it was the one thing I wish I had done on Christmas, if I had had the time. So we got up and went to the museum the following day.

To start with, I was surprised by the size of the place. Duh, it's the biggest museum in the world, it's a palace, etc etc etc. But it's hard to imagine that until you actually see it. The first thing we went to was the Egyptian section. Meredith's really into Egyptian mythology, which is cool and all, but I got plenty of that in the Vatican. The Louvre has a lot more than the Vatican in that department, although both have plenty.

I even found my favorite dog deity, Anubis.


And Meredith has her cats.


After several hours looking at the Book of the Dead, mummies, tombs, statues, etc, we decided that we needed to see some art. We stumbled upon the Venus de Milo, although we came towards it in the wrong direction.


We went to a few halls full of statues, including Psyche Waking Cupid, Meredith's favorite. We saw two of Michaelangelo's captives (the others are in the hallways of Accademia in Florence, near David).

We went looking for some paintings. We found plenty that are famous and plenty that aren't.


And yeah, we saw the Mona Lisa, but it's behind a huge pane of glass, so what's to say about it?


The Louvre was totally worth it. I want to go to Orsay sometime.


We decided to walk to the Champs-Elysees from the Louvre, so that we could see the Arc de Triomphe and all the shops. We came across this lovely statue, which we decided was the most embarrassed statue in the world:


Poor guy.

Once we got closer to the Avenue, we noticed a HUGE crowd. We thought it was either Sarkozy or a protest, so we came a little closer. We noticed some American flags, so we assumed it was a protest, but it wasn't an angry protest like I've seen. Then a big motorcade full of cars came through with American flags on them, and people were running towards it. It was like seeing Elvis or something. We stopped and asked a security guard in front of a restaurant what was going on. His reply? "American President."


So yeah, I've seen Obama twice now, and neither time was in the USA.

Paris was lovely. We saw what we wanted to see, and I'd go back in a heartbeat. We had one more stop to go before heading back to Prague and heading back to home...

Willkommen to Berlin

Leaving Pisek was strange. It ended up being a quick departure after a lot of packing and a trip out of town after settling it all with my landlady and the school. I hope to go back there. I had a good time.

We headed to Prague and dropped off some of our stuff at Daniel's place, because he's awesome and we're eternally grateful for his help and friendship. We headed to the train station, got our tickets, and waited for the train.

While waiting for the train we met an American family who had heard of West Virginia, telling us how much they loved the white water rafting. They didn't seem to really get Prague, though. They were only there for twenty-four hours, only saw a few touristy spots, ate right in the middle of Wenceslas Square, and didn't really understand the castle. We didn't run into them again.

The train ride was about four hours long. Berlin has an amazing public transit system, much like the rest of Europe.

The first thing we did was go to the zoo. Berlin's zoo is the most species-diverse zoo in the world. It's right in the middle of the city, with some interesting architecture and statues around it.

We started out near the birds, which was fascinating in its own way but eventually we got tired of all of them. We then turned to see this statue:
Now, while the statue is already quite magnificent, we should say that when we first gazed upon it, there was a German little person on top of it. We then took this picture. It inspired us to photograph ourselves with as many statues as we could find.
We spent the whole day there, but I'll just give the highlights. The white wolves were situated right next to the bears, and they were both vying for attention from us.
Honestly, the wolf didn't stand a chance. That bear was amazing. He knew it, too.

There was a petting zoo, but they had some of the least friendly animals to pet. They had goats, which were fighting, lambs, which were skittish, and geese, which were just plain mean.

We also went into the cat house, where I got stared down by a few hungry lions. The tigers, leopards, and panthers were all pretty tired.
We also stopped in the aquarium which was there. We saw a starfish that looked exactly like Patrick from Spongebob Squarepants. We also found a shark to match Meredith's shirt.
We finished the day off by getting completely lost in Berlin. We had dinner at a mall. It was a wondrous day.

The following day, we figured out our Eurail passes to get cheaper railway fare for where we wanted to go. We spent the day sightseeing around Berlin.
We saw much of historic downtown Berlin. That's me at the Berlin Dome.

We walked all over the place, which wore Meredith and me out. We eventually made it to the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate before we had to head to the train station for our night train to Paris.

The train in itself was an adventure. Berlin and Paris are not close. We left at 8, and arrived at 9 AM. AND we had a full car, with four languages present. We were all about to communicate though. More on that later.