The trip to europe: random thoughts.

no, this isn't shannon gallaugher, and i'll try to make it interesting and to the point. "then i went to a beach in corfu, and started this email to you? and then i told you about the beach at corfu? good times."

flew to london (9hrs) : no luck with getting a flight/bus/train directly to paris that night (aug 4). took train to dover. ran into a drunk armenian who showed me the way to the ferries. saw some of the cliffs of dover by moonlight. tres cool. by this time its 12 midnite. i've been up for about 21 hrs. that's not bad. however, i had to take a ferry from dover to calais. the ferry rocked. shops, gambling, lounges...etc.

calais, 3:30 am. no sleep on ferry. had to wait until 4:45 am to catch shuttle to town. 5am: got to train station. no trains to paris, only lille. fine. ticket man spoke no english so me and the "lille bound crew" had to wait until the next train, 5:45.

calais to lille: awesome. in the middle of the heatwave, the sun rose in a big red ball through the mist and fog over the hedges our grandfathers fought in, through, over and under. amazing. talked to a nigerian who had lived all over europe. fascinating discussion about the french, europe, the world, the US and languages.

Lille: said goodbye. amazing architecture around the train station. tetris pieces come to mind.

Lille-Paris: after an hour in a bullet train stuck in the smoking car, we arrived at Gard du Nord. Asshole french tourist information people drove me into a rage (an all to common experience in france, i discovered). figured out the metro system and headed for the rendez vous point. met with girlfriend. its 9:30 am. hadn't slept in 48 hours or thereabouts.

Paris: spent day I arrived at arc de triomphe, champs elysees, egyptian monument, madelaine and the moulin rouge. good times. wandered around and found some old churches, great views of the city and great food. more asshole frenchmen as well.

next few days: saw sacre couer, notre dame, a tonne of monuments, the bastille, the louvre the downtown district (seventies style gulag/commie architecture) and versailles where i suffered a minor nose bleed. minor. but i caused a little commotion with the caretakers there. some were nice, and i appreciated their efforts.

ahh, the pride of paris: the university of paris.. a massive ghetto. that features!

1) a moat. yes a moat. chalk full of garbage
2) prison gates. for the riot that is about to take place.
3) grafitti inside and outside the school.
4) no a blade of grass on the inside. cement city.
5) stalinnist gulag architecture. lame!
6) eery silence.
7) crazy communist revolution pamphlets everywhere!

Versailles: the gardens are massive, immaculate and greek inspired. loads of beautiful scultures. roman caesars adorn the outside of the front entrance as well as the inscription "Toute la gloires de la France" on the two main wings that jut out from the front of the palace. the palace inside is massive in. huge paintings are everywhere. in fact, the entire inside is simply a work of art.

My medical emergency: approaching the eiffel tower during the worst day of the heatwave in france (it killed 13,000 people), we stopped in a touristy area just south, on the right bank. stopping to crack jokes and relax, i had another (!) nose bleed that just gushed blood. i tried to control it while my girlfriend looked for someone to help me. she came back and tried to help me to a pharmacy nearby (the french pharmacies are like small clinics). i took a few steps and began to blackout. i don't remember much but apparently i fell, slammed my head into a car and my gf fell on top of me screaming. i got up, dirty, bloody and sore all over. i was taken to a french hospital well south, but still on the right bank. 2 hours until a nurse said it would be 6 hours until a doctor could see me. from the look of the elderly on the gurneys outside, i knew they would be needed elsewhere. i probably saw at least a couple of the soon-to-be-dead at that hospital, as over 3500 elderly people passed away that heatwave in paris alone.

still almost passed out on the metro on the way home. Okay, so we left paris the day after that.

Paris-brussels-amsterdam: as we left after numerous holdups at Gard du nord..no comment... we got on the train, found more french assholes (oops, i slipped). as we started to depart i asked in my rudest voice "when do we get out of this country?". i enjoyed the constant sneers of the french afterwards. alright, i'm a little bitter. some of the french were okay, but most were outwardly hostile. my comment was honestly the first thing deserving of scorn, and that was on the way out.

amsterdam: the place is a zoo. the people are okay, and a breath of fresh of fresh air after the french, but still not overly friendly. that was okay, as we had loads of fun in the areas around the red light district, the coffeehouses, the canals and the waterfront. loads of people. tonnes, all in the street. more bicycles than you can imagine. we also checked out the van gogh museum. great exhibit although "cafe at night" was missing. he actually painted the area of Montmartre we stayed near in paris. that was interesting. also checked out anne frank's house: turns out it was quite spacious! i was expecting a tiny peep hole. keep in mind that the dutch were complicit with the germans in this affair....well, the french voluntarily deported the jews from vichy france...and the germans never asked them to! crazy! anyways, that's another rant.

amsterdam to luton, london layover 1 hr. luton to belfast and the motherland of ireland! scotland and ireland are spitting distance away from each other... i could just imagine the hordes staring at each other from across the water and yelling to each other before the scots came over for a battle or two. must have been something to see.

belfast: friendly, beautiful, and sometimes grim. the city has fared well. we stayed in the university district near Queen's university, a sister uni of the Queen's in Ontario. hmmm. anyways, we headed for West Belfast the next day after arriving for a little education in the Irish Problem. heading towards the catholic neighbourhood (aka 'the Falls') from downtown, we came to several buildings covered with barbwire, large stone fences and loads of security measures. we crossed the pedestrian bridge (covered, again in barb wire) to cross the M2 motorway seperating downtown and the catholic neighbourhood. coming across we saw gated communities, murals, IRA compounds, old brown tenements, pubs, and stupid tourists gawking from the comfort of their "black cab" tour cabbie. lame. we were on foot, and facing this thing head on. dumb? maybe. a man was killed the Falls in front of his 6 kids the day we were there. apparently, he had pissed off the IRA.

travelled through downtown on the way back, saw the city hall, inspected the bomb shelter of a police station and court house and headed home. also saw the university.

next day: day trip north to port stewart and giant's causeway...40,000 hexagonal rocks shooting out of the irish coast and cliffs. very cool. we took a little tour of the place, and it is a gorgeous country. the irish countryside is wide open green as far as you can see. and the hillls and ocean? i can't describe. you just gotta see it.

next? headed to dublin. what a nutso town. stayed in the worst hostel ever, but we didn't spend too much time there. saw trinity college where swift, joyce, wilde and others attended. saw the general post office the sinn fein took over during the 1916 easter rebellion. saw the statues, the city, the bridges, the pubs, pubs, pubs! saw the irish ghettos on the outskirts, the guinness brewery tour (wow!) and St. Patrick's cathedral (dates back to the 4 century). that's about seven hundred years before notre dame! haha! newbies!

the pubs are 4 times older than canada! crazy!

saw the town at night, the temple bar, etc.. everything. got lost. found a statue of Wolfe Tone.

Next: Cork. Pubs! also: headed out to the blarney stone. went all over the grounds and found the faery glade, a sacrificial alter and some interesting and ancient walls! of course we saw the castle, kissed the blarney stone and did the whole thing. very cool. loved the "murder hole" above the entrance to the castle...just in case the enemy penetrated the walls. right. sure its for that.

back to belfast and then....london! westminster abbey, buckingham palace, parliament, hyde park, st. james's park, picadilly circus, underground (!), tate modern museum (see the five angels of the millenium if possible), british museum (too much to discuss here), tottenham, brixton, sutton, nightlife, double deckers, waterloo, canary wharf, lloyd's, buckingham gate, winston churchill statues, ab lincoln, st. pauls, millenium bridge, the globe, shepherds' something or other, victoria station....i'm missing something i know it.

all told, good fun. too much to say. westminster abbey was definitely the best, followed by the british museum. i flew home, having 9 hrs of turbulence, flying air transat, the worst carrier on earth....i'm a bad flyer so it wasn't pretty, but i'd do it again if i could. best trip ever. so much that i've seen will slowly digest. if i had to write all my thoughts it would take several years...so i'll just let it drip out.

PS: one thing..we were drunk and running around on the double deckers at about 3 am through brixton...i decided in my stupor that sublime and bob marley songs were the stuff, so on the top deck we started belting out songs, really loud. i didn't notice at first but a real rastafarian was sitting there just itching to join in. finally we got him singing..and he sang us so many rasta/reggae songs! it was great! he was very high, and very authentic. best part of london, really!

Play us some music! this ah reggae music! uh-huh!