A blast from the past!

Hey guys!!!

I know I have been bad lately with the blogs....it's not because I do not care...it's only because finding internet that isnt 1000$ an hour has been difficult since leaving Toulouse! At any rate, here's my story!!!!

My time with Sofia and Angie in Toulouse was amazing. I went rock climbing...even though heights make me uncomfortable, and I learnt how to windsurf (the only problem was the lack of wind! lol) After Toulouse I headed up to Paris to meet up with Gab and her mother. They had rented a hotel for the week and I was invited to stay with them...lucky me! On my arrival, I decided to take a taxi to the hotel because it was midnight and I figured a girl getting lost in Paris at midnight might not be the best situation to put myself in. Once I got the cab driver, I told him that I wanted to go to rue "clement"... he was super confused, because apparently this street did not exist. After numerous attempts at locating the street on his GPS and map, he finally gave up and told me there was no such street....I therefore took the map and proved him wrong by pointing it out in less than 30 seconds... once I located the street, he loudly exclaimed "ahhhhhh CLEMENT"...as if I had been pronouncing the street name incorrectly all this time. "Mais vous etes quebecoise!!!" "Ahhh mais oui!!! Est ce que c'est le drapeau sur ma valise ou mon accent qui t'a donner cette idee!!!!" (trying to be sarcastic...) lol Peu importe, he got me there in one piece!!!
The next day I started touring Paris. We started off by visiting the Louvre which is HUGE! If you really appreciate art, you could easily spend the whole day walking in all the rooms. I would not consider myself exceptionnally knowledgeable about art history, so 3 hours was plently for me! lol I was able to see da Vinci's Mona Lisa and La Venis de Malo so I was happy! Next we had lunch in Les Jardins des Tuileries... expensive sandwiches, nice park! After lunch we visted La Place de la Concorde which is where Queen Marie Antoinette was beheaded, and then took a strole down les Champs Elysee ...which was kind of dissapointing...im not sure exactly what I was expecting but it was a little more than a path surrounded by trees. This broad boulevard, however, whose name refers to Greek mythology's Elysian Fields' (or heaven) links La Concorde with place de l'Arc de Triomphe. On our way to l'Arc de Triomphe, we decided to do some shopping.... I decided that I was not at par with the Paris style... so I bought a leopard print dress (can only get away with doing this in Paris!!!!). The Arc de Triomphe was.... an arc...it was nice....I took pictures!...although apparently I underestimated it's history because it was commissioned in 1806 by Napoleon to commemorat his imperial victories... (didnt he end up losing the war?) Anywho, since it was such a nice day, we decided to head for the Eiffle Tower... we climbed to the top (we didnt cheat...we took the stairs!!!!) We also established two new muscles...they are called the stairus uppus and the hillus downus...the muscles that we use from climbing up and down every stair and hill in Europe!!!! At the top of the Eiffle Tower we took pictures...for obvious reasons!!!
The next day was a little more relaxed.... we visited Cathedral Notre Dame which, if you ask me, does not feel at all like a church but rather a very large, beautiful building in the shape of a cathedral....Im sorry, but any church that has little machines that turns your money into souvenirs IN the church is not really the house of God, but more like the house of tourism. We also visted the Conciergerie which was the main prison during the Reign of Terror and used to incarcerate aledged enemies before they were brought before the Revolutionary Triunal in the Palais de Justice next door. This is where Queen Marie Antoinette spent her last two months. Afterwards we visited the Bastille which was built during the 14th century as a fortifed royal resisdence. The notorious prison was demolished by a Revolutionayr mob on the 14th of July 1786 and has been replaced with a busy traffic roundabout. We were not able to get much more sight seeing done, because there was a huge rain storm...so we went shopping!!!! It took all my willpower not to buy shoes...to go with my new dress of course! ;)
The next morning, I decided to do my independance while Gab and her mom organized their luggage. (They both did much more shopping than I did, so fitting all their new clothes into their luggage was causing some issues!) I saw l'Hotel des invalides (which is where Louis XIV housed 4000 disabled war veterans), Moulin Rouge, Cimetiere Montmartre, Basilique du Sacre Coeur, Le Jardin du Luxembourg and finally the Pantheon (Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo and Marie Curie are buried in this crypte). That night we took a night boat cruise around Paris and saw the Eiflle Tower lit up...it was beautiful...and cold!
The next morning Gab's mother was off and Gab and I were left to fend for ourselves. After walking for 45 minutes in the pouring rain, we finally got to our hostel which was in the ghetto of Paris in the middle of nowhere! That night we went to see Alegria (Cirque du Soleil) which, minus the fact that we got lost and were completely soaked by the time we found the performance tent, was FABULOUS (our seats were spectacular as well!)!!!! It was so good I convinced myself that 11E for a key chain was definitively worth it. At one point during the show Gab and I were convinced that the guy behind us had stolen our 5$ M&M's.... turns out they had just fallen behind the seat! That night we wanted to get a good night sleep because we were leaving early the next morning for Normandy... instead of sleeping however, I stayed up all night because the asian girl that was sharing our room snored the whole night...and when i say snore, what i really mean is she was inhaling her tongue every time she took a breath. I secretly wanted her to sleep walk out of the hostel and as far away from me as possible (to put it nicely!)... actually, it was no secret..I loudly expressed my hatred to Gab with hopes that she would wake up or role over or something. Unfortunatley she continued snoring...

Normandy was something out of the ordinary. We arrived in a small town called Bayeux and with just our luck, it was pouring rain. Have you ever tried to find your way to a random hostel in the middle of a random city in the rain with a paper map? Well thanks to the brilliant guy at the information desk, Gab and I got the pleasure of trying it out!...and let me tell you....it doesnt work out to well. Our map got destroyed in less than 5 minutes and by the time we found our hostel we had the 3 f's --- froid, fatiguer et faim. To our surprise, the old lady who ran the hostel was taking a nap and we were told to come back in two hours (ca va guy!!! ) Instead Gab and I waited in the common room with no heat and spooned in my sleeping bag.... out of necessity, I can assure you...not by choice! It soon became a ritual because we ended up getting the room couple's room with one double bed whose matress folds in the middle, so we spent our nights rolling to the center of the bed and then yelling at each other for who was taking all the room.
The next morning we wanted to go visit Mont St Michel.... we were then told (at 9:30 in the morning) that the only bus leaving from Bayeux to our destination had left at 7:30 that morning. Not wanting to spoil our day, we decided to go horse backriding on one of the D-Day Beaches...however once we reserved, we realized that there was no return bus. Finally we decided to go visit a caramel store, however we soon realized that we were not going to be able to leave Bayeux, so we went back to our hostel and took a 4 hour nap.
The next day we went to visit the D-Day beaches which were fantastic. We got to see Juno (Canadian) and Gold (British) beaches. We also got to see the German base, the muesums, the memorials and the cemetaries...mais, a la surprise generale, il pleuvait.

The next day we left for Paris to catch our flight to Greece. The rain had stopped and we thought it was all up hill from there until we realized we had forgotten to book a hostel for that night (since we were only leaving late the next day.) With our luck, EVERYTHING was booked. Luckily there was a hotel that was 60% off in the middle of nowhere, so we were able to sleep at a reasonable price. The next night we caught our plane to Greece and arriving on time in this beautiful country, we spent our first night in the airport....
During the day we met up with a friend from our exchange who just came back home (he lives in Athens). It was great...we had our own personal tour guide for the day. We saw the Acropolis which is the symbol of Athens (sacred rock). Ontop of the sacred rock is the Parthenon (dedicated to the goddes athena - godess of knowledge - which is an architectural masterpiece. We also saw the national gardens and the many local streets, markets and cafes which makes Athens somewhat of a "je ne sais trop". Afterwards we went back to his house and his mother cooked us a HUGE greek homecooked meal. It was soooo good, I cant even begin to explain! The amount of food that was served was a little ridiculous...i loved it! :)
Now I am in back in my hostel a little upset that it is IMPOSSIBLE to do laundry in this city and that I have run out of underwear. Early tomorrow morning we leave for the islands...cant wait!!!

Missing you guys lots! The countdown has begun and I will be seeing all of you in T-minus 23 days!!!!

-Ash
xoxo