Europe Trip - Continued

The next day morning, I got up early.  I was jet lagged, so was Abhi. But I woke her up anyways. We got dressed and had the French breakfast, croissant, orange juice and cappuccino. It really tasted great. Then we decided we will go see the Notre Dame church. After the church, we had some really great crepe outside. The weather was fantastic and the ambiance wonderful.  From there we walked along River Seine, checked out Louvre Museum, Arc De Triumph and finally visited the Eiffel Tower. The Arc De Triumph has views of the city of Paris, but I thought it was quite redundant if you visited Eiffel tower.

Finally we were kind of exhausted and just rested in the park for a bit, before we headed back. We had a nice dinner in a restaurant just opposite our hotel and rested.  The next day we just had half a day. After our usual breakfast, we headed to check out the Moulin Rouge area. Then we went to Place la concorde. I loved the architectural structure and the open area. It was then time to catch our train for Amsterdam.

The fast train from Paris to Amsterdam was a lot of fun. Great views outside, comfortable seats, a train that goes superfast and free Wifi. We relaxed nicely and reached Amsterdam.

The city itself had such a great vibe.  As if only higher frequency folks inhabited it. We went to our friend's place. The next few days we would experience living in real Europe.  My friend lived with a few other room mates in a large house. He had the loft where we spent the next few nights. The first night we got ourselves some food and just rested.

The next day we had breakfast and roamed around Amsterdam for a bit, before we headed off to a nearby beach.  It was still a bit chilly and the beach was quite deserted. But we enjoyed the experience of taking a bus and getting there.

The next day was going to be a very busy day. We started off to Antwerp and Bruge. Antwerp was a normal city with a lot of shopping action going on, but it was kind of different with a lot of architectural structures.  Bruge was really beautiful. It had architecture, river and beautiful plants. We were kinda pushed for time, in case we missed a train we were stuck there. So it was a quick visit, but we saw as much of that beautiful city as we could.

We found the general hospitality in Netherlands to be really good as opposed to Paris. People seemed really happy and willing to help lost tourists.

The next day we visited a calm peaceful fishing village in Netherlands. They had windmills, fresh orange juice was being sold on the way. We got some really nice strawberries. We took a boat ride around that place. Overall it was a very refreshing change and nice to be out in the nature.

Europe Trip - Day 1

I decided I am going to Europe for my 30th birthday and me and my sis made this a "girls trip". We had to plan for months - Schengen visa was not a joke, especially for someone living in India. It was quite easy for me once I figured out, how to go about it. But figuring out was a challenge.

My dad booked the tickets for me from NYC and for Abhi from Chennai through an agent to synchronize our time of landing. The agent kind of screwed up a little bit in the last minute and changed our flights, but got us there on time. I flew in Iceland Air (after my pedicure, manicure and blow dry spree, haha). My port of entry was through Iceland and for Abhi (my sis) was through Frankfurt. Mine was a lot easier than hers.

Abhi and I spotted each other as soon as we landed. Since I had a bigger suitcase, we decided we should take a shared cab which didn’t sound very expensive. By the way, it was a lesson learned not to carry a big bag on Europe trips, they have very nice public transportation and people carried suitcases in buses, trams etc. We drove through barren land in Paris as Abhi and I wondered what the fuss was about. After some time we saw the city and it looked much similar to NYC(. All big cities kind of look alike to me, LOL).

We took out our French dictionary and tried to talk to the driver who seemed quite charming. As we got out, he asked us for tip (I had asked before I got into the cab if the price included tip and now he was asking more.) We giggled and got out, not responding to him. But at that moment, I realized I had left my very expensive camera in the cab. I panicked. The hotel we landed was not very fancy (It was a suggestion of one of my friends in Europe). It was a shock for both me and my sis and we weren’t very good at navigating around.

I tried calling the cab driver whose flyer luckily my sister saved.  I was dialing a number wrong or something that we kept getting some voice message in French.  It was extremely frustrating when I realized how hard it was to survive in a country where I didn’t know the language. Finally with my friend’s help, we figured out how to call the number and left a voicemail about my camera.  The guy checked with the cab driver and said that he would leave the camera back with us. What a relief! I realized how honest these cabbies were and paid up 10 Euros in tip. So much for saving in the beginning.

We had our shower and decided to head out for sight-seeing. We did not want to lose a minute of our time in Paris. J We asked the hotel receptionist what would be a good place to see and decided we would go to Champs de Elyses. It is a giant shopping area. Since it was the fashion capital of the world, we decided to spice it up and wear heels and nice make-up. Before we headed out, it was time for some nice Parisian food. We stopped at a bakery and tried some stuff, none of it was good. But we spoiled our appetite. We headed to the subway. A nice lady helped us with tickets. It was not very expensive, we bought around 10 tickets and it lasted for a while. Champs de Elysees was nice, but nothing out of the world. We smelled really nice Crepe, but we had already spoilt our appetite. We vowed we would come back to the same place and have a nice crepe the next day morning. We kept walking and reached a spot where we could take a cruise.

It was a nice cruise showing around the great spots in Paris.  We were starving at this point. We couldn’t find any restaurants around and finally spotted one. We took our seat and waited and waited and waited.  There was one server who came and asked for our order in French, but when we said English we were totally neglected. After spending about an hour waiting and seeing everybody else get served and trying to get the waiter’s attention we moved along. Luckily we saw another restaurant where we were greeted from outside in good English and offered really good food. We tipped them as we left the restaurant (Only later realizing that it isn’t necessary to tip in Europe).

We got lost a few times before we reached our hotel. We didn’t mind though, as we saw the really pretty city and very pretty people. JA very eventful first day in Europe. We went to sleep really tired, not realizing it could be a little frightening to sleep in the hotel, thankfully we remained safe throughout our stay in that hotel.