Follow the cross bodies

Bonjour!

Today was our first full day in Paris. We fell asleep last night with the intention of getting up around 8 to head into town to the Eiffel Tower then the Musee de Orsay, a famous art museum in Paris which houses lots of artwork from the impressionist time frame, both of which we knew would have longer lines later in the day. Our 8 o'clock plan didn't work out so well when we woke up realizing it was 9:15, oops! We hurried to get ready, still hoping to make the most of our day, but the trip has caught up to us at this point, and we have all 3 hit the tired wall. One bodies are mentally and physically exhausted. So it took a little while to get ready. Now we had changed plans to move the Eiffel Tower to an evening activity and stay in Paris for a nicer dinner, so we all wanted to look a little nicer. Dressed in our best touring dresses and skirts, we headed a couple blocks south into the heart of Montmartre, where we had been last night. We found a small "to-go" bakery right near the metro station which looked delicious. At this point it was around 11am, so plenty of people were out on the streets. We walked through the bakery before having to order, drooling over everything we saw. We decided to get a very large ham and cheese sandwich (covered in cheese on the outside too) and then each get a pastry to pass around as well. I ordered something resembling a kronut, Aunt Lanie got a petit croissant, and Mom got some long shaped almond type pastry. Up at the cash register, Mom and I grabbed diet cokes of course, and Aunt Lanie asked for a coffe. The lady working the cash register immediately threw her hands up in the air, grabbed our ordered items - already bagged since we had asked for them to go - and took them to the back counter after seating us at a table in the back of the restaurant. Another waitress brought us menus, and we were as confused as we could be. By attempting to speak French, we finally were able to get the explanation that coffee was not to go and since we ordered that we needed to sit in the restaurant and order our food. Instead, we handed back the menus and Aunt Lanie said she would share our diet cokes in order to get her caffeine fix for the day. We walked toward the metro stop and found a bench in front of the square carousel to sit down and enjoy the pastries on. They were all delicious, as was the ham sandwich.  We couldn't believe how good these were. I can't imagine what the people around were thinking with us talking about them and sighing and moaning with how good they were. #sillyamericans 

Once we finished our not-at-all-nutritious breakfast, we started down the long and winding stairs to the metro station for our first adventure with this. Mom and I had spent some time looking up routes etc last night and thought we had it figured out. In true 3 blondes style, it did take us about 10 minutes and an attempt to ask the information desk for help before we figured out how to purchase tickets. Each ticket is only 1,70 euros, which is about $2.50, maybe a little more with current conversion rates unfortunately. We were going to need to swap trains just once, but it shouldn't be too hard. After buying tickets and entering through the turnstile that takes them, we went down even more stairs. Down and down and down and down, I had no idea how long we would be going until we got there. Finally, we heard more people and a train. I started running at the end of the stairs after hearing the train which had just pulled up, but as I rounded the corner the train pulled away. But then, looking up, only 3 minutes until the next train would arrive, whew! We hopped on the next train and made the connection without any issues, we might have this thing down pat. When we got off the train, we were about 2 blocks from the Musee d'Orsay so started that way. As soon as we arrived, we saw the line, woah! Aunt Lanie immediately got in line while Mom and I explored around a little to make sure we were in the right line. Good thing we did, because while we might have gotten in the shorter line, it was the wrong one. We didn't have reservations at the museum so the longer line was the place to be. On the way over to the longer line, my Mom was approached by a young woman who spoke no English, but had found a ring on the ground and thought it was my Moms. They couldn't communicate very well but my Mom took the ring saying she would take it to lost and found at the museum. As soon as we turned around to keep walking I got a funny feeling. I told Mom to give the ring back, that it had to be some scam or something, only to turn around to see the girl following us. It took a little bit, but eventually we got her to take the ring back and walked away. When we got in line, we started talking to the couple in front of us from Canada, and they said they had been approached with 4 lost rings so far that morning. After googling, they had found that it was the biggest pickpocket scam in Paris because they would distract you while someone else reaching into your purse to grab money. Thank goodness we didn't completely fall for that one - but we kind of did! (Side note - the Canadian couple we chatted with while in line had been traveling the world since April and had no plans of going home soon and had to only be in their early 40's at the oldest! What a dream - they had been doing things like house sitting for a month in Mexico, traveling Europe for 1 month by train, then planned on staying on the outskirts of Florence, Italy for a month while planning the next leg of the vacation. I'm super jealous!)

We waited in line for about 45 minutes before getting inside and purchasing tickets. We all decided to get the audio guides to have some idea of what was going on, which meant yet another line. While in this line, we met an older couple, and the woman was an art major. We started chatting about the art we would be seeing, only to find out that they both attended UNC Chapel Hill. After my mom and she broke out into the fight song in the museum, we continued to chat and found out they live in Elizabeth, a borough of Charlotte only about 5 minutes from my place in South End. What a small world. 

We made it into the museum and through in about 3 hours. I didn't know too much about the artwork going in, so I am very glad I opted to pay a little extra for the audio guide. While I wasn't into it quite as much as my mom, it was still very interesting. Some of the artwork we got to see included Monet, who is an artists whose work I like. Here are the best pieces at the museum, since I couldn't take any pictures: 

http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/home.html

After leaving the museum, we crossed the street to sit down on the stairs facing the Siene River (runs through Paris) and decide what we would do next. We were pretty hungry so decided to find a place to  eat then head to the island in the Siene river to see Norte Dame. To hopefully save some money and get better food, we wanted to get at least a couple blocks away from the museum to eat. We started walking away from the river, back towards the metro stop we had gotten off at earlier. We found a place on the corner of a very busy street that looked cute. It had available outdoor seating and what looked like plenty of locals eating there. Well, not our best meal. The service was horrible - we had almost gotten up and left when it took over 10 minutes for the waiter to even come over to our table. Aunt Lanie got a pretty good cream ravioli dish, Mom got a pesto pasta and I got a plate of veggies - have to be a little healthy leading up this yacht week thing. All in all it ended up being a not so good lunch with not so good service and was one of the more expensive meals we had. Oh well, it will happen. From here, we mapped out the walk to Notre Dame and it looked like about a mile. It looked like we would get to walk down a good shopping street so we started that way. We spotted a sunglasses store, and Mom's had fallen apart a couple days ago, so we stopped in there for a quick repair, which they didn't charge her for, so nice. We also stopped at Western Union when we spotted the best conversion rate we had seen so far - 1.39 euros for $1. We then passed a very cute children's boutique that looked like it was having a sale. Aunt Lanie of course thought of her grand baby Madison and knew she had to go in. They had some adorable stuff, and she ended up buying a dress and sweater combo. Now this little girl is dressed better than me - dresses from the street of Paris, I'm a little jealous. We then continued our walk, stopping for gelato AGAIN at the same chain and it was once again delicious. I took their recommendation and got amaretto and stracciatto (mint chocolate chip) and it was so good. I think I would get the whole thing amaretto next time because of how good that flavor was. After this, we got a little turned around when we decided to cut back towards the river. While attempting to use the google directions, the google map app, and an actual map to get back on track, we will just say we all got a little frustrated and needed to spend a few minutes not talking to cool off. Eventually we found our way back over to the river and walking towards the island, we stumbled upon the love lock bridge. I have seen many many pictures of this online but it was even more amazing in person. We had heard a couple days before that part of the bridge had fallen and I can understand why, all those locks much be so much weight. The tradition is to get a lock and key style lock and write you and your others name on it, lock it onto the bridge fencing, kiss the keys and throw them into the river together. Pretty cheesy, but I guess it could be cute. There are the signs on the bridge that actually say not to throw the keys in the water, but obviously everyone does it anyway. We didn't do a lock but did look around the bridge trying to find some old locks. We suspect, and it obviously has to happen, that locks are cut off the bridge on a pretty regular basis. The oldest lock we could find was leaning over onto the river side of the fencing and down pretty low and was 2008.

After exploring the bridge for about 10 minutes, we continued our walk towards Notre Dame. We got there around 6:20 and were able to walk right in with no line to wait in. The church was huge. Mass was going on, so we sat in the back with the other tourists and listened to the song for a few moments. Since everything was in French, we couldn't understand much of what they were talking about. They came around, even to the back with the offering dish and we gave a little to the church. As we got up about 15 minutes later, we went to go explore around the outside of the main worship area and noticed it was blocked off in one direction, which it hadn't been when we entered. As we walked around the other side, it was only open up to the next entrance and then still closed off. We googled and realized we had come after closing time, which was 6:45 and would not be able to explore the entire church. We snapped some more pictures, Mom and Aunt Lanie lit a candle, and we headed on our way, knowing we had to decide if we wanted to return tomorrow in order to explore Notre Dame more extensively. 

Now time for the main event. We grabbed a bottle of water - we have all been horrible about paying for and drinking water and are noticeably dehydrated - and headed for the closest metro station to catch a quick train to the Eiffel Tower! I knew we would have to wait in line for a while, but I was so excited for this, more than anything else we had planned for Paris. From the metro station we got off at, we had a little bit of a walk and had some great views of the Eiffel Tower on our way. We passed a to. Of tourist based vendors selling all sorts of Eiffel Tower souvenirs from key chains to liquor bottles to shirts. We finally made, we were under the Eiffel Tower. We saw a line, and once again Aunt alanine quickly got a spot in line while Mom and I explored to figure out if she was in the right place. We figured out the line Aunt Lanie was in was right, it was an a hour wait for a ticket then you got into another line to head up on the elevator. There are 2 elevators at each corner of the structure, which take you from the ground level to level 1 and level 2. Then you must get off the elevator and get into another line to go up to the very top (you can pay a lower price if you want to just go to the second level. We opted for the elevator instead of the stairs after a long day of walking. You can save 10 euros if you take the 700+ stairs up to the top rather than the elevator. Anyways, even though Aunt Lanie was in the right line, she wasn't in the only right line! One corner of the tower had the line that had gone into the middle and wrapped around, but in the opposite corner was a much shorter cash only line. One of the two elevators in this corner was for people with reservations to the restaurant at the top and I guess everyone assumed this was the only way to get up on that corner, but not true. If you could buy your tickets in cash, the line was only 15 minutes to the ticket counter and you were then able to go directly in and get on the elevator. We lucked out on this one! We got up the second level pretty quickly, snapped just a few pictures, then got in line to head to the top. This line was only about 5 minutes, so again not a long wait. As we got higher and higher, my fear of heights was growing and I will admit I was a little nervous. The level you get off the elevator at is enclosed, with windows looking out over the view, but if you go up the stairs to the next level, only a net is between you and view. It is a great view of Paris! We did the full 360, probably a couple times and took everything in. It was chili with the wind and very crowded up there, but well worth it. One thing that has surprised all of us is how white of a city Paris is, all of the buildings are basically the same beige or white color and very little greenery can be seen when overlooking the view. We got lots of pictures, and were amazed when we looked down at our watches to see it was 9:00 and the sun was still up. We were exhausted so once back down from the tower, we headed straight to the metro to go home. Once reaching our stop in Montmartre, we grabbed some sandwiches from the same place as last night and came home to eat them. With how tired we all are, everyone pretty much went straight to bed, other than spending a few minutes trying to figure out the washer and dryer in this place. It's going now, so let's hope it works this time. For now, I need my sleep. Only one more day in Paris, this trip is flying by way to fast!

By the way, everywhere we went today was so touristy that whenever we were lost, we would just "follow the cross bodies" - hence the name of the post. We have decided that the 2 major things (amongst many others) that completely give you away as being a tourists are wearing comfort shoes and of course the cross body purse, which all 3 of us are carrying the whole trip! 

Paris or bust

Today was our first day in Paris. We woke up in Amsterdam and checked out of the apartment by 7:30. We called a taxi from the phone our apartment provided and a Mercedes SUV showed up, so fancy! Taking a few last pictures of the city before departing, we said goodbye to this city we fell in love with and all the bikes that came with it. We stopped in the train station for a quick breakfast - a couple diet cokes and a coffee paired with a breakfast sandwich for mom. (I was finishing off the delicious bread and cookie butter from the day before.) the train departed at 8:17 to head to Paris. We were in the back of the cart across the aisle from each other. I tried to get some blogging done, but no such luck when my iPad ran out about an hour into the ride. Instead, I ate my breakfast and quizzed Mom on her French speaking straight out of the tourist book. 

We arrived in the Paris train station around 11:30 and had to take some pictures, this train station was way more impressive than the others we had been to. We got in line for the taxi, only having to wait about 10 minutes. The First glimpse of Paris was wonderful, the architecture is so different than any other city I have been in. We took the taxi to the apartment in Montmartre, knowing we had an hour until scheduled check in, but wanted to get there and make sure we knew where it was and then find lunch nearby. With only 20 minutes to check in, we didn't think we had time to find a place to eat, so just waited out front for the owner to come check us in. With check in scheduled at 12:30, when it hit 12:45 and no one had shown up, Mom called. The lady said she would leave then lol, guess she was waiting on the "you're late" call. We got checked in around 1, and explored the apartment a little. Mom wasn't too impressed with the place, but with Paris being such an expensive city, we had to deal with the fact we couldn't get the nicest place in town, and I was fine with it. I'm not looking to spend much time in this apartment anyways :). It just had some slanted floors (think I have a video of rolling a ball across the living room with no push). Too bad, it didn't matter, we just wanted to explore Paris. 

Time to hit the streets! This afternoon, Mom had planned for us just to walk around and explore Montmartre and not go into the main part of Paris. We walked past a few restaurants, checking out other peoples dishes and quickly decided on lunch at a cute little restaurant that had outdoor seating of course overlooking the main shopping street. The waiter was great, very friendly and even helped my Mom out with her French a little bit. And all of our meals with amazingly delicious! Mom had a pork casserole dish, Aunt Lanie had the beef and veggie special plate, and I had a salmon avocado salad that was out of this world. 

We then walked the main shopping street and side streets, getting lost and finding our way back multiple times. We came across a couple of real estate places that had listings in the Montmartre area posted in the windows. That's when we realized that this "affordable" section of Paris was still extremely expensive and we couldn't believe we were staying in the apartment we were in for only when we were paying. We grabbed some amazing gelato right next to the restaurant we had lunch in - I had stracciatto (mint chocolate chip) layered with chocolate in a petit cone, so good! 

We had heard from many people that Parisians do not appreciate it when you immediately speak English to them and expect them to know your language instead of at least attempting to speak French, and this is so true. We went into one store to look at a hat that I liked. I made the mistake of immediately asking if the woman spoke English and she would not speak to me. She let me try on the hat but was very rude while we were in there. But, we heard her speaking English to other customers. After shopping for a bit, we went to the square in the area of town near the Abesseeses metro stop. There was a merry go round that wasn't running and then also a separate little garden area that was fenced in. Inside the garden area was the love wall, which was very cool. It is a large blue wall with I love you written in over 270 different languages. We found the languages we recognized - French, English, Spanish, and sign language. We walked around the gardens for a bit, noticing there was a school overlooking the garden and taking in the architecture of the buildings surrounding us. There was also a group of young boys in the square having a flour and water fight. Even though we got a little wet from some water guns, it was fun to watch then having so much fun like that. There was also a group of boys playing soccer in the square. One thing we have already realized about Paris is that there isn't a lot of greenery, so I guess in the square is one of the best places for them to play sports like that. Another thing that will be tough to get used to is the dog situation. Because of the lack of greenery, dogs just go to the bathroom in the streets and on the sidewalk and no one picks it up. There is water running down the sides of streets in random spots because it's just a known fact that you will step in the poo at some point and will need to get it off your shoe. I made it out with no stinky step ins today, but who knows if I will be that lucky for the whole trip! 

After hanging out in the square for a bit, we walked back up to the apartment and hung out there for a couple of hours. We looked at all the pictures from our day in Amsterdam and found some funny videos on my GoPro - especially of Aunt Lanie! We decided to have dinner on the hill of the Bascilica, right by our apartment. We walked back down to the Main Street in Montmartre to a sandwich spot we had spotted earlier, grabbed a couple things to share and headed back up the hill. We also had taken the wine opener and some glasses from our place to enjoy a bottle up there as well! Across the street from our apartment is a cute little conscience store type place with a fruit and veggie stand out front. We followed the other tourists to lead us up the hill, which was quite the hike. We came around one corner to our first view of the Eiffel Tower - so cool! From there, we continued the hike around the corner to the hill. It was a breathtaking view of the city of Paris. We walked up to top of the hill, attempting to get view of the Eiffel Tower but it was blocked by the trees, oh well! We walked around the hill and surrounding area a couple times to find a spot, finally settling on an empty grass patch over to the side of the hill. We started eating and attempting to open the bottle of wine. Ten minutes after the attempting started, and hearing a guy behind us laugh most of the time, he offered to help. None of us had realized that the wine opener was missing a part, but he was strong enough to open it without the part, thank goodness! We took in the view and did quite a bit of people watching. There were a couple girls in front of us drinking wine from the bottle and eating pasta and a group of young Parisians next to us all sharing a meal. At one point, Aunt Lanie almost got hit by a pigeon, wish I had that on video! We finished our meal and wine and went in to see the inside of the church. There was a cute couple taking wedding pictures up near the church, so beautiful! Inside, it was a gorgeous church, and mass was going on. Mom and Aunt Lanie lit candles inside the church. We had one more look of view, taking it in as much as we could and then walked back to the apartment. We have stayed up for an hour planning tomorrow in Paris, and I'm so excited! Sleep tight. See you tomorrow Pari

3 Blondes in Amsterdam

What a day in Amsterdam! I loved the city more and more with everything we did. We went in with a plan. I had mapped out a walking tour of the city, complete with restaurants and everything. We had 2.5 miles, and a day starting at 8am and ending at 10pm, hope Mom and Aunt Lanie were ready!

Plan aborted. Unfortunately, Mom seems to have come down with something on the plane or right before leaving the US and it just got worse with the sleepless traveling days we had. She wasn't feeling well at all this morning, so making it to the Anne Frank house by 8:30 to avoid long lines wasn't happening, and Aunt Lanie and I definitely weren't doing that one without her. After the 7am wake up, we then took our time getting ready. Around 9, Aunt Lanie and I ventured out to find a grocery and pick up some breakfast. The city - at least our neighborhood of Westerpark - was dead! I had heard that Amsterdam was a late morning city, that bakeries and breakfast cafés didn't open until at least 10, but I guess I didn't believe it until I saw it. Luckily, we found a small grocery store very close to the apartment that I think had just opened. We were the only people in the store and starting looking around for breakfast items. All of the fruits and vegetables looked delicious - very fresh, but different than the US. I think the food is so much less processed than back home - for example, the strawberries were much smaller and more red, I think just from no growth hormones being pumped in and stimulants put on the seeds. Anyways, we picked up some pineapple then ventured around the whole store having no clue what to buy. We finally found some peanut butter and decided it would be a good source of protein. Choosing between 4 different jars and not knowing what anything on the label said was difficult, but we chose the non-crunchy cheaper version, it didn't look so organic which would probably taste better. We went back to the bread area, where the store baker was baking the fresh breads for the day. He quickly saw that we were slightly confused and asked - in English - if he could help us out. We started to pick up a half loaf of the bagged bread on the shelf when he stopped us and asked if we wanted to freshly baked bread. Of course we did! He went back, cut us half a load of wheat bread, and bagged it up fresh for us. Grabbing a diet coke on the way out, we went to check out and head back to the apartment. We hadn't quite gotten the hang of opening and unlocking our apartment door yet and we had to wake Mom up in order to let us into the apartment. After just her 30 minute nap, she was feeling much better. Last night, we had taken ice cubes out of the tray and put them in a bowl in the freezer. Since the ice cubes had then frozen to the bowl, Mom proceeded to drink her diet coke out of the bowl. We all tried to bread / peanut butter combo and decided it was the best peanut butter we had ever tasted, almost tasted like a little bit of cinnamon in there. We all ate multiple pieces of bread covered in this stuff before we finally looked it up to find out if this was just a local brand or not. Well, it was cookie butter, not peanut butter! Oops, it was delicious, but so much for that protein!

We then continued to get ready to leave, leaving the apartment around 10:30 to head to the Van Gogh art museum which I had already purchased tickets for. We taxied over there to avoid the 45 minute walk and make up some of the time we had lost in the morning. When arriving, we went through some confusion about which line to get into with our tickets, ending up getting out of the line we should have been in and then having to go back to the back, only to get to the front to find out we needed to walk a few blocks down to redeem our tickets from the canal boat tour place. (I had purchased the canal tour tickets and Van Gogh museum tickets together from Canal company to avoid multiple international transaction fees.) We walked in the direction they had showed us, getting to see the "I Amsterdam" sign along the way. Finally finding the place, we were able to redeem both the canal tour and museum tickets. We then had to wait in the same line - for a third time now - to redeem our canal Van Gogh passes for actual tickets. Finally inside! 

The museum wasn't too large, we walked around for about an hour. It consisted of 3 floors, each with pieces from different time periods, and even a few pieces from other artists. The collection was mainly Van Gogh's brothers collection, who lived in Amsterdam. Van Gogh had painted and studied for a short time period while living with his brother, and many of the paintings were from then. There was also a temporary exhibition on the life of Van Gogh through a photographers eyes, which i thought was very interesting. We stayed the museum for about an hour, stopping in the gift shop at the end where Aunt Lanie purchased some post cards and a beautiful silk sharf showing the Van Gogh painting "almond blossom". We then decided it was time for lunch, and started wandering towards Blue, the restaurant with a 360 view of the city that I had chosen for lunch. We finally made it to the street and couldn't find the restaurant, but by this point we were all pretty hungry so decided to stop at a cafe with outdoor seating within sight. Thank goodness we did, because the food was delicious! Aunt Lanie and I both had a sandwich, hers chicken and mine salmon and avocado, and my Mom had amazing ravioli. We drank a little wine, and decided to quickly get on our way to make the most of this one and only day in Amsterdam. We exited the cafe on the other side after paying inside, which took us into a small mall. We looked around at what stores they had, and spotted a sign for Blue, the original restaurant we had been looking for. I guess it was in the mall - and it was straight up. We headed up just to check out the view and maybe have a drink. The view was awesome, only the first floor of the restaurant was open, but we took advantage and sat at a window facing table and had cider, beer, and a coffee for Mom. After taking in the view, we left the restaurant to start the 10 minute walk to Dam Square, the main square in center city Amsterdam. The street we went down was adorned with shops all over, and in the 5 minute walk, we passed 5 H&M stores! When we saw Dam Square, it was filled with people, and a soccer stadium! We had to go take a look at this! It was a miniature field, for sand soccer, which I had never seen before. There was quite the crowd, an announcer, and even fans with jerseys matching the guys that were playing. We stayed and watched for about 10 minutes before deciding to move on. At one point, the ball was kicked over the surrounding net and my mom happened to get it. Of course, I was the one to make a fool of myself after she gave it to me and I couldn't throw it high enough to get back over the net - i blame the heavy cross body I had on. 

We walked around the square for a couple minutes, then went in the direction of the red light district, the most infamous neighborhood in Europe! We were heading this way with the Sex Museum on our agenda. Within a couple minutes, we had definitely gotten into the red light district. The stench in the air was a very distinct smell - one that is very recognizable, weed. Not only were multiple people causally smoking it like a cigarette when they walked by but we also passed at least a dozen "coffee shops", which are the places in Amsterdam that sell the stuff. We walked into one just to see what they were like. Quite a few people were in line and looking around they sold all sorts of products, energy dris, ice cream, baked goods, and much more - all containing weed or mushrooms. Next door to the coffee shop was the condom shop I had read about - the largest assortment of condominium the world. Small or large, all different colors, all different flavones, even hand painted condoms meant for display - not sure where you would want to display that! After a few good laughs, we kept going to the sex museum. 

We did have to stop in a McDonalds to use the restroom, which cost money everywhere around here. While we were off course anyways, Aunt Lanie and I grabbed some frozen yogurt American-style, but it wasn't quite as good as back home. We should have waited for the gelato in Paris. We finally found the sex museum and paid the 4 euros to go in. Wow - we didn't know what we were in for. It was a history of sex, lots of pictures and even moving manikins. A little awkward with my Mom and Aunt unit we got over that pretty quickly and got a few funny pictures! 

We left the sex museum with tears streaming down our face from laughing so hard. We crossed the street to the canal cruises dock where we would be taking our 1 hour tour by boat of the city. Amsterdam is made up of an impressive canal system, over 160 kms of canals in the city alone. The tour came with a set of headphones and narration to let us know what we were looking for. We learned that in the central part of Amsterdam, 3 rounded half circle canals wrap around the city, each one further out than the next. This used to be a sign of wealth, how many canals you were out from the city center, but now not so much. We also learned a lot about the facade of the houses - many were built up higher than the actual house and the maximum width is 6 meters, about 18 feet. Very wealthy families have bought 2 house spots in order to double the width of their homes. We also got the see the most famous, most photographed spot in all of Amsterdam, the 7 bridges view. (Side note - we knew the painting in our apartment living room was from IKEA because my Mom has the same one in our basement, it's a red bike in front of a few bridges and flowers, the entire background being black and white. We realized it was a picture from Amsterdam only 10 minutes after being in the apartment. The 7 bridges view is the picture!) We took lots of pictures, and even got to ride out into the river which all of the canals open up to and see the northern, more modern side of Amsterdam. 

After the canal tour was over, we made our way to dinner. I had picked a restaurant based on online recommendations in Jordaan, a young adult neighborhood close to Westerpark. It took a while, but we finally found the restaurant, and it was closed! Bummer! But the one next door had lots of people and an outdoor table just opened up, so that's our place. The food looked good and we needed a beer. We sat and ordered beers and an appetizer that we had no idea what it was, taking a chance on that one. Good thing we did, because it was the best part of dinner. It was a spicey shrimp dish that was out of this world good. We people watched for most of dinner. Mom and I shared the spaghetti dish and Aunt Lanie got a fish and chips. Her chips, or fries, were very good. After a couple beers and all that food, we were not going to be able to do any dessert, and were all very tired and ready to get home. It was after 10:00 and not even dark out which was taking our bodies some adjusting to. 

After talking for an hour and getting our stuff packed, we were ready to hit the bed. Tomorrow, we will be heading to the train station bright and early and on our way to Paris. We all loved Amsterdam, this will be a hard city to beat! 

3 Blondes in Brussels

We finally made it! After my flight landed around 7:45 in Brussels, I was through immigration (with a new passport stamp!), and into baggage claim by around 8:30. By this time, I had realized that my phone wasn't working...uhh ohh! Since that was my only means of communication with Mom and Aunt Lanie, I know I would have to wait for them at the airport no matter how late their flight was. Luckily, when I was finally able to check on it, it was only about an hour and half behind them. Once again, time to get comfortable in the airport. I sat and waited near the train station, using up my free 30 minutes of internet to iMessage, Facebook, and email my Mom and Aunt where I would be waiting. Luckily, they rounded the corner around 10:15ish and I was so relieved to see them! It was finally time for this adventure to start.

We made our way to the bottom level (level -1) of the airport to the train station. Since the airport was a $60 cab ride from center city Brussels, our best bet was to take a train to the station we would later on be leaving from in order to take advantage of train station lockers and not be carrying our bags all day. Woah what an adventure. The train ride itself went smoothly since people were able to tell us which train to get on and we were able to understand enough to get off. But the lockers were a whole mother story! This is where the 3 blondes in Brussels tag line started. We packed our locker then didn't have euros. Then couldn't figure out how to close the locker. Then decided we needed some things out of our bags before. Then, oops, we need to use the restroom first. By the way, that costs money over here. Need to go back and get more exact change. It was a mess! An hour later, we finally were on our way out of the train station. We picked the first place we saw outside to have lunch and a couple beers. We all ended up ordering different variations on ham and cheese sandwiches. Aunt Lanie's was plain, Mom's had egg on top, and I of course picked the one with pineapple on top. We chatted for a while about what we wanted our revised plan to be now that we were later than expected in arriving to Brussels. We only had about 5 hours to sight see as our train for Amsterdam was leaving at 6:52 that evening. 

Unfortunately, Mom wasn't feeling that well, and was hesitant to even venture from the train station with us. Thank goodness the medicine she had taken before lunch kicked in a little bit, and she was feeling well enough by the end of lunch to come with us! Since we were leaving from Bruxelles-MIDI train station (note, if you are sightseeing, always pick Bruxelles-Central train station), that's where we had dropped off the bags, but this meant either a 30 minute walk or short taxi ride into the city center to see the sights. We opted for the taxi ride because we didn't have much time and because Mom wasn't feeling fantastic. Our first stop was Manneken Pis, or the peeing boy statue. Wow. We were all shocked at how small the actual statue was, maybe all of 1.5 feet. But we snapped some shots of the statue, and were all glad we walked down to see him. Right next to the attraction was exactly what Aunt Lanie and I had been looking for - a Belgium waffle stand! Yay! We waited in line for the 1 euro waffle, and both opted for the powdered sugar version. It was AMAZING! Most delicious waffle I have ever tasted in my life. I really think I will never eat another Belgium waffle at home because it couldn't come close to comparing to this thing. Wow, all I can say is wow. 

Anyways, then covered in powdered sugar we continued to sight see. A couple blocks down was the Royal square - which is where the flower carpet would be - the one sight I wanted to see while in Brussels. And we could t find it...we found the square. Standing in the middle of the square, I was confused and started to go ask one of the artists selling Brussels paintings where the carpet was located. Taking a look at his paintings and comparing the buildings surrounding us, I should have been standing in the middle of the flower carpet. Oh no! I guess this is only a once a year set up, and the flower carpet is not a constant attraction in Brussels - so disappointing. We had decided to play a little game since the restrooms were costing money. Anytime, someone had to go to the restroom, we would stop for a beer and instead of paying for the bathroom, they would pay for the round of drinks! I knew I could beat these two old ladies in this game. Well, this game lasted all of one bar. We stopped at the first place we saw with one available outdoor table. We started with a round of beers, just asking for 3 different beers of the waiters choice. Passing them all around, we all had a favorite and stuck with that one. There was a large group of men sitting next to us, all with accents but speaking English. Eventually, we started speaking with them about where they were from, and what brought them to Brussels. This is what ended up keeping us at this bar for the rest of our day in Brussels almost. We had a great time! They were 35-45 year olds, a group of about 15 men from England and Scotland, and were there celebrating a friends retirement from this English military. Lots of jokes and stories, and eventually we had joined in their circle and they were buying rounds of drinks for us - of course we weren't going to leave at this point. At some point, my wild nickname - Shania - got extended by these guys into Shania Danger, explosive ranger. The danger was added on just for effect by Stewart, the man sitting next to me. I also suddenly got an ex-husband, Ed Danger - he took my name. One of the men there worked on explosives for a living, and I told him he should get me a job in England, which is where the explosive ranger part came from. Aunt Lanie also got a nickname that afternoon, Lola, or "Lay Low", a Vegas show girl on vacation right now, so she couldn't perform any dances while away. And Mom's name was #, or hashtag - not sure where that one came from!

After a few rounds of beers and delicious mojitos, we decided it was time to sneak away. We only had about 2 hours before our train would be leaving for Amsterdam and knew we needed to have plenty of time to figure our getting our bags out of lockers in the train station. We stopped in a classic tourist shop and bought a thimble for Aunt Kim, Lanie and Mom's older sister who collects thimbles. We just had to get one more waffle before heading back, so we made that stop before hopping in a cab to get back to the train station. We grabbed a slice of pizza before getting on the Thayls fast train from Brussels to Amsterdam. At this point, we have all been up for almost 48 hours, with little sleep on the plane, so were being pretty silly but making the most of the train ride. We were sitting in the middle of the cabin, so facing each other with a table in between. We would be sleeping for 10-15 minutes, then wake up and be silly. I'm sure the woman at the four seater table wasn't very amused by us, as she didn't seem very happy in general. We were getting a kick out of this app my mom had downloaded where you take a picture and it places a random, sometimes inappropriate caption onto the picture. Our favorite was when we snuck a picture of the woman across from us and up came the caption "Mud Butt", we were all crying we were laughing so much. 

The train ride was about 2 hours, so we arrived in Amsterdam around 8:45, and we were shocked it was still so light outside. It was a 20 mine walk from the train station, but we choose to taxi since we had our bags. Upon arrival, we texted Romy and Jesse, the couple we were renting our apartment from to let them know were on our way. Our first attempt at a taxi failed when the driver told us this would be a 2 minute walk. Now we were very confused because we had been told by Romy that it would be over 20 minutes. Finally, we went back and said we didn't care how far it was but we wanted to taxi ride. When he put it in his GPS, he said we were right, it was way further. Us - 1. Amsterdam taxi driver - 0. We got to the apartment, walked up the 3 very steep sets of stairs to meet Jesse. The apartment is adorable, a small place but a quaint view and plenty of space for a couple days. There is one bedroom with a king bed and an Ikea couch that folds out into beds. We all thought about walking over the park nearby, but as soon as we sat down and took a load off, we were done for. The beds were calling our names, so after a few more laughs, we got ready and came to bed. Time for me to sleep now, but I can't wait to explore Amsterdam tomorrow. Only a few hours here, and I think I am already in love with this city!

Starting this one with a bang!

Well, it's Saturday morning (about 7am Europe time), I haven't even landed in Brussels yet to start the trip and the last 24 hours has been quite the roller coaster. 

I can't explain how excited I have been for this trip to start. I'm sure everyone I work with will tell you that I haven't gotten much done other than watching the countdown timer get lower and lower on my computer for the last few weeks. I spent all week preparing, last minute work outs, packing and repacking, and of course 15 separate trips to Target throughout the week. Then the day finally arrived. I woke up Friday morning super early because of the excitement of the trip. The plan was to work a half day, head home to take Mom and Aunt Lanie to the airport to catch their 4:30 direct flights to Brussels, then relax with a nail appointment before heading to the airport myself to catch my 7:50 connecting flight to DC then onto Brussels. They would arrive in Brussels about 5 hours before me, but we had a plan to meet up for lunch in center city. Then came the dreaded email - travelocity informing me via email only that my flights had all been delayed 24 hours due to the DC to Brussels flight being cancelled. I was devastated. I immediately called my Mom to tell her what was going on and then got on the phone with Travelocity. (I will never book another trip with Travelocity after the experience with this booking, not just these issues but also all the hassle Nicole went through trying to change her tickets, etc.) So, I sat in my car at work for 2 hours on the phone with Travelocity and Brussels Airlines and finally was able to get my flight rebooked to still be in Brussels before noon on Saturday. Arrival time would work out perfectly because this meant Mom and Aunt Lanie and I would actually arrive in Brussels around the same time. The major difference was I would be leaving CLT almost 6 hours ahead of my planned departure time! I finally walked into work at 930 just to tell everyone they had 30 minutes to get whatever they needed from me for the next couple weeks - sorry work! After that I rushed home and picked up my stuff before taking an uber ride to the airport right away - I wanted to arrive early just in case there were other issues with the booking. Checking in went smoothly, and I found myself in the CLT airport with 3 hours until boarding time. I spotted the spa and thought getting a mani/pedi would be the perfect way to relax - and it definitely was! It might have been the most expensive mani/pedi I have ever had, but well worth it not just because it was much needed but also because it was the best I have ever had. If you are ever stuck in that airport - highly recommended to go there! 

Anyways, I made my flight to DC and should have been boarding the connecting flight around the same time as Mom and Aunt Lanie. Seemed like out flight was right on time to leave DC, but texting them throughout the boarding, it was sounding more and more like they would be the ones delayed. We ended up leaving DC over an hour late due to overbooking and no one was willing to give up their seat, even for $800 in United credit (at this point, there's no way I was taking that bait). I had to turn off my phone before Mom and Aunt Lanie knew what was going on with their flight, so in mid-air right now I have no idea how far out of Brussels they are. I guess I'll see when I get there....

In planning for the trip, we each took different cities. I have Brussels and Amsterdam, Mom had Paris, and Aunt Lanie planned Venice. In planning Brussels, I made them a full day schedule and myself a half day schedule, meeting them for lunch. Looks like that might have to switch. Guess we will see when in Brussels. Whenever the adventure starts, I hope Europe is ready for us!

On a side note, traveling all day gives you a lot of time to think and today, I couldn't stop thinking about how lucky I am to be going on this trip. Getting a little cheesy here, but I am so lucky to have the chance and the means to take 2.5 weeks off from work, I am so lucky to have a Mom and an Aunt that will make plans a month in advance to embark on this journey with me (and a Dad and Uncle that are ok with that happening), to have friends like Nicole and Joey to take on yacht week with me, and most of all to have had the opportunities in the past to get myself addicted to seeing the world (ahem - thanks Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, and many others.) I definitely have a major case of wanderlust, and if wouldn't give it up for anything.

But getting away from that sappy stuff, we are about 30 minutes out from landing in Brussels. I'm ready for this adventure to start with a good Belgium waffle from a street vendor. Until next time....

And I'm off again...

Well, here we go again. It's 9 days (not that I'm counting) until I take off on my next international adventure. I don't know if it's possible for me to be more excited about this one! This trip was booked about 3 months ago, and has gone through lots of "versions" of the trip over the past few months.

It started when one of my best friends from here in Charlotte, Nicole, had a family wedding to attend in Italy in late June. When asked, I immediately said yes to tagging along and having an excuse to travel! We starting researching what else was going on in Europe during that same time frame, and came across The Yacht Week. I had heard of this before but never looked into it too much and wasn't sure it was "my thing". Then I watched the trailer on YouTube....

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_wC721zLZz4

Yeah, you're sold now too, right?

So, we booked our flights right away thinking the prices would increase if we didn't. We had decided to do some traveling around before and after TYW since we would be over there anyways. We booked flights heading into Brussels, Belgium a week before we needed to be in Croatia and leaving Prague, Czech Republic a couple days after getting off of the boat, giving us a grand total of 18 days of European vacation time. (This of course will use all of my vacation time for the year, meaning no planning new adventures until 2015 unfortunately.) 

A couple things didn't work out with Nicole's side of the trip and she had to switch around her flights to only make the week we would be in Croatia on TYW. bummer! But I was determined to have a great time, and of course wasn't going to give up my plans of traveling Europe! Eventually, I convinced my best friend - aka my Mom - and my Aunt Lanie to make part of the journey with me and I couldn't be more excited that they are coming!

The plan currently stands as (and hopefully won't change from this): 

Land in Brussels, Belgium on Saturday and spend on the afternoon exploring this city, eating Belgium waffles on the street and maybe sipping some Belgium beer! That evening we will take the fast train to Amsterdam! We will stay in Amsterdam for 2 nights and 1 day, then leaving for Paris on Monday morning. We have 3 full days of exploring Paris planned, which might be what I am most excited for. Then, Thursday morning we will fly to Venice, where I will have 24 hours to experience the entire city. No sleeping for this girl! Friday afternoon I will leave my mom and aunt and head to Split, Croatia. I plan on meeting up with fellow yacht weekers that night and maybe even start the craziness a night early. Saturday afternoon we find our boat, and hit the open water. Each day of TYW we will sail to different islands along The Croatian coastline, stopping in each for a night of fun. The boats heads back to Split on the final night, and we will be done on the following Saturday - I'm sure exhausted but also sad to be leaving. From there I will fly up to Prague to spend the last 3 days of my trip exploring what I have heard is an amazing city! 

I'll be sure to blog as much as I can between now and then and of course on my trip....any advice or suggestions for any of the cities I'm traveling to would be greatly appreciated. Come back for more if you want to read about this exiting adventure...