Paris - Oh La La!

After taking a few days to recover from the chaos in Pamplona, my friend Pearl emailed to say she was in Paris and asked if I wanted to go see her there. Seeing as I had no work commitments, why not!
I went to AUT with Pearl back in 2000 when she first arrived in NZ from France to study there. We’d always said she can take me to Paris sometime, so it finally happened! I took the Eurostar on Saturday across the channel which meant a nice cruisy 2 and a half hours on a high speed train. Much easier than flying, just took the tube from my place to Waterloo Station, checked in and went through customs in about 15mins, waited 10mins for the gates to open and we could board, easy as, I highly recommend it!
Pearl met me at the station and took me to this cute little hotel she had found for us. We were in the Saint-Michel area which was quite touristy but I love playing tourist! We even had a little balcony which had a view of the Eiffel Tower to the left and a view of Notre Dame to the right, I still couldn’t believe I was actually in Paris! So we dropped my bag off and went to explore Paris. We walked to where the pyramids of the Louvre are and admired all the old buildings (I laugh when I think of how much history NZ doesn’t have) that have been there for centuries. Pearl wanted to go somewhere fancy for dinner so after some recommendations, we ended up at this very nice restaurant a short metro ride away, sitting under a little archway on the footpaths of Paris listening to all the various languages around me. It was great having Pearl with me to translate everything! Altho I did study French at school so I’m able to read most items on a menu and have a very basic conversation with the French (which was a lot more advanced after a few drinks!). I had a very yummy piece of salmon that was so fresh, it just melted your mouth, just what I felt like!
We decided to have a French breakfast the next day and go to Chateau du Versailles, highly recommended if you’re over that way. I woke up at what I thought was 9am but when we were ready to leave, I realised it must’ve been 8am we woke up, pretty early on a Sunday! We went to Notre Dame where there was only about 50 other people wandering around, so it was nice to have a bit of quiet in Paris. Went to a nice little café and had croissants, a coffee, orange juice and cake type thing and then found a train to go out to Versailles which is about 40mins out of Paris. Of course being a Sunday, the rest of Paris had decided to go there as well! But because I love being a tourist, I didn’t mind although Pearl wasn’t like the queues at all! And it was about 35C as well so staying in the shade was the key! Chateau du Versailles is the castle where King lived with his family, the castle is huge! We did a walking tour through it for about 2 hours and I know I missed some rooms. And then we went down the gardens which were absolutely amazing. Definitely scenes from old-time movies where people would have lavish parties surrounded by these massive gardens and amazing waterfalls. There are about 20 different water falls and back in the day when the King would walk around, the servants would have to turn on each one as the King walked to it. Nice work! The pictures don’t do it justice. They were also playing music so we felt like we were actually in a movie! We finished the day watching a massive water works display, sort of impressive, but apparently the show at night is better with the fireworks as well.
We headed back to Paris and went for dinner at the touristy place, full of restaurants with all the waiters trying to say they were the best around etc etc. They have what they call menu’s over there where you can get an entrée, main meal and dessert for varying prices. Of course, you get what you paid for so it wasn’t always a good idea! That nite we met a Canadian who was in Europe on business. Our tables were next to each other and we started talking about our travels and it turned out he’d been to Versailles that day as well. Being Canadian, he spoke French as well, and I managed to understand about every fifth word so was sort of able to keep up with the conversation.
Pearl was going to visit her parents in Togo when we left Paris so she spent Monday morning at the embassy trying to sort that out. I played tourist again and walked around taking more photos and going to the tourist shops to see if I wanted anything. We finally met again sometime after lunch and went to the Louvre – which is massive! We only saw a portion of it but spent a good few hours there, will have to see the rest on my next trip there (late Sept with Mum, yippee!).
We found out about another area of Paris where we were recommended we go for dinner and went to a rest called Chez Papa which was one of the highlights of Paris, great food! And funny staff which made the nite fun.
We had spent 3 days walking everywhere around Paris and were both quite exhausted from the heat, up to 40 degrees one day. I’m sure I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow every nite.
Tuesday we woke up to yet another brilliant day and met Pearls’ friends Andrew and Emma at Sacre Coeur. They’re both also kiwi’s and Andrew’s band (Batucada Sound Machine, highly recommended if you get the chance to see them live!) are touring around some of the music festivals in the UK so decided to spend a week in Paris too. We went on a boat cruise along the Seine, which was lovely to see Paris by the water, and went to the Eiffel Tower, which is amazing to actually see for real. After nearly dying in the heat again, we went to Luxemburg park and lay down on the grass for awhile enjoy gelato ice creams… hmmm….. and I kind’ve had a nap as well.
Pearl has some friends living in Paris so we were able to stay with them our last nite there. And because we loved the restaurant so much from the nite before, the 6 of us went there again.
My train was leaving at 4pm so we still had Wednesday morning to go out so we went to Musee D’Orsay with Andrew and Emma to look at yet more art. I’ve discovered I like paintings with water in them, whether it be a picture of a lake or river or waterfall. I’m sure I was a fish in my last life.
After lunch out with Pearls friends, I took the Eurostar back to London, my home for nearly 4 months.

Reality was going to hit me after spending the last 4 weekends in 3 different European countries. But that’s why I’ve come over here, to see as much of Europe as I can!

Running with the Bulls!! The Day!

So after all the build up with the Opening Ceremony, Friday was the actual day of Running with the Bulls came upon us. There were a couple of girls from our bus who were running and most of the guys were, including my flatmate Brad. Everyone was trying to be positive about it, there hadnt been a death since 1995 so that was good odds.... (altho heavy on the brain!). Us girls parted with our boys once we got into the town again and headed to the arena. We paid 10euro to go and it was once again, an awesome atmosphere! You could tell that some of the Spanish people had been up all nite, and why not when its a natiional holiday!! There was a band playing in the centre of the arena and obviously played some well-known Spanish tunes because they would suddenly break into song.
Then a canon went off.... there are 3 canons. The first one means the gates have been opened, the second one means the first bull has come out and the third one means the first bull is in the arena. When that first canon went off, my heart stopped again for a bit, I was freaking out for all the guys I knew running, knowing there was nothing I could do but sit there and wait until I could see they were all safe! Amazing to see though, the first crowd of runners coming into the arena and quickly going to the side, looking behind them to make sure there wasn't a bull right behind them. 6 bulls are let loose first, then another 6 smaller ones. Either way, I wouldn't want to be chased by any of them! Once all 6 had run through the arena, safely out the back and locked up, they let out 2 little bulls to run around the arena. The brave guys would try and annoy them to get them fired up, but I dont see the point! Most of the guys I knew had jumped the side by this time which was good to hear, altho I didnt know this at the time, because it hard to spot people you know when everyone is wearing white clothes and red bandanas!! Traditionally, you aren't meant to touch the bulls but some stupid guys were teasing them really badly and when they did, the crowd would boo at them. Dont mess with tradition! One guy was so bad at it, the police had to escort him out of the arena so the Spanish guys wouldn't beat him up!! What an idiot!!
After meeting up with all the guys after the run, we went back to camp to rest for a bit before going back into town for a bit more of a party. Great watching the Spanish enjoy their music, they all knew the dances, like a town square dance! I stayed in Pamplona with my new friend Sonia and we managed to meet some Italians who wanted us to do the limbo with some rope they had (who carried rope with them?) and ended up in this cute little Spanish bar trying to speak with some Spanish guys who also knew some english. Sonia is orginally from Portugal and with the little Spanish I knew, we had a good combintation to figure out what they were saying. Our buses went back to camp every 2 hours so we made our way back there eventually and went to the nite club at camp, it was like being in a club anywhere else, cept the trees were the roof and it was just really really hot!!! It was out last nite at camp so most of us stayed at the club til it closed about 5am. And as we got back to our tents, the tour leaders were waking up those who wanted to do the Running with the Bulls again, so we all helped too! We knew they would take awhile to get ready so not much point trying to sleep while others are just getting up. Someone got hold of some toilet paper and all of a sudden, the tree around us was covered in toilet paper! Just like a christmas tree! Well sort of... hehe.
So I went to bed for a few hours sleep but when I woke up, I realised it was way too hot in the tent, slowly emerged and found out it was going to be about 40 degrees. This was our first day we could actually spend at camp doing nothing which is what we did... so needed it! We left around 6pm for the journey back to London, which fortunately went to plan, altho we all wished we could've taken a plane!
Everyone seemed to sleep pretty on the bus and by the time we arrived back in London about 6pm, we were all keen to keep on partying. So we did! Went to this bar not far from where I live (after ducking home for a quick shower, really needed one!) and partied the rest of the nite. It was like we didnt want the tour to come to an end, it was a really awesome bunch of people to be with for 8 days!!
Fortunately the tour group realises the people on tour often become close and have already organised 2 reunions. The first one is this Sat, will be great sharing all the photos with everyone! I'll put my other photos from my digital camera up sometime next week.
I still need to find a job, I just came back from Paris so my bank account is hating me even more! But will write about that in another post :)

Running with the Bulls!! Buildup...

Hola amigos!!
Since my last post I've been to Spain and France, I love living so close to Europe!!
I went on a tour with my flatmate Brad with http://www.backpacker.co.uk/pamplona8day.htm and had an absolute blast! One again, met many Kiwi's, Australians and South Africans and we all drank way too much, but the memories are fantastic.....
Running with the Bulls is an old tradition held in Pamplona, San Fermin, Spain each year where bulls are let out at one end of the town and chased into the arena, with thousands of mostly guys running with them but ensuring they were out of the bulls way. Most of the guys on my coach did it and a couple of girls, but I was quite happy to watch.
We left London at 1.30pm on a Sunday arvo with what we thought would be a 20 hour coach ride to look forward too... or not as it turned out. Everyone was really friendly on the bus so we were all walking around it (well the best you can on a coach) meeting each other, finding out where everyone was from, figuring out who the clowns were going to be and who had the cold beers. Our tour leader was called Party Pete and that pretty much sums up how the whole 8 days was. 2 hours out of London, we came to Dover where we took the car ferry over to Calais, France. The bar on board was well apprciated for some cold ones before the rest of the trip! Off the boat into France we make our first stop at a service station. I had studied French in school and could still remember how to read a menu so this came in handy. It was then announced that our bus was having some technical difficulty and we would have to wait for a mechanic. About 2 hours later one finally shows up to inform us the coach is not road worth at all. So Party Pete puts in another call for another bus and tells us it will be with us somewhere between 2 and 10 hours - oh my god!!!! We eventually ran out of alcohol and as it was midnight at this point and there were a lot of drunk antipodeans running around a French car park, the tour had no choice but to put us up in hotels for the nite, much better than trying to sleep on a coach! And that was the most sleep we got for the rest of the trip. Our new coach finally arrived about 3pm the next day, we should've arrived in Pamplona at about midday so we were a tad late! We were still in good spirits and Party Pete made sure we were looked after so after driving through France most of the day, we finally made it to Spain and arrived at camp at 4.30am on Monday. I had slept a bit on the coach which was probably a good idea as we had to get up at 7.30am! It was Party Pete's job to wake us up in the morning and we were grumbled our way of bed to get breakfast and then hop on the coach again to take the 2 hour ride to San Sebastian beach. We were all over the coach at this time but at least it was only 2 hours!
San Sebastian reminded me on Bondi Beach in Sydney the way it curves around with cafes and apartments around the top of it, very pretty. And it turned out to be quite overcast which was a shame but we all enjoyed relaxing on the beach.
Back to camp that nite for our first nite with the rest of the tour. There was a total of 1600 of us staying at this campground and fortunately, all the tents were set up for us when we arrived so we just had to store our stuff there. There was a full on nite club as well, some of the best dance music I've heard in awhile! And a great ice-breaker to get to know everyone a bit better. We were bus number 5 and everyone knew our story of how our trip had instead taken 51 hours, so were sympathetic as thats a long time! But we all bonded really well which was great.
On Wed, we were taken into Pamplona itself for a tour of the town. We did a walking tour with a friendly spaniard now living in London called Luis and got our bearings of where the bulls would be running from and where too. It was nice once again just to relax under the sun with a few beers, the next day was going to be a full on one!! As the next day was going to be a massive party (and the Spanish can be sneaky) we had been advised not to take anything valuable with us, just some cash but no digital cameras, mobiles, etc etc. So I bought a disposable camera with 40 shots on it, brilliant idea! I've included some of them on here.
Thursday was the day of the Opening Ceremony, what a day!! We were woken up about 5.30am so that we could get into town in time to be in front of the town hall for the official opening at 10am. This involved buying bottles of bubbles for 3euro ($6NZ) which was meant to be used for spraying around but being the drinkers that we are, we were all drinking them as well! Everyone was dressed in white shirts and pants to stick with tradition and by the end of the day we were all pink from the sangria sprayed around as well, as you can see in the photos!! I tried dodging all the champange and sangria being sprayed around but after awhile, who cares!! So much fun! And the Spanish were great at the chants, I became very good at singing ole, ole, ole, ole, oleeeee, oleee (those of you know who know that one, will now have that stuck in your head!). There was also mustard, ketchup and shaving cream going around, we all stunk something riduculous after being in the sun all day, but at least we were together! After the official opening, we wandered up to a place called Muscle Bar which is this crazy concept Australians and Kiwi's have thought of. There's this big statue you can climb up, about 7 metres high and them make sure there's a crowd down below ready to catch you when you jump off like doing a bungee. Crazy. We were advised not to do it and there was no way I was gona be anywhere near it! I watched from the back and my heart stopped for a few seconds when I saw a guy up there from our bus but he was fine after it. Stupid boy tho.
After this it was up to the White Horse pub which is a massive outdoor bar and was our meeting place for everone, brilliant! By this time we'd all had a few bottles of 3euro bubbles so were quite merry. Spent the rest of the day wandering around the town and I even had a snooze in a square on the grass, I think there were a few of us that needed a siesta by this time!

Here's a link to the photos I took on a disposable camera:
http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2103974057

Running with the Bulls in the next one.....