So far my journey home has been pretty smooth. I left off at waiting in Barcelona for a flight to Geneva last post and not too much has happened.. I got on the plane at 8:35ish. It's a little better than the last plane. It wasn't as ghetto and I also got the emergency exit seat which was pretty awesome. I sat beside a nice old French man. I took a pic of the mountains out the window and he tells me that I just took a picture of Mont Blanc. I guess like the pen and watch brand. It does look amazing just out the window. He tries to explain how beautiful Geneva is, but too bad I don't have time to leave the airport.

My next flight, the Air Canada flight to Montreal, is not so amazing. First, they take forever to board. But I did get another emergency exit seat which is a lot larger than the last one. Downside, babies. I am going to make an educated guess by the number of laughter and crying and wining that there are about a bagillion babies on board. 3 of which sit in front and behind me. Well that's how I got the emergency exit seat. But it's not worth it. While I was watching the Hunger Games, a baby kept staring at me and trying to get my attention. Never give babies attention if you don't want to play with them for hrs. Agh.
But headphones and loud music does wonders. Probably coupled with the fact that I only got an hr of sleep in 26 hrs but I ended up napping for 4 hrs. When I woke up I watched 1000 Words with Eddie Murphy. Meh... near the end the woman beside me says something along the lines of "we are almost there" then we engage in a full fledged conversation. Her name is Sarah and she's from Montreal but currently works as a teacher in Geneva. I think I learned something about myself. I don't approach strangers, but if someone says something to me and opens the gate, I'll flood you with a conversation. We talked non-stop for the next 40 mins about travelling and things we've learned about ourselves. I've learned quite a bit about myself.
First of all and most important is that I am gravely afraid of being alone. Modena post is the perfect example. Thinking back, I did have an anxiety attack there. I totally freaked out! I need to be around people, even if I don't know anyone.
Second of all, I learned that my ability to learn other languages is completely absent. I don't think anyone understood anything I said in French. In Germany I'm still wondering if thank you is 'danke shen' or 'danke she' or 'danke sher'. I must say though I am really interested in learning German now, mostly because I like how they literally pronounce every letter in their words. Also, they can have words with 3 consecutive 'f's. Not sure how to pronounce that... I love saying hauptbahnof hehe. And all that train lingo like ausgang and engang and farhkarten lol! I'm giggling to myself as I am typing it out. I gotta get Hora and Travis to teach me! With Italian, I don't think I even tried, same with Spanish. I'm completely lost with these Latin-base languages.
I can also be a very patient person. I just learned that during these flights home haha.
I learned a few other things too. For one, the world is so much bigger than I ever thought it was. I've probably met so many people across the world whom I will never see again. This trip alone I went to Barcelona, Figueres, Rome, Florence, Siena, Modena, Milan, passed through Zurich, Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Erlangen, Munich, Neuschwanstein, Dresden, Berlin/ Potsdam, Hamburg, Cologne, Paris, Caen, Bayeux, Granville, Normandy beaches, Bordeaux, Toulouse, and Nice. That's 25 cities in only 5 countries. I missed so many other cities along the way. And to think this trip only barely made a dent in my travels to only Europe. What about South America, Asia, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, North America? The saying goes "It's a small world", but it definitely is not. Hell I only went to Toronto for the first time a few years ago. Guys, don't get too comfortable staying at home. I assume that you are reading this because you're interested in my adventures. Trust me, none of my posts and none of my photos do justice to what I've seen. There have been places and situations that I was in that I omitted from my blog just because there is no easy way to explain it. We only live once, so don't you want to see what the world is like outside your little bubble?



One promise I am making to myself is to not let this trip be the most exciting adventure of my life.

July 10-11, 2012
This morning Rach and I basically did the same thing. We woke up around 9:30 and ate the breakfast waiting for us downstairs. During breakfast, we remembered that we still had that bottle of rose in the fridge. I didn't want to drink it so early since I knew it would be disastrous, but Rach said she didn't want to drink alone, so I had a glass. I already have trouble dealing with eating in the morning, so what do you think will happen if I drank in the morning?!
We left the house at 12ish to go back to the shopping area in Nice since I still needed to get my grandpa something. Omg I thought I was having some sort of anxiety attack. The bus was super stuffy and my head started to hurt, so I closed my eyes. We finally made it to our destination after a 40 minute bus ride. I was feeling very uncomfortable now. It's not because I was wasted off that glass, but it made my heart pump a lil faster, and it was reacting funny with my coffee+nutella toast breakfast. So first thing's first, find a washroom and banish the evil inside me.
We went to the Gallerie Lafayette and I went straight to look for the toilet. 3rd floor and it costs 50 cents! Whatever. What needs to be done needs to be done. I did feel a lot better after, but almost immediately my stomach felt very empty. I decided to suck it up and just go walk around for a while before I complain about being hungry. We hoped to catch the antique market that was around yesterday, but this is how we found out it was only on Mondays. Today was a flower market... Well I can't bring that home for my grandpa. I then recollected that I saw a leather goods store, and what better gift than a WALLET?! I hope we didn't get him one last year. Well even if we did too bad because I just got him another one. Done deal. Mission accomplished! I've done my shopping in Europe once and for all!
We had a pizza for lunch and then I got worried about being late to the airport so I dragged Rach back to where we are staying. On our walk back she finds a jewelry store and finds a gift for her sis. Yay we both accomplished something today!
We got back around 5:30pm and I took a shower and repacked everything. Btw the cockroach had disappeared so I could have packed it and it is currently on its way to Canada. Anyway, we check the bus schedule and get a little confused. Is there a bus going to the airport at 8pm? If not why would they put the time on the schedule? If yes then why doesn't it say when it arrives at it's destination like the other times? I decided to assume it was coming and if not I would call a cab. Our place was pretty close to the airport anyway. At about 6:30 our host comes home and comes to say hi. Rach asks her a few questions about her journey for tomorrow. Afterwards I ask her to confirm that there is a bus coming at 8pm. She takes a look, then says no. Uh oh. But she is a very very very nice lady and offered to drive me there because it is very close. Wow she is awesome. I think I've met the most friendly people in Nice. The Nicest people heh. So I sat around and tried to take a nap while Rach was figuring out her Nimes to Barcelona trip.
At 9 we head to the airport together including Rach. It was about a 5 minute ride. When we got there I thank our host very much and said goodbye to Rach. The next time we meet will be at least December! I got my stuff out of the car and went in to the airport, but not before getting a Nice picture of the three of us.

I was an hr and a half early, which was later than I expected. I must of read my ticket wrong again. At least this time I made sure even if I was late I would be early! I got to my gate and watched The Incredibles in French on T.V. until boarding time. The plane I got on was so old school. No screens AT ALL so the flight attendants had to do the actual demo while someone speaks in 3 languages. I noticed that usually when any type of driver, conductor, or aviator has to speak multiple languages, their English is very fast and uncomprehendable. So I'm wondering, are their other languages the same? Can anyone actually understand them? Anyway, we take off, and before I could get a nap in, we get to Barcelona.
Yay I'm back in Barcelona again! That makes the total times I've been to the airport 3 times! I like Barcelona. If I didn't arrive at midnight I would totally go chill at the beach. Besides, I only have NINE HOURS to wait. What was I gonna do? I found a seat and sat around and finished the last day's blog. Then I look around at everyone else who is sleeping on the benches. These benches are not easy to sleep on at all. I show you.

You see, there are arm rest sticking out from both sides. Some people figured out a way to wrap themselves around the arm rest. I couldn't figure it out. I probably spent half an hr trying to figure out how to sleep on this dumb bench. After trying a lot of different combinations of bench, small bag, and big back pack, I finally found a decently less uncomfortable position. I thought I would never fall asleep, but hey what do you know, I slept from 3 to 4am. I didn't wake up because it was too uncomfortable though. Nope, it was because some lady with a bad cough decided to sit beside me. Right beside me. I looked around with one eye and realized she must have did this on purpose! All the other seats were empty! Being scared of catching whatever she had, especially NOW, I woke up, checked the time, and cursed out loud that I got only 1hr of sleep. Today will be the longest day ever. Even though it specifically said check in starts 2.5 hrs before departure (I was 5 hrs early), I went to go check anyway. There was someone at the counter! So I asked her and she said it's fine. I passed security and everything and went to eat whatever you would call a 4am meal. I look at the tickets in my hands (I have 4, one is used), and laughed at myself.

It will take me a total of 34 hrs of traveling and waiting in airports to get home. Totally psyched, I turtle-pace walked to my gate. Hey this looks familiar. Didn't I run frantically through here about a month ago and almost miss a flight? I did!

At this very moment of typing this, I can see sunlight creeping out from behind some clouds. This is very cool. Today, I will see the sun rise in Barcelona and set in Vancouver. I will be chasing the sun all day.

July 9, 2012
Our first day in Nice, and it was nice. Ok that was a bad play on words, but I'm in Nice! Where else can I say that? Anyway, our nice Airbnb host set up breakfast for us to eat, bread, jam, nutella, OJ, and coffee. It took us til 12:30 to finally get out of the house. The bus stop was also just a few meters away so it was convenient... or so we thought. Our bus was over 30 mins late, and on top of that, it took about 40 mins to get to the city center!
We do a lot of walking around. The weather here is looking like the weather I started with in Barcelona, it was kinda nice but I just got use to the colder weather (like in the 20-25 celsius). It was closing in on 30 degrees here! We walked to some palace with these seated figures on posts everywhere.  There is also some jazz festival happening until July 12 in the middle of it. We have awesome timing. But it was a little hot to stand out in an open square to watch them, so we kept walking.
We wandered into old Nice, where it looked like the traditional European city again. Narrow alleys, outside restaurant seating, and tons and tons of souvenir shops. We stumbled into some sort of market that was closing up, but we managed to get a peak at what they were selling. Apparently every Monday there is an antique market here! The stuff looked pretty cool, but I couldn't find anything worth getting.
Right next to us (quite literally to our right since we were heading South) was the beach. It's time to get our tan on! Too bad it was a rock beach. Instead of grains of sand, you get rocks somewhere between pebbles and boulders. Needless to say it was pretty hard to walk on. We went to stand in the water to cool off for a bit and then we set up camp. The view wasn't as nice here compared to Barcelona, if you know what I mean. I think almost everyone is a tourist here. Well, nothing else to do but get our tan on! By now Rach and I have probably talked about everything. Think about it, 19 days 24/7 together. I haven't even ever spent that much time with a girl I was dating! So at this point of the trip, we just seem to randomly ask a question then talk as much about it as we can. Today's subject: Do you consider any of your girl/ guy friends good looking? Well according to Rachel, she has many good looking guy friends. Me too! None of that helps me at all. Well she says she also has good looking girl friends... I guess she just doesn't want to help me out here. If you're wondering why I'm getting into so much detail, it's because I'm currently writing this out at the Barcelona airport, where I have to wait 9 hrs for my flight to Geneva. I'll get to that later.

Anyway, we continue walking around the old city until it was dinner time. Rach saw a lineup, and for some reason she is drawn to them, so we ended up going there for dinner. The daily suggestion was poulet et frites, chicken and fries, so we both ordered one plus a local version of the crepe but made with chickpeas called a Socca. Holy crap they give each of us half a chicken. On this trip, Rach and I have devoured 2.5 whole chickens. The lady and what I assumed to be her daughter that we sat beside both started giggling at first sight of our food, then her daughter began staring at my food while I ate it. I felt uncomfortable. Rach saw her staring too. But other than that they were very Nice people. They brought us water! I think we spent a good hr eating the food, and then we proceeded to go souvenir shopping. Mind you it was about 9pm now and the city was still bumpin. We got a lot of stuff... ok I got a lot of stuff, but I was still missing my grandpa's present. I was getting quite frustrated. My mom said buy him coffee... well apparently in Nice they don't sell coffee.

At 10 we look for the night bus to go back, but when we found the stop, it said it came 10 minutes ago and the next one is in 40 mins. So we head back for more shopping! And also back to the beach. People really like rollerblades here. We ran into a bunch of people in rollerblades who set up a ramp and a type of vault. This is going exactly where you think it's going. They are doing trick jumps over the vault. On rollerblades. What??? We watch a lil, then walk a lil, then it was time to head back to the bus stop. This bus was more or less on time. At least it wasn't 30 mins late. When we got back it was about midnight. O I forgot to mention something! So the night before when we arrived, as our host opened te door to our room, a cockroach ran out and into the room next door. I pretended not to see it so I didn't mention anything. After we were left alone Rach starts talking about it and semi freaks out. Well it ran to the next room so no worries. This night however, it ran from underneath one of our bags and under the bed. Rach yelps a little and I laugh. Not because I'm so manly I laugh at big ugly bugs though, because I am also afraid. But I don't think cockroaches bite? (No right?) So I wanted to leave it alone. When I came back from my shower, Rach was on the phone with Dalton and indirectly trying to provoke me to deal with the cockroach by calling me a pussy. Luckily I'm not afraid to admit it in this situation. So I left it. It was under Rach's side of the bed anyway muahahaha. We spent the next half an hr exterminating all other bugs (really just mosquitos and a fly that got killed in the crossfire) because I recieved about 6 bites from the night before and Rach got bit on the eyelid. Hah hah.

July 8, 2012
Woke up super early today! Well, at about 8:20am... Rachel got up. I waited for her to finish up in the bathroom before I got up. We had to catch a train at 13:35, so we were a little rushed for time in Bordeaux.
We planned on going to the maison de vin at the center of Bordeaux for wine tasting. Apparently Bordeaux is very famous for their wines. We found out it doesn't open til noon, so we just walked around site-seeing for a few hrs and then went to the maison de vin just to find that they don't open at all on Sunday. Almost nothing was open here on Sunday! The whole city was deserted! Well... at least we got some kind of Bordeaux pastry that costed €0.75 each.

If this place is so famous for their wine, then we must buy some wine. We went into a wine store and couldn't believe the prices. Guess how much the cheapest wine here is. I'll give you a moment to think about it.
We are in France
Bordeaux makes famous wine
This is almost the only store open today
Do you have your number?





€3
Now want to guess how much the most expensive one (that I saw) was?
Close guess but it was €11 000. Make it Canadian and it's about $14 300. To be fair the bottle was the size of my torso, which reminds me, Rach and I found the biggest Absolut Vodka bottle next to a recycling bin here.
I got a well priced bottle of red for my grandparents and Rach and I split a €3.95 bottle of Rose.
We walked back to our hotel and got some nice pics of iconic Bordeaux buildings. We made it to the train station at 13:15. Holy crap my bag just got twice as heavy! 2 bottles of wine jeeze.
Our train took us to Toulouse in 2 hrs, and we were alotted 1 hr to go explore before our next train. We drop our bags off at a locker and then take the metro to the city center. When we got there we got hungry, so we sat down and ate something. By the time we finished, we had to go back to the train station. That's my dose of Toulouse I guess.
Now we are on a train  headed for Nice. It's a 7 hr train, which will be my longest train ride without changing this whole trip.

July 7, 2012
Today, we rode a 2 hr train back to Paris, took the metro to Monparnasse train station, and then took a 5 hr train to Bordeaux.

Our hotel we stayed at had all bad reviews. People complaining about the smell of the room, how small it was, the beds are too close together, the pillows were flat, the bed was missing some slats, and on and on. The price was $30 per person per night. What do you people want? Its a low budget hotel close to the tram station and also close to the city center! When we got to our room, it was nice to our standards (but mind you I've been staying in hostels my whole trip, and I stayed in some shady ones). The bed was comfy, the shower worked fine, and there was a T.V. I had a really nice sleep.

July 6,2012
Day 2 of drivin in France and needless to say I'm now a pro. We left the apartment at 9:30 and headed for the D-Day beaches up North. It was about a half an hr drive to our first stop, Juno beach. This drive was much funner than yesterday's. The roads were like straight from video games. It was all twisty and turny and every now and then you drive through a small town at about 70-80 km/h. Of course I didn't do that... often... but all the other cars on the road kept passing me while I was already going really fast.

We got to Juno beach and it was almost deserted. Did you know Canadians were the only Allied forces to successfully capture their target? Well, don't feel bad if you didn't, it was only briefly mentioned here throughout our whole trip. We drove to the Centre Juno Beach and walked around the gift shop for 10 mins. When we left, it started to rain... then rain heavily. By now it should be expected that everyday involves a rainstorm. As we drove off I kept seeing signs saying Croix de Lorraine, but I couldn't find it so I just took a pic of the sign.

I wanted to go see the bunkers and shell holes and beaches full of anti-tank barriers, you know, like in Saving Private Ryan, and the guide says there are these thins at Omaha Beach, one of the beaches American soldiers landed at. But first, we wanted to wait out the rain, so we headed to Bayeux, a little South-West of where we were, to have lunch. It was a small little town. The moment we walked into a cafe sort of place, it began to pour here too. Like buckets of water on us. All the employees walked to the front door to watch it rain. Rach and I just sat down and ate our food. Storms are no big deal anymore. She got a panini and I got something called quiche Lorraine. Lorraine must be around here somewhere with all these places having that name pop up.

We drove to Omaha Beach, another super fun drive, and arrive at the American Cemetery. It was more of a museum, recounting the history of WWII, which was really good since I can't remember all of it from history class. We probably spent an hr just reading about what happened and how the war unfolded. It then leads you outside, where a cemetery for thousands of American soldiers rested. It was quite moving. The rain also subsided and it was sunny there, so we walk through the cemetery and look outwards towards the beach. We didn't find the bunkers and all the stuff I wanted to see. Should've done more research first.

We drove back to Caen and arrived at about 7. We had to get gas first so we drove around looking for a station. It's hard getting gas when you don't speak a language! Apparently you gas first, drive your car out of the way, then pay. I guess Europeans can still believe in the honour system while we can't.

We did what we did for dinner from the night before, and it only costed us 7 euros in total this time! Plus it was more food than before. Awesome. Not much else happened. I wrote a postcard and just played around with my tablet while Rach planned out her upcoming stops.

We drove to Mont St. Michel this morning! It was fun. Going 130 km/h speed limit road with a really underpowered sub-compact car really makes me appreciate my car at home. I would say I spent about half the time with my foot to the floor while it struggled to make it to 120 km/h. All these other cars kept passing us, but what can I do? It's trying real hard! In Europe, they love roundabouts. Rach and I, not so much. The first couple we both yelped a little as a car got real close. By about the tenth one, I started to understand why they like them. It makes traffic go so much smoother! No stopping and then starting again like stop signs, no waiting a long time before your turn like stop lights. As long as you know what to do in a roundabout, they're golden. About an hr and a bit we made it to our destination.
This place is like straight out of a fairy tale book. Midieval village built on a little island mountain in the middle of the water. When you see the pics, you will understand. I was so bewildered by the sight of this place. These places aren't supposed to be real! We parked in the parking lot which is very far from the island. We had to take a shuttle that brought us near the entrance.

This place reminded me of Dubrovnik, but much more compact. Surrounded by castle walls, there were narrow alleys and stairways to the top of the island. Rach and I are very tired of museums and churches, so we talked to te entrance of the church, which is at the top of the island, and just entered the gift shop. The view from here was phenomenal. I think we got there at low tide, so we were surrounded by shallow beaches not water. This is comparable to Neueschwanstein  on how majestic it looked.

Unfortunately, it looked like the storm following me wanted to see this place too, BUT it didn't really! It just rained on us a little. So we decided to leave and we randomly chose a place called Granville to go to. Yep we can do that cuz we have a car =). On our way there my trusty navigator fell asleep, so I just kept driving straight until I saw signs.

This place was kinda cool. There was a nice big beach with OYSTERS. Of course I didn't take any live ones. But I took a dead one hehe. I accidently submerged my whole foot into a tidepool, and I came out completely dry! I love my Solomon shoes. Apparently Christian Dior once upon a time lived here too, so we visited the house briefly before the rain caught up to us.

Our drive back was just as fun as our drive there, except now I'm more comfortable with driving here. I even road raged against someone... well from inside the car. I like driving. When we got back to Caen we went to a grocery store to buy some food to make. Screwdriver pasta with carbonara sauce and some potato thingys with orange juice for a total of 10 euros for both of us.