Hopefully clever comments about life in Vancouver, B.C. as lived by a French girl from Montreal
Saturday, May 28, 2005
It's hot in Köln!
Hello from Germany where the weather calls for Sun and 35°C! Yes, really hot, and imagine watching the Grand Prix under these conditions, on uncovered stands. Tucker and I have been lucky so far, small spots are a bit red and we keep on drinking lots of water, but I'm kinda glad it's over tomorrow.
The train trip here went well, and the hotel is right next to the train station (but on a very quiet street, fortunately). We had a bit of a harder time to get the car, as the car rental company closed early and we didn't know about it. We managed to get the car the following day, just in time for the first races. Tucker is happy as can be, he's driving a C-class Mercedes like a German :-) We also scored a GPS in the car which prevents us from getting lost. We call it Patricia, as it's a women's voice telling us where to turn.
The Grand Prix is an insane experience. The German Ferrari fans are something else, it's a sea of red caps and jerseys everywhere we go. Michael Shumacher is not doing so well this season (neither is Villeneuve for that matter), but another German racer, driving a Williams BMW, Nick Heidfeld, clocked the best time during the qualifying round. The crowd was happy.
Another day in the Sun, and then we have a couple of days to visit Köln and drive around a bit. Then, off to Amsterdam for the last three days of the trip.
And we've pretty much managed to see everything we wanted to see.
Marc-Antoine came from Lyon to meet with Tucker and I, as well as one of his friends. We had a chance to go out for dinner on Monday night, and did some touring on Tuesday. He left today, a bit earlier than anticipated because his friend Alex had his car broken into last night. Very unfortunate.
As for Tucker and I, we are getting ready to pack up and leave. Next destination: Cologne. We board a train tomorrow early afternoon and should be at our new home around 5 p.m. Then, we will also pick up our car. For the next five days, we have wheels! The Grand Prix is coming up, Friday to Sunday we'll be spending time at the track. Then, a bit of touring around Cologne, some day trips to Bonn and Dusseldorf, maybe.
Our last day in Paris was spent visiting the Musee d'Orsay (wow!) and shopping. Oy! Not sure where I'll fit my new purchases, but I'm sure we'll manage. It's really hot today, after 8 days of cool weather. We're actually glad to leave, Paris is a bit tough when the temperature is high. I guess the pollution is more obvious then. Last night in the noisy hostel (thank god!), last dinner around rue Mouffetard (we're going for something a little bit more fancy tonight)... Paris was lots of fun, but now we're ready to move on.
The past few days have beensimply amazing, filled with visits to monuments, lots of walking, sidewalk cafes and lots of bread. Baguette sandwich are the best lunch to have in the city for a few euros!
We've visited the major monuments, mostly from the outside because the weather has been so nice. The Eiffel Tower, l'Arc de Triomphe, Place de la Bastille, Place de la Concorde, Notre-Dame de Paris, so many places we get cramps writing our travel logs in the evening.
Our hostel is on rue Mouffetard, a very busy and lively street with lots of shops, food stalls, and restaurants. It's however very noisy, we have to sleep with ear plugs because of the clubs at night and the delivery trucks in the morning.
We've been eating really well, hard to miss in the city. We try to eat early in the evening, as the restaurants get really packed and smoky later on, which kills the experience of the yummy food and wines.
Tomorrow, we are heading out to Versailles for the day, if it's nice again. After a very busy two days, we're left with a couple of museums and sites so we're going to slow down the beat a bit and take it easy. We just found our last accomodation for the trip, a house boat on a canal in Amsterdam :-) That should be really fun!
Only a short train ride (well, OK, four-hour ride) away and we are now in Paris. This blog update will be very short as I have to type on an AZERTY keyboard and none of the letters are in the right place.
We're both looking forward to spending our nine days in the City of Lights. Tonight, we had dinner at a nice Italian restaurant where the half-liter of wine cost just a little bit more than my cup of tea :) We're going to walk around a bit to see the city at night, the Eiffel tower is all illuminated, it's quite breath-taking!
We're here!! After quite a long trip (included a stop in Calgary), we made it in Amsterdam this afternoon (local time). With a bit of work, we managed to figure out how to get to the hotel using transit and found our very tacky but clean room. We had a shower, changed clothes, and went for a short cruise on the canals. Excellent way to plan our visits for the next few days. We then headed back to the hotel to put socks and long sleeves on, as it cooled down quite a bit. We had fish and chips at an Irish pub and drank Heineken. We're both pretty pooped now, it's almost 10 p.m. and we've been up for about 28 hours.
The flight was exceptionally good, with our exit row seats offering the most amount of leg room I have ever seen in a plane. Even Tucker could extend his long legs :-)
That's it, the Out-of-Office reply is turned on, the voice mail is also changed, I'm out of here!!!
Finally, after months of saving, planning, researching, the day is near when Tucker and I leave for our trip to Europe. This will be a very exciting trip, full of firsts: first time in Paris, first time in Amsterdam, first time in Cologne, first time at a Grand Prix (yes, yes, I lived in Montreal most of my life and never bothered), first time flying for nine hours, first time on a TGV, first time going away for three weeks, first time traveling overseas with a boyfriend, first long trip with Tucker :-)
But until tomorrow, there's still lots of packing, cleaning, leaving last-minute instructions, paying bills in advance, did I mention packing?
Can't say that I've posted regularly these days... These just haven't been really bloggy days.
Today is my day off (my current contract is four/days per week), so I'm catching up on paper work, laundry and spending some time setting up my new project. MKS Documentation Solutions will be my company name. It's not incorporated, just a way to set up a presence online and come up with an image for potential clients. I'm working on the web site right now, I found a really nice free template that will be easy to modify and set up.
Tucker and I will also spend parts of the weekend making last minute preparations and purchases for the trip to Europe. We're leaving next Friday, I can't believe it's right around the corner!! We're still missing a few things, like a power converter, euros, photocopies of important documents to leave at home, and so on. Better be well prepared.
Last weekend, we went camping at Chehalis Lake, in the Fraser Valley. It was a bit rainy and quite cool at night, but it was nice to get away. The campsite was almost empty, so it was very quiet. Because it's still early in the season, we were allowed to build a campfire and I have to admit it, hotdogs cooked over a campfire taste wonderful.
A couple of weekends ago, when we drove down to Seattle, I bought a copy of Da Vinci Code. It took four evenings to finish, and Tucker read it just as fast. It was a great idea to read this book before going to Paris, I'm sure it will give us another perspective on our visit to the Louvre :-)
