I arrived at the Charles de Gaulle Airport with my best friends Joanna and Steve. It was a grey and rainy day. It wasn't the kind of weather that I had wanted. We took the RER to Paris and arrived at the Gare du Nord. It was exciting to be in another country. We then went to search for a place to stay. We looked everywhere. We could not find a vacant hostel. It could have been due to the fact that it was the day after France had won the World Cup. So we decided to go north to Reims in the Champagne Region. Paris would have to wait for another day.
We arrived in Nice in the morning. What a change in climate. Reims was raining and cold. Nice was sunny and hot. Time to take out my summer clothes! The architecture of southern France was so different from the north. It was more colourful. The vegetation was very different as well. There wre palm trees and cacti in southern France. We stayed at Hotel Alizes. The bathroom was odd. There wasn't a door. We unpacked, walked around and lounged on the beach.
Here we are in Paris again! We got off the train and found a hotel nearby. We slept for a bit and afterwards we went to Rue St. Denis.
We went to the Eiffel Tower. The lineups to go up the tower were very long. We decided to forget about going up the tower so we just hung around the ground floor. The tower was nice but I didn't like how there was an electronic billboard sign on one side of the tower. It made it lose its historic charm. We took the Bata Boat down the Seine and went to Notre Dame.
We went to Musee D'Orsey. It was one of the best museums that I have visited. It has an amazing impressionist collection. It was really cool being up close to many of the paintings that I had previously admired in books and prints.
We arrived in Brussels and found a place to stay in the Sleepwell hostel. During the evening we went downstairs to the hostel bar. We met so many people there including by coincidence two people who had gone to McMaster University. It was such a small world. The bartender was friendly but kind of strange. He greeted me by licking my hand. Kind of gross.
The city of Amsterdam. We found a place at a hotel on the edge of the Redlight District. We were lucky to find a vacacny. A lot of places were full.
We went to the Heneiken Museum. For one guilder (about equivalent to one Canadian dollar) we got a tour and at the end of tour we got all of this free beer and Dutch cheese. We contemplated about doing the tour again so we could get more free beer.
August 8, 1998.
We went to the Van Gogh museum. It was a great museum. It was well organized and it had an amazing Van Gogh collection. At night we went to the Redlight District. That was something to see. All of these women were scantilly clad and standing in these doorways or windowsills underneath a red light. It was very interesting.
August 10, 1998.
Time to go back home to Canada. I was sad to leave Europe. There were so many places that I didn't get to see. I definitely would have to come back. It was a lot of fun. I will never forget my European backpacking experience.