The Rest of Europe

Wow, what a journey. I honestly can’t recall the minor details right now because it’s a week and a half since Susana and I left for Italy. Hopefully, I can give a nice recap but warning: it will be a VERY long read.

The last couple of days at Sussex was a bit bittersweet.I was probably never going to see the people that I met there, the SIS people, the people from various clubs and activities, etc. We had a last SIS goodbye party and parted the next day.

Friday

We hit our streak of bad luck very early on in the trip. We were a bit late (well, just Susana haha) on packing and saying our goodbyes. Our train from Brighton to Sussex arrived about one minute before the next train to London departed. We pretty much ran with two big suitcases plus a heavy backpack across campus and freaking out about missing our connecting train. Luckily, we got to London on time. However, as we were heading out to Eurostar, the security people would not let us out because we didn’t print our ticket. Now, Eurostar gave us these tickets and never told us anything about printing a ticket, all we had were our receipts and itinerary, which should be enough right? No…not at all. The guy kept us there forever while we tried to get a ticket elsewhere. The ticket booths didn’t work because of our American credit card and after a long time, I managed to get my ticket. It was then Susana’s turn because she was taking care of the luggage, but she couldn’t retrieve her ticket anywhere. And yes, this is my rant, because the security guy was being so retarded. We had our Eurostar ticket, so we obviously purchased the previous ticket according to our receipt. Anyway, the guy left and a lady came. We told her we were heading to Eurostar and so…she let us out. By that time, there was 5 more minutes until the train departed and apparently the gate closes 30min ahead of time so the guy would not let us go through security and we had to book another train. On a positive note, Eurostar was very fast and comfortable. We arrived at Brussels then took a slower train to Schiphol which arrived at around midnight. What a day!

Saturday

The next day, bright and early (actually, just early because it was very dark outside), we woke up to catch our 6am plane to Pisa. I set my alarm too early and fell back to sleep. Luckily, I woke up naturally at 4:20am, how weird is that? Susana’s alarm didn’t go off so we were kinda late but we dragged our backpack full of clothes for a 11 day trip and my aunt drove us as fast as she could to the airport.

When we got to Pisa, we were so tired, we didn’t even care that we were in Italy. Instead, we sluggishly found the bus to the city center and tried to listen to the Italian. When we were arriving at the stop, a guy behind us asked if we were going to Torre de Pisa so we ran off the station. Once we were out on the streets, the place woke us up. The square with the Leaning Tower of Pisa was amazing, much bigger than I imagined. This was our first taste of Italy, where every structure was so grand that it was mesmerizing. We took countless, and I really do mean that, touristy pictures of us kicking, leaning against, punching, pointing, head-butting, karate chopping, etc etc. the tower. You get the point. After this, we walked to the train station. Of course we got lost on the way and tried asking for directions in English, which failed.

The trains in Italy are so cheap compared to England! They are convenient as well because they go straight to the city center and costs around the same as a plane. We were really surprised with the price of all the other types of transportation, food, souvenirs, as well. I guess living in England had its downsides.

The city center of Florence is so beautiful, lots of small streets with shops, bakeries, cafes, and restaurants. The place was very clean and all the small streets were decorated with Christmas lights. Everyone was wandering around, from buying presents to sipping coffee to enjoying a gelato. I really loved the atmosphere. We tried looking for this good place to eat but failed, so ended up eating our first pizza and pasta, it wasn’t that great. Then, we walked a bit around Piazza del Duomo (didn’t go up the Duomo), Piazza del Signoria (fake David and others). We didn’t see the real David because we heard it’s not worth paying to go inside a museum and the rest of the art wasn’t worth seeing unless we understood it. If only I studied a bit of art before I came to Europe…

Because it was winter time, the sun set around 4 to 4:30 so we wandered to an amazing gelato place I looked up online on the other side of the river by crossing Ponte Vecchio. This bridge was so pretty, it didn’t even look like a bridge! Sadly, I think the gelato place closed down so we had another one. Again, it was just okay. Perhaps our expectations were set too high on food. We wanted to explore the nightlife a bit in Florence but unfortunately, Susana and I were so tired because we had not slept for 2 days so we went back at 7pm and passed out till 10am (15 hours of sleep!). We would’ve slept more but the hostel guy knocked on our doors telling us it’s time to check out. Haha, how embarrassing…

Sunday

After we got woken up, we wanted to hit the market to find some good food. The market turned out to be a leather market, so we wandered around and hit a small meat/cheese shop. There was a small sign that they sold paninis. They are kind of like the French concept of Panini but not grilled with Pane di Altamura. Now, this sandwich was AMAZING. Honestly, I’ve never had such a good sandwich in my life. The bread went perfectly well with the meat (can’t remember what meat) and you could taste the thin provolone. This meal only cost us 2.50 euro, which proves that cheap meals are the way to go.

Finally exceeding our food expectations, we eagerly headed to Rome.

We chose a slower train because it was so much cheaper and arrived just after sunset. The place around the Central station was a bit sketchy and dirty, but that’s to be expected. We got lost trying to find our hostel but luckily a nice hotel pointed the way. We decided the area we lived was too sketchy to try to walk everywhere at night, so it was time to use public transportation!

After dropping our stuff off, we headed to a nice restaurant that I had looked up in England called Osteria Allegro Pachino. It was located right outside the Trevi Fountain and the setting was amazing. If we were a true Italian, we would’ve ordered a bottle of wine, a starter, first course, second course, dessert, but…it was way too much. Instead, we both got a glass of wine, first course, and dessert. Oh, and Susana got a starter, but it looked kinda gross haha. The meal ended up costing a lot. Was it worth it? Well, the pasta was good but it’s not worth the price. The dessert, however, was soooo amazing, I can’t even describe the taste. We met an old couple who sat next to us from Holland (originally English). They were so fun to talk to because they have travelled almost everywhere and the husband knows his food. He told us a lot about what country to go and what to eat. I hope that will be me one day, travelling the world and having a good time.

At night, we did a bit of sightseeing. All the sites were so much more beautiful at night. I really wish I had a tripod with me.

Monday

I forgot to mention, our breakfast is in bed. Well…not actually, but all the food was prepped for us the night before and put in our room, so we thought, why not have breakfast in bed? It was very cool because we could choose to eat whenever we want. Unfortunately, breakfast failed because we both felt really sick from the night before. I think the pasta was too rich for our stomachs and the gigantic dessert on top of that did not settle well.

Anyway, we headed to the coliseum to meet up with our 9 hour tour. We waited and waited…then waited some more, they didn’t come. When we called them they told us that the tour was cancelled because we were the only ones that booked it. They tried calling but it didn’t go through and later we found that they had faxed the message to the hostel, but the hostel forgot to give it to us. Now, we had to tour Rome by ourselves without knowing much history besides the stuff that everyone knows already. On a positive note though, our money was being funded and we saved a lot of money.  We went on a random guided tour through the coliseum but couldn’t understand half of what the lady was saying. The rest, I already knew. Note to self: watch Gladiator even though it has nothing educational.

After the coliseum was the Roman Forums, which was amazing. Everyone knows the history of these so I won’t type it all.

And then after that was Vatican City. I still remember when I was little because I lived in Holland, I believed in God just from all the people around me. I believed in the concept of course, because I had no idea what religion was in general. Then, at the Vatican City, they took away all our water. We climbed the endless stairs to the top of the cathedral. During this climb, I was so thirsty but there was no water. And from then on, I told myself that I didn’t believe in God. What a story right? This time, however, they barely even checked anything. I was really surprised at the security. Also, pictures were allowed inside the cathedral. Although the whole place is very beautiful and grand, I feel like it was a tourist trap. Nonetheless, we paid to climb to the top and the view was like a postcard (the pretty ones, not the ugly ones).

At night we walked down a lively street of Rome and attempted to find Montecarlo, a pizza place that wins prizes for best pizza year after year. And…it was closed on Mondays. We were so sad, so we scoped out a couple of restaurants that had pizza and settled on one that had teenagers inside. This pizza was like NY pizza, not Italian at all. It was even worse than the first days. Because of this, we told ourselves we HAD to have good pizza before we leave and that had to be in Venice.

Tuesday

The next morning, we flew to Venice at 7am. We were really excited but very, very tired. I think this is where Europe started to get really cold. Even with our 5 layers of clothing and 2 layers of pants, we were FREEZING - more than Rochester freezing. We got lost on our way to the hostel, as usual. After dropping our stuff off, we decided to head to Piazza San Marco as quickly as possible because it was so cold. One thing that everyone says to do in Venice is to get lost. And that is what happened. It was only a one mile walk but it took us 4 hours to get there. The small streets and dead ends were like a maze and impossible to navigate. However, it was a very good experience because we stumbled upon many small shops and residential areas along the way. I love going to non-touristy places.

We reached Piazza San Marco, took some pictures, and headed back.

I was really excited for this hostel because it had great reviews about the owner cooking dinner every night for 4 euros. That night, he made pasta with Bolognese sauce. There were about 10 of us who ate the food and it felt like a big family dinner. Our hostel felt like a home. It had free computer use, a living room with lots of movies, TV, and couches, and a kitchen with a big, long table. The people who were there were all Chinese, Korean, and British. Because it was so cold, everyone was back in the hostel by sunset, so we all chatted for a while inside the kitchen after dinner and then heading to bed.

Wednesday

We visited Burano – a small island 12 km away from Venice. It has a diameter of 300m and takes 1hr30min to get to. I absolutely loved this place. It was described as “Venice before tourists”. All the houses were very vibrant in color and the atmosphere was so quiet and peaceful. The residents were pretty old and all knew each other. I don’t think they like tourists very much because we asked someone to take a picture of us and he walked away speaking something in Italian. There were also lots of small shops there, from paintings to Murano glass, and it was all homemade and so much cheaper than Venice. We noted to buy stuff from there next time if we ever go back to Venice.

After we got back to the Venice, we seeked out a famous pizza place we read on the Easyjet magazine. Finally, amazing pizza! I got the spicy sausage, which is pretty much pepperoni, but it was so good. I guess always read about places first before eating their food because all our random wandering into restaurants did not work very well.

In the evening was our gondola and walking tour. We really only wanted the gondola ride because we had walked enough at that point. The gondola ride was so much fun. We had this decked out boat and shared it with 2 other people. The only downside was that the guy was old and didn’t sing to us. So much for a romantic ride.

During the tour, we learned many cool facts about Venice, like their specificality on naming streets, the tables to walk on during flooding, the number of residents living there has been cut in half since 10 years ago, their traditional meals which consists of a lot of meat and seafood, the fountains at every square, etc. there were way too many facts, but it was very informative and felt good to learn about the city.

At night, the hostel owner suggested a good place for risotto because that was the last thing we wanted to try. It was a small place by our hostel, which is in a residential area. The risotto was off the menu and we ordered seafood one. It was only 12 euros and the food was amazing. That marked our last day in Italy, time flew by way too fast.

Thursday

Ciao Italia and Bonjour France J

Italy went by way too fast; there was so much to do but so little time!

We arrived at Paris at about 10am, dropped off our stuff at the hotel, and found a place to eat crepes. Luckily, our hotel is situated at a restaurant district in a non-touristy location. We quickly found a crepery just around the block. The guy was very nice, but spoke very little English, so we ended up learning that oeuf is egg, fromage is cheese, and champignons is mushroom, and others that I forgot (btw, a word we knew very well by the end of our Paris trip is champ elysees clemenceau. I ordered a chicken and mushroom crepe while Susana ordered an egg, cheese, and I think chicken. The food was heaven. Honestly…it was amazing. This probably topped even the expensive meal we had in Italy. The pancake was actually not as thin as I expected, but was crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. It was so well made that we basically sat there, closing our eyes, enjoying our first meal in Paris.

We then headed to Sacre-coeur. The inside of this was painted in gold and all in all, was very beautiful. It is located on top of a big hill and overlooks the city.

Afterwards, we walked along a shopping district to find a small shop that invented macaroons. It was such a busy, small bakery that we had to wait outside for quite a while. The macaroon was good, but I think I prefer other types of French pastries.

Because we had an unlimited 2 day subway pass, we decided to go to as many places as possible. When the sun set, we headed to Arc de Triomphe. It symbolizes the French revolution and those who fought and died in it, but I read somewhere that Napoleon built it randomly to show his power and wealth.

Then, it was time for the famous Eiffel Tower. When I was around 6, we went there but didn’t go up because it was too expensive and we bought a big souvenir instead. This time, the elevators were closed, so we took some randomly pictures and headed to dinner.

Before I go further, I just want to say that Paris was COLD. It was probably around 20 degrees the two days we were there, so we were pretty much frozen after walking around for hours.

Anyway, I looked up a nice place for dinner called Le Petel. When we arrived, it was closed…like the Eiffel tower. We walked around a bit, looking for other food places, but they all seemed not worth the money. As we were heading back, the restaurant just opened, and it was 8pm, talk about eating a late dinner. The waiter probably thought that we were either spoiled or crazy. We walked in with tennis shoes, wet hair, jeans, a cheap purse, so basically, we looked like crap. A two course meal was 27 euros, so I ordered a duck dish and crème brulee and Susana ordered something fancy that I can’t remember. We skipped the wine this time haha. The last time I had French food was at this really fancy place in Santa Fe, I remember I hated it. I couldn’t stand the flavoring and since then, always told myself that I didn’t like French food. This restaurant, however, changed my mind A LOT. My main was sooo good, it was cooked perfectly. The crème brulee was very interesting, it wasn’t the normal ones that you get. Instead, it was yogurt on the inside (raspberry flavor) and served cold. I asked for it to be heated because I wasn’t used to it.

Ok, so I talk too much about food, but it’s ok because I love eating! And that concludes the first of two days in Paris. We were going to go to the red light district of Paris and see the Moulin Rouge building, but I was lame and didn’t get the location down.

Friday

We finally got to sleep in a bit today and woke up around 9am (if you consider this sleeping in…which I usually don’t). We rode the subway to the Luxemburg gardens and walked around a bit. This place is the garden for the French senate. I really wish we came during the summer because it would’ve been beautiful. During the winter though…there was not much to see and with the cold weather, we just wanted to go hide somewhere warm.

The weird thing about Paris was that we could not find that many cafes, there were either restaurants or bakeries. The bakeries didn’t have seats and the restaurants were like cafes, but much more expensive. Instead of hiding in the non-existing cafes, we walked into every souvenir shop possible on our way to Notre Dame Cathedral. This place just reminded me of the cartoon Hunchback of Notre Dame haha, it looked exactly like it and the inside was beautiful, not as beautiful as Sacre-coeur though.

We decided to head back to the Eiffel Tower earlier this time to try our luck at going to the top. This time, we read a sign that said “Eiffel Tower is on Strike” LOL, how can a tower be on strike? It was so lame! Instead, we wandered around the Christmas market across from it and I had another crepe to compare with the first one. Needless to say, it was not as good.

It was half price going to the Louvre at 6pm so we did just that. The place closed at 10pm so we figured 4 hours was enough to see all the famous paintings and wander through the massive place. Since we really didn’t know anything about art, we were quite confused at a lot of the paintings and didn’t understand most of them. The only things I knew were my Greek Gods and so some statues made sense. We did manage to walk through the whole place and see all the famous stuff below. I took pictures of a lot of paintings I liked so I can Google them later. I really wish I studied art history or something, it would’ve been so much better seeing everything.

For our last meal, even though it was around 10:30pm, we wanted to hit that crepery again. I got a massive panini this time. Our flight was the next morning at around 6am.

Saturday

We headed out at 4:30am and saw that the crepery was open…so we got another crepe, this time just a regular sugar one. The guy remembered us and was like, you guys were here 5 hours ago haha.

We got a little walking to the train station and ended up walking to the wrong one. We thought we missed our train for sure but luckily this one was Thalys and it didn’t have the 30min before like Eurostar. Our train to Brussels was a mere 2 hours.

Our first stop was Mini Europe, but it opened at 10am. It was only 8am at that time. We thought there would be cafes or shops nearby, but everything around the area was closed. We basically hid in this small space behind a door to get warm and waited until 10am. It was torture.

When it opened, we were too cold to look at the stuff carefully. Also, it snowed the day before so a lot of stuff was covered up since everything was so tiny. We walked around the whole place in about 30min and hid in the café/gift shop haha.

We were meeting up with my dad’s friend, Tang Dong 叔叔, around 12 at the Atomium café (this structure was actually really cool to look at). He then took us to the Royal Palace of Brussels and then we went around and sampled some famous chocolates like Neuhaus and had our fries/waffles. They were both okay. I think we were a bit rushed so we went to the first place possible, which was in a touristy location.

We then headed to Waterloo, where the biggest battle of Europe took place. The place was massive, and I still remember climbing up the thing to the lion. There was a lot of stuff on war strategy that I tried understanding but failed to do so haha.

We stayed at his place in Eindhoven and ate a Chinese buffet with his two children. His kids are already 11 and 13! I couldn’t believe it. When I left, the oldest wasn’t even born! The oldest is so smart too, he knew everything that was going on in the world and even read Wikileaks. He knew his politics and a lot of other things like crazy. The younger one is very cute. They both wanted us to stay to play Monopoly (pronounced mono-POLE-y), but we had to drive to Delft.

Sunday

We got snowed in the next morning so we ended up not going to Germany. Europe is really at taking care of snow. It snowed about a foot and everything was close down. In Rochester, it would snow every single day and nothing closes down. At that point, all of Europe was a mess because of one foot of snow. Airports, trains, and buses were almost all cancelled and people were stranded. How hard is it to clear that snow?

Our journey towards Delft started with a stop in a small town that was surrounded by a great big wall, but I forgot the name of the town. It was really pretty though, especially with all the snow, and I saw my first windmill after all those years!

After that was Kinderdijk, which is in the open field with lots of windmills aligned. This place is much better in the spring. It was too foggy when we arrived, so we walked for 10 minutes and left.

The last stop was Gouda. It is not pronounced guda by you Americans, its gaoda with the ugly sounding. I always said gaoda and everyone corrected me, but at least I know I’m right haha. No, we didn’t eat cheese here or stroopwafels (which are AMAZING, everyone’s gotta try it). We walked around the city center and I had a split pea soup (or at least I think it was that). Now I know why Northerners always drank heavy soup in the winter. That thing warmed me up for a good 15 minutes; I didn’t even feel cold walking outside afterward!

When we arrived at Delft, Wei Wu’s parents made us a feast as you can see. Apparently, she was the next best chef in Delft after my mom haha. It felt so good to have home cooked dinner.

Monday

Wei Wu’s dad took us to The Hague and Rotterdam. The Hague was very modern; it was like a mini NYC with the skyscrapers and everything.

We then went to Delft (I think they lived a little outside of Delft, but I was never that sure), we visited my old apartment and preschool called Horizon (pronounced hori-SUN vs. American ho-RI-son), which always screwed me up when I came over to America. All these places I dreamt of coming back to finally came true. It was like a walk down memory lane, such amazing recollections of my childhood haha.

We had dimsum in Delft, which Susana ordered everything since she was an expert at it. She said a lot of the dishes were better than those in NY. The quality was better. I found that very interesting since the Dutch population of Chinese is like 0 and NY is a lot.

At night, we got dropped off back at my Aunts in Amsterdam. Did I mention that my aunt’s kids are ridiculously cute?

Tuesday

We had our first beauty sleep in a while and left for Amsterdam at 2pm. When we arrived, we saw a cheese shop with free samples inside. Of course, we went in. There were so many types of cheeses, from goat to sheep to cow. We sampled so much and my favorite was the Goudse. It was sooo good, I couldn’t get enough of it (of course, I had to stop because they were only free samples…) At the back of the shop there was a chocolate/waffle place. We had our first stroopwafels and it was so good, we immediately bought a pack for home.

We decided to skip the Ann Frank museum because it was getting late and it wasn’t that cold outside. Instead, we had an oliebollen, a traditional Dutch fried dessert that only sells during Christmas time as well as fries (so much better than Belgiums).

Then, it was time for the red light district. The whole place smelled like weed, and the gift shops had lots of funny things. If only I had people to give those to haha, but we took lots of pictures. All the windows with the girls standing there didn’t allow photography, but I think Susana took a picture of this really ugly girl lol. To be honest though, most of them weren’t even that pretty.

Wednesday

And that marks the end of the Europe journeys. I must say, it has been an adventure. Including the Vatican, I went to 9 countries in the course of 3 ½ months. Each place had a different vibe and I learned so much about the different cultures. This was definitely a great experience and I wish it didn’t end.