Bonjour

Bonjour! We are in Paris at the moment and I think I've found my favourite city- it's beautiful, the food is delicious and we have conveniently arrived during exciting times! The Tour de France will arrive in Paris on Sunday (we won't be there but the city is buzzing a bit anyway), and yesterday, the 14th July was Bastille Day- France's answer to Australia Day!

We've seen plenty of sights so far: the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Élysées, the Notre Dame, the Sacré-Cœur (which you can see from our hostel), and we've been to the Lourve and the Grand Palais museum.

The Bastille Day celebrations were both breathtaking and ridiculously hilarious! There was an ace firework show and light show from the Eiffel Tower, which thanks to a 4 hour wait (we were super keen) we were right in front of. I don't know if you know this but fireworks are my second favourite thing after food, and as I'd just eaten I had the best night ever. The highlight and most hilarious part of the night was easily the fireworks soundtrack. It started off with the classic It's Raining Men, and included YMCA, I Will Survive, some Gloria Estefan and ABBA. So French. The reason there is a photo of a man in jeans was because he was there with his whole family who were seated, but he didn't sit down once because his pants were too tight. Oh how we laughed! Maybe it was so funny because we were 3 hours into the wait. I also mistook a man's regal blue cloak for a rain poncho. Good
times.

The rest of the time we've been walking and eating, and taking lots of photos! (Lots of these photos were taken by Claire because I keep forgetting to charge my phone).

Sorry about the lack of captions for the pictures, Blogger is not co-operating with me! The bookshop is a place called Shakespeare and Company just opposite the Notre Dame- a tiny but crammed English language bookstore. They were closing early for a wedding today, so romantic! (My many suitors take note). Bread is pictured because you get it with every meal, even if your meal is cake and juice.
That crepe is actually a gluten free buckwheat galette with ham, cheese and tomato and it melted in my mouth!
Laudree! Macarons! The most delicious I've ever eaten, although Pierre Herme could give them a run for there money.
The Babar poster is a museum exhibition we're going to on Wednesday(!), there was an orchestra in a metro station, and the one of me and a jug is in Angelina, a fancy patisserie on the Rue de Rivoli. That pot is full of Chocolate Chaud- basically liquid chocolate. Hence the smile.

Au revoir!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adios, Gracias and Tapas.

Our last morning in Barcelona is today- so I'll do a quick round up of our week in this b-e-a-utiful Spanish city!

• The food was amazing! We tried everything from market foods, restaurant foods and cheap tapas and all of them were mouthwatering. There was a slight hiccup when the food we bought and kept in the hostel fridge and cupboards got eaten, but more on hostel life later!

• From our hostel window we could see Starbucks, Topshop, Sephora and Pull & Bear (which is a top notch clothes store). Uh oh.

• Managed to find the worst tattoo ever, and we've been to Ios so... you know. It was across a gentleman's back in large bolded capital letters saying "YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT NOT TO DO"...

• We spent most days just heading down La Ramblas, which is the long main street, and going up a random side alley and getting a bit lost. You could spend weeks walking just near La Ramblas and still not have seen everything! There were tea shops, gourmet chocolate shops, designer condom shops(?) (or as the Spanish say: ¿), so many shoe shops, tattoo parlours and about 4 H&Ms within 5 minutes each other. We hired bikes and cruised around, and didn't even fall off!

• Everywhere you go people are trying to sell you a can of coke or beer, or a mouth whistle thing, or some plastic thing you throw. We saw some at the port taking their spare beers out of the bin. So gross. We got so frustrated by it last night I yelled at a man when he asked me why I didn't want a platic throw-y thing and said BECAUSE THEY'RE TERRIBLE. Then we got a red summer wine (better than sangria) and all was well.

• We went to the beach, and all the girls go topless on Barcelona beach. And you know, do as the locals do, when in Barcelona etc.

• We got lost a lot.

• The La Boqueria markets off La Ramblas have everything you could ever want, including whole cows tongues, lambs brains, lambs faces!, paella, fruit, vegetables and 1000000 varieties of chorizo. A certain muffin lady in there remembered Claire's order after the 3rd consecutive day.

• The hostel was hilarious. It's in an amazing location, but it was so unoranised and more like a share house. The housekeeper Coco Gold* slept there and spent most of the time on Skype to his wife, or perhaps mother, and you'd often walk in to see him snoozing on the couch. Someone ate our entire packet of corn thins and cheese one night, clearly not seeing the names on it or not realising it was in the cupboard and fridge not in the free pile. We left a note. No more food went missing... Haha but honestly it was hilarious and don't stay there.
*may or may not be his actual name

• Have not received anymore injuries, and the burn is getting better thanks for your concern. Collectively we've probably spent the most money in pharmacies than anywhere else.

Ah. We'll miss the sun, but I'm so excited as right now we are sitting in our Paris hostel! It's quite a nice hostel and we are about two minutes away from the Sacré-Cœur. Just had dinner at Chez Marie. Top notch grub. Many many photos to come!

Gotta go now and study my French, the man next to us in the restaurant laughed at me trying to decipher the menu.

Barcelona: Photos

Some explanations:

• The junts sign is everywhere and we don't know what it is?!
• Those avocados were as big as my face. No lie.
• Have become addicted to edamame beans on this trip.
• Watched Claire eat those churros. She said they were amazing.
• Some ATMs include a camera.
• Look at the size of that vending machine!
• The street graffiti here is insane!
• At 1am on Friday night about 90-100 rollerbladers (!) flew past us blowing whistles and yelling...

roma!

Ah Rome. We just spent 3 nights there much to the delight of my taste buds! Our flight arrived late on Monday night, so we got to the hostel (by ourselves! without having to ask for directions!) dumped our bags and got some dinner- which wasn't that great. There are lots of terrible Italian restaurants in Italy do you have to do some research to know where to go; our research was in the form of our lovely roommates Kriti and Shefali! Both from San Fran but Kriti spoke pretty good Italian and told us all the good places to head. We had caprese salad, the best pizza in Rome, the best gelato in Rome (and many other gelatos also), we even found some gluten free pizza. Happy days!
It was pretty hot in Roma so in our sight seeing photos we look a bit flustered, as evidenced below. There were insane amounts of people everywhere, which sometimes confused us. This conversation actually happened:
"urgh what's with all these people"
"I dunno they're all just chilling on those steps"
"and loving that fountain"
"weird. we should go to the Spanish Steps tomorrow"
"yeah. oh look a dog!"

Haha. It was pretty funny when we navigated ourselves to the Spanish Steps the next day, and realized we had already been there. That dog was cool though!

We managed not to get gypsied, but did see them begging, and casually leaning on the ticket machines to help any tourists that needed a hand.

I think the best bit was after the Colosseum when we got a bike taxi to a piazza we wanted to go to! They don't follow the road rules in Italy so imagine taxis, buses, trams! and cars all pulling in front of each other and being on a cart being cycled by a pretty small woman. Talk about being dare devils.
The Vatican was beautiful, we kept the religious jokes to a minimum and dressed a bit frumpy.
The Pantheon was really breathtaking, I think we all could have sat there all day.

Had a pretty big 'classic Annie' moment on the plane. Throughout the trip both Claire and I have developed or continued habits that we name classics. Mainly walking in the opposite direction we're supposed to and always being hungry. Well! On the plane we got tea, and I managed to spill my cup of hot water all of my knee and thigh! I yelled a few obscenities, there was a priest sitting next to us! And ironically we were reading the gossip magazine Heat at the time. I did the best laugh/cry even and now have a beautiful blister!

Anyway, Barcelona is calling! Am going to go say ola and get some tapas. Much love xx

p.s I've included a photo of a priest drinking a coke. For the obvious reason that it's hilarious.

Greek Islands

Am sitting in a cafe in Santorini, we leave for Rome this afternoon after 5 days in the Greek Islands! I don't really have all that much to report as we spent most of the time on the beach, so I'll just sum up our time and what we learnt in a few dots points.

• Have never seen so many Australians in one place. Which is weird because we were in Ios. And live in Australia.
• Have never seen so many southern cross tattoos.
• Had delicious fruit salad and yoghurt every morning to breakfast, we were regs at Cantina del Mar and had our own table.
• We did stand up paddle a few mornings! Claire has already searched gum tree for one to buy when she gets home we loved it that much.
• It pays to talk to the locals! For example, if you chat to your waiter, he will buy you a drink a night later.
• Make friends with the bartender. Obviously.
• Don't get on the bus that says 'Francescos' if you're staying at Far Out Beach Club.
• Don't get a Flocacino if you don't want to have a heart attack.
• Claire ate a whole fish.
• Make friends with the animals for good photo ops.
• Re-apply sunscreen!
• Greek people are lovely and give you free cake and call your hotel for you when you're lost.

Cannot wait to eat gelato.
Love Annie