For those of you who don't know, I ventured to Europe over spring break with my roommate. This was no ordinary trip and when I say it was Eurotrip-esq, I am in no way exaggerating. So, get out some popcorn, some m&ms, maybe a misous and brace yourself for a long post.
Before the trip even began, in the "planning" stages (a.k.a the "eh, whatever happens happens" stages), I gave my roomie and traveling companion, Emily Eaton, the responsibility of choosing the third country to visit. I had already chosen London and Paris (yes, I'm aware these aren't countries) to visit my dear friends Emily Eckhous, Zac Miller, Jonah Braun and Jon Richman. Eaton wrote "Luxembourg" on my FB wall (that's "Facebook," mom and dad), and I enthusiastically responded, "Yes," without really knowing anything about it. Our first mistake.
Em attempted booking the train ticket from Paris to Luxembourg, and failed because it wouldn't get to us on time. We considered having them mailed to Jonah and Jon's apartment in Paris, but the site refused. No biggie, we thought. We'll decide in London with the help of my aunts. (I have family in London and Paris - our LIFESAVERS and reasons we weren't selling our clothes for money, a hairdryer and a place of residence on the street).
My aunt Rozy had asked me to bring her some cigarettes from Duty Free. I called my parents and they told me to buy some for my aunt Yvonne, as well. Persians and their cigs. I'm joking, I don't think there's a correlation. Anyway, as I pay for the eight cartons of cigarettes and two massive packs of m&ms that a sumo wrestler would consume, I received a dirty look from a woman perusing Duty Free. Oh boy, I thought. She definintely thinks these are for me. And she definitely thinks I'm 14 years old.
But I forgot about that a second later when the woman behind the counter told me I get a free purse for the amount of money I spent buying their entire cigarette inventory (eight cartons of cigarettes = 80 packs).
Side note: Em is watching a woman give birth on TV right now because the German game show she was watching ended.
Emily and I discovered that our seats on the plane were not together. We scouted out our travel buddies, and Emily spotted a boy. "I hope one of us sits next to him. He looks agreeable," she said. Who does she end up sitting next to? The boy! "I got this," I said.
"Hi, do you mind changing seats with my friend?" I asked.
"No problem." Now I felt bad.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, it's ok."
"Really? Because I don't want to make you do anything," I say. I was about to pull out the "On a scale from 1-10, how comfortable are you with changing seats?" when he cut me off and said "really, it's ok."
I started stuffing the cigarettes in my new purse when I saw a woman behind me giving me a dirty look. Not again. Em noticed and says loudly, "Alex, you really should stop chain-smoking." Seriously, Em? "These aren't for me," I felt the need to "casually" say aloud once, twice, five times, so the woman would stop grilling me.
14 hours later, we arrived at my aunt's townhouse where we planned to stay until Zac got home and called. My aunt said my cousin from Boston was visiting and not to wake him. Well then it was a bad idea telling me. I bolted up the stairs and barged in on him.
I told him our dilemna and he laughed in our faces as the word "Luxembourg" came out of my mouth. He told us to choose another location, let us nap for six hours and then took us out in the city. Emily announced that two of her three goals in London is to ride the double-decker bus and take a picture inside of a phonebooth.
It hit me that we didn't know where Zac lived. Miraculously, we ended up outside of his door five hours later. Zac was shocked. "I can't believe you ended up outside of my door. I literally gave you no directions." We're clearly meant to be world travelers.
Our cabbie was a sweetheart and we decided to join forces when Emily and I get out of college. I will be the journalist, he, the detective and Emily, the psychic. I don't know how that last part was decided and I'm concerned for my future if it ends up that way.
Side note: I'm planning on being in the Guiness Book of World Records with the length of this blog. If you're still there, I'm impressed :).
I caught up with Zac and it was really good seeing him. As three strangers walked in his door, he informed us that they were there visiting his roommate who was in Whales for the next few days. Zac took us to a pub and we left the next afternoon.
We made it to the chunnel five minutes before it's supposed to leave and couldn't get through. The woman working there gave us a sideways glance. Ok, I don't really know what a sideways glance looks like, but she looked at us as if we had five heads and said, "you must be here a half hour ahead of time, not five minutes." Oh. Right. (Emily claims she knew this). The lady directed us towards the ticket exchange and we got free tickets for a train that leaves an hour later.
One lasagna and three bottles of free wine later, I was out and the train took us to Paris. We checked into the hostel and Jonah, Jon, Curren and Emily met us there an hour later and took us to dinner. After dinner, they took us on a long walk passed 10 crepe stands. The cobble-stoned streets were beautiful. We get to a jazz bar and chill (a.k.a I spill Jonah's drink).
We spent the next day with Emily Eckhous and friends. We went to Notre Dame, the Jewish Quarter and the Louvre, and then an American bar with music trivia later that night.
The next day, I woke up early (10 a.m.) to say bye to Emily Eckhous. Yes, I got lost and she was staying two streets away from me in the Latin Quarter of Paris. But I'm giving myself some leeway because I was in Paris. Emily Eaton got yelled at because the hostel closed from 11 a.m. - 4 p.m., and she was still sleeping at noon. So, we "rushed out" and went to the Arc de Triumph.
Jonah invited us to his and Jon's apartment that night for the second Passover seder. They did an excellent job. It was really nice. We told them we wanted to take a boat ride along the Seine (a river) and they told us not to do it. The next day, we woke up early, took the metro to Notre Dame, walked along the Seine, took the boat ride, and saw a bunch of famous things (though, I'm not exactly sure what).
That night we went Salsa dancing with Jonah, Jon, Curren and friends. We got off the metro and I asked this girl for directions to "Barrio Latino." She points us in the direction and told us she was going there also. I had a feeling this was Vanessa, Jonah and Jon's friend. Turns out, it was and I created a plan where we would walk in together and tell them we've been friends since childhood. Yeah, they didn't fall for it.
They asked us, "so what did you do today? You took a ride on the Siene." Bugger. (They say this in England.) Jonah, Curren and these randoms taught me how to salsa dance (or what the randoms thought was salsa. I'm pretty sure they were just groping me), and I taught them a few moves I made up but could pass for salsa, I'm sure. I said my good-bye's at the end of the night and got into a cab, where I left my phone.
I was phone-less. Emily was phone-less. My aunt's apartment building was locked with a code we didn't know. It was 2 a.m. We had six Euros on us. No matter (they also say this in England), I would just find someone with a cell phone and call my mom to call my aunt to let us in the building. Well, we couldn't find someone who spoke English and had two men basically tell us we'd be sleeping on the street. While Emily was making plans to rent a hotel room, I found someone who let me call the U.S.
The next day, we walked five miles and saw Musee Rodin (where "The Thinker" is), walked along the Champs-Elysees (apparently the most famous street in the world) and went to the Eiffel Tower. I was pooped and slept until 1:30 p.m. the next day. We then took the chunnel back to London and actually made it on time (not going say it was because I left Emily in charge this time). All I'm going to say is that the entire time we were in London, our phone was off by an hour (not going say this is why we missed the crossing of the guards).
And now we're back! And I'm exhausted.
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