Sitting on the airplane, and I still cant believe its time to go home already. These past two weeks have been such a great experience. Traveling to London, Paris, and France with friends is probably one of the greatest experiences one can experience. I mean how many times will you be able to think back to your “golden years” and say that you traveled internationally with your close friends? I don’t even know where to begin. London was the first place that we visited. To my surprise, London didn’t seem as foreign as I thought it would feel like. The “tube” as the Londoners call it is the main form of transportation. I do have to say that some of the train stops in London were very comically named. For example, the station that was closest to our air bnb was called “Elephant and Castle.” There were other stops that were just as closely comically named like; Picadilly Circus, and Waterloo. London is a city that, like Paris is on the water. During our time in London, there were many times where we had to cross several bridges. The main ones were The Tower Bridge, London Bridge, and Lambeth Bridge.. All of theses bridges ran above the Thames River. In my opinion, London has much of a city feel to it. However, unlike a lot of other cities, London is filled with tons and tons of history and information. There was one place in London called Burrough Market that was kind of like a permanent famers market type thing. Kind of like the Ferry Plaza in the city. People went there to eat dinner, grab snacks, shop for groceries, and even grab a few drinks after work. One thing that I found to be very interesting was that in London, Paris, and Amsterdam, the sun set late every night, around 9:45- 10;0 p.m.
We took the Eurostar train to Paris after out time in London was up. The train ride took about two and a half hours to get from one train station to the next, However, the ride was more than bearable. I probably would have preferred to take the train over taking another flight. Upon arriving in Paris, we had a small mishap with our AirBnB host, but that was just a small chip in the trip. Nevertheless, our Paris AirBnB was very nice. During our stay in Paris, we had the most packed itinerary. Each day in Paris, our days were filled with seeing different things and visiting different museums. Though I enjoyed my time at all of the museums, I’d have to say my favorite was visiting the Palace of Versailles. The elegance, and the history behind a place like that is nothingshort of amazing. Besides Versailles, some of the other places we visited were the Arc de Triumph, the Eiffel Tower, the famous Lourve, and a few other cool museums/ parks. I liked the museums that housed some of the famous Van Gough and Monet paintings. The weather in Paris was warm, it was the parfect weather. Though, I’ve come to a conclusion that Europeans don’t like anything cold. For example, in all three of the places we visited, none of them served ice in the nasty tap water that was served during meals. Also, the trains did not have any type of air conditioning at all either. I ordered a smoothie twice, once while I was in Paris, and once in Amsterdam, neither of those smoothies were cold. It was like they just blended the fruit together and didn’t add any ice It was very interesting, and I didn’t care for it. There were so many opportunities to shop in Paris, but I pretty much had self- control. I do wish I bought a Longchamp bag in Paris though.
Amsterdam, was the most beautiful city by far I have to say. Amsterdam was originally a small town that inhabited around 1,000 people during the beginning of its life. A lot of Amsterdamers rely heavily on boat to travel up and down the canals of their beautiful city. If I could, I would love to live in the homes in Amsterdam. Right along the canal, there are tons of beautifully decorated homes that line the water. The homes in Amsterdam kind of reminded me of the homes in New York, except nicer (I cant believe I just said that). In Amsterdam, the people heavily rely on bicycles for transportation as well. While we were there, we even rented bikes to ride around on. I do have to say that navigating the streets were a little tricky. People in Amsterdam don’t even wear helmets while they ride anywhere. While in Amsterdam, we visited the house that Anne Frank hid in during the War. It was definitely interesting to visit the actual hiding place of such an inspiring girl and her family. The other interesting sight to see in Amsterdam was The Red Light district. This is an area where girls stand in glass rooms in hopes of people buying services from them. Prostitution and other things that are considered illegal in the United States are legal in Amsterdam. It’s just so crazy to see these young girls (some old, and some boys) degrading themselves just to make some money. What was even more comical was seeing gross looking men leave the rooms of these girls and then just went on with their days like nothing had happened. One of my favorite things in Amsterdam was visiting the Banksy museum. It's crazy that this street artist had made such an impact to the people that his artwork has been cut out of buildings and doors, just to be put in museums. I don't even think he sees a penny from what these people are doing with his paintings. Nevertheless, this trip did not disappoint.
xox,E
