想い出は遠くの日々

After more than a week since coming back from Rome, I’ve finally found some time to blog.

Last weekend, Arthur and I went off to Rome for a weekend sightseeing trip. The flight was like 8 am… it was highly unpleasant to wake up at 5 am to get my butt to the airport. Europe is famous for its discount airlines. My ticket to Rome was about 50 pounds (100 CAD) return, really just spare change in perspective. In October, I booked up my Ryanair tickets, so it’s finally time to utilize my ultra cheap tickets.

So, after a 2.5 hour flight, we got to the outskirts Rome around 12-ish… we were slightly annoyed at the +1 hour difference since many of the tourist sites close at around 1. After taking the train to the main train terminal, we had to go search for our hotel. I neglected to print out the map for the hotel but I did have the address and I know it’s close to the train terminal. I thought I could solve the problem by hiring a taxi, and since it’s close by, I expected the taxi fare to be below 5 euros. When I showed the address to the taxi drivers, they said it would cost 40 euros… I was like, no way… it can’t be more than 5. Stupid taxi drivers tried to rip me off. I finally found the tourist info booth at the station and they showed me where my hotel was: 100 meters away from the station. I was quite displeased with those taxi drivers trying to charge 40 euros for 100 metres.

Anyway, after checking into the hotel, we began exploring Rome, starting with the old Roman ruins. Got some pizza for lunch… I think there was a communication failure with the waiter. I was quite sure that I ordered a pizza with spicy sausages on it. Instead, I ended up with an anchovy pizza… certainly quite a surprise. I tried explaining to the waiter that it was wrong, but he totally didn’t get what I was trying to say >_< Since it was around 3 after lunch, most of the tourist places closed... so we just took photos outside.

Old Roman Ruins
These pictures came from the old Roman Senate.

Vatican at Night
After the ruins, we decided to pay a visit to the Vatican; once again, exploiting Arthur’s ability to take night photos.

Italian Dinner
Following the Vatican, it was dinner time. We randomly picked a location on the subway map to have dinner. We ended up near at Flaminio and found a nice restaurant in the alleyways. I had a 3 course meal: tomato bruschetta, seafood pasta, salmon, then finished with a coffee. After dinner, we went back to the hotel for some much needed rest.

Vatican
The Vatican was open on Sunday… we woke up really early to beat the line up to enter the church. We spent the greater part of the morning at the Vatican. The highlight of the Vatican was the climb up to the tallest dome platform.

Old Roman Ruins + Colosseum Revisited
From the Wikitravel website, we found out that we could get tickets to the ruins and the Colosseum from the ticket office at the ruins; bypassing the huge lineup at the Colosseum. Took some pictures of Roman Senate ruins. After bypassing the awesomely huge line at the Colosseum, we explored the ancient stadium. A lot of the structure has been lost to time…

Wandering Around
We got some quick food at a restaurant… pizza again. This time, I got what I ordered. Then we wandered around the streets until it was time to head back to airport.

Almost Missed the Plane Back
Since the airport was in the outskirts of town, there is a bus service that runs from the nearby train station to the airport. Unbeknown to us, the bus service comes very infrequently on Sunday nights, and on top of that, there were no taxis to be found anywhere! We had about 25 minutes to get our butts to the airport since we need to pick up our tickets 40 minutes before departure. After desperately searching for a taxi for 10 minutes, we finally flagged down a fixed price taxi and got ourselves to the airport with 5 minutes to spare. I was ready to leave my boss a voicemail saying that I am stuck in Rome. I learned a new lesson that night… it’s good to plan the way to get into the city, but always plan the way out.

Phew, I’m done.

Ok, here’s the entry for Paris… I couldn’t blog about it last week because I had to spend a lot of time planning for my Rome trip that occured last weekend.

Here goes…

Last last weekend, my friend, Arthur, and I went off to spend the weekend in Paris. Back in October, we decided that we wanted to head into Paris via Eurostar instead of flying there. The Eurostar is like the Shinkansen of Japan… instead of connected different parts of Japan, the Eurostar connects France and the UK. We ended up booking a Eurostar+Hotel package that was quite reasonable in price. So, on the Friday, we left work early and boarded the Eurostar at Waterloo station. I would say that compared to the Shinkansen, I think the Eurostar is a bit lacking in comfort. Mainly, I recall that there was seat inclination and far more leg room on the Shinkansen. Anyway after 3 hours or so, we arrived at Paris Gard du Nord station. The hotel that we booked was in the southwest part of town… though convenient since it was close to a Metro (subway) station. But being unfamiliar with the topography, we opted to take a cab.

Effiel Tower and Arc de Triumphe

After checking in at the hotel, the first stop of the night was Effiel Tower. We neglected to take photos of the tower from afar so we ended up revisiting the tower on a later day. We went up the Effiel Tower and took some awesome pictures of Paris at night. And on that note, many pictures you see here are courtesy of my friend’s SLR camera. His camera is far superior to my point and shoot camera and was able to capture scenes in low light conditions.

By the time we got off the tower, it was like 11 pm… if thought that if we cleared the tower and the arc, we would be free to do other stuff on the remaining days. After walking a bit from the tower, we found the arc… it was about midnight but the roads are still flooded with cars. After that, we caught a quick dinner… then cab back to the hotel (the subway closed by midnight).

Palace of Versailles

The next morning, we headed off to the Palace of Versailles… though a little late because we forgot to adjust our watches for the +1 hour time difference. The Palace of Versailles is where most of the French monarchs since Louis XIV lived. We arrived at the palace at around 11 am, and upon arrival, we sorta regretted not waking up much earlier… there was a huge queue to get into the palace. After lining up for 1.5 hours, we finally got in… I had my fair share of standing up that day. The palace and gardens are about 4 times the size of the Waterloo campus. I was exhausted by the end of all the touring. Pictures will do the talking here.

Notre Dame Cathedral
We made it back into Paris and headed towards the Notre Dame Cathedral… luckily enough, we caught the Saturday service, so we got to see the mass. It’s always an awesome sight to see these massive cathedrals.

Dinner

By the time we’re finished with the cathedral, I was ready for some classic French dinner. We wandered off into small streets and found a quaint little restaurant in the side streets. For dinner, I had my first taste of fois gras (duck liver)… all I can say is that fois gras tasted like liquified Chinese roast duck. It was certainly delicious, but I only have a very small quantity of it. I had a hard time finishing my fois gras, so I donated most of it to Arthur, who loved that stuff. All in all, I spent about 50 euros (plus wine) on the meal, but it was a good deal with the expensive ingredients put into the dinner. Then we went off to the Louvre and the Effiel Tower (from afar) to take night pictures because Arthur likes to exploit his ability take awesome low light pics. Then back to the hotel.

Louvre

Woke up early to the Paris museum, locally known as the Louvre. Since it was the first Sunday of the month, entrance was free. Spent the greater part of the morning looking at pieces of art, mainly Christian art. One of the main highlights was the Mona Lisa… I fail to see what’s so exciting about this picture. After the Louvre, we went for lunch… then off to the Catacombs.

Catacombs

The Catacombs are a series of tunnels that run beneath Paris. Back a few hundred years ago, the people of Paris ran out of graveyard space, and started storing bones in these tunnels. At the Catacombs entrance, there was a warning sign that says small children may be disturbed by the catacomb tour. For me, it was certainly an interesting experience to walk through the tunnel graveyard with bones stacked at my height. 45 minutes of walking through the crypt and we made it back up on the surface. I am glad to see sunlight again cause the Catacombs was quite creepy.

Sacre Coeur Cathedral
Finally, we visited the last famous cathedral of Paris… the Sacre Coeur cathedral. We went there because it’s located on a hill and we can see all of Paris. I was rather annoyed at the fact that there are people down at the bottom of the hill who tried to forcebly sell you these weird threads. After a few photos, we headed for dinner then back to London on the Eurostar.

Okay, it’s been a two-night effort to type this up… time for bed.

Now that I got some rest, I’ll put up the first entry that I’ve promised yesterday…

Interesting things about British culture…

Afternoon Tea

Last last weekend, I did afternoon tea with one of my friends in London at Brown’s hotel in Mayfair. To put Mayfair into perspective, when I told my coworkers that I went to Mayfair for afternoon tea, they said that Mayfair was the equivalent to Boardwalk in the game of Monopoly. Anyway, since it was my friend’s birthday, I was quite obliged to treat her to this event… and I was happy that someone was willing to tag along with me for this adventure. And I was very glad that I was able to make a reservation for afternoon tea… typically, people make reservations one month in advance; I made the booking the day before (I got lucky cause someone cancelled).

Afternoon tea was amazing… with the classy waiters, the fancy teas, and the rack of unlimited pastries. One of my favourite things that I ate was Clotted Cream – it’s like ice cream with butter consistency. Added to the awesomeness of afternoon tea is that the hotel has a piano guy playing music. Certainly, I felt like the aristocrat class…

All in all, I would love to do afternoon tea every week. However, I would say it would be a tad bit expensive at 33 pounds per person… and special thanks to my friend, it was her camera that took all the pictures. No pictures of her though – she’s quite adamant about not having her pics posted on this blog.

Also on last last weekend, I was able to exercise my free museum vouchers that I got from my company’s corporate sponsorship. For one set of vouchers, I ended up seeing some exclusive Italian art at the National gallery. The other set, was for the Terracotta warriors exhibit at the British museum… they brought over those stone soldiers from China to the UK. Those tickets were really hard to find… they book out quickly even with my corporate priority. As with most exhibits, I wasn’t allowed to take photos.

French Cuffs

I bought a new set of shirts recently from a fancy retailer near my work. I am in the process of phasing out my old shirts that I brought from Canada. I got 4 dress shirts for 90 pounds with my corporate discount. Some might say that 40 bucks each shirt is a bit steep but I say that it was worth it. Ever since I’ve arrived, I’ve noticed how much cooler my boss looks with these shirts from the UK. And following his example, I now have shirts that require cuff links! Back in Canada, people often wear barrel cuffs… but I say that french cuffs are way more awesome. Hint: cuff links make a great Christmas present

Now I’m going to bed… today is Guy Fawkes day, the stupid fireworks had better stop soon… people have been setting those off all night.

My feet hurts. I will blog soon enough. Two entries… one about British life, the other, my trip to Paris.

Cheers for now.