European Getaway 16 Nov – 5 Dec 2006
London to Paris
The day started out by waking up at the nice hour of 4:45, had to rush around as we had to finalise our bags, we had only got to bed at 1:30 that night, so running on hardly any sleep.
Walked with our packs on back and pillows in hand to the tube station, had to catch 2 trains to get to the pick up point from where we were staying. Nice ride on the district line all the workers were looking at us funny as we had so much stuff at such and ungodly hour.
Hoped out of the train at our station and headed to where we thought we had to go. Found the Topdeck bus, but couldn’t find the hostel, asked the driver but he was not sure either, he new it was down that street somewhere (No shit mate). We left our packs on the coach with the driver and ran down the street as it was 6:55 and we had to leave at 7. Ran down the street and out the front of the hostel was the Tour leader Jaz who said as we were running up to her “you must be Kieran and Glen?” and Correct she was. She had been waiting for us. As we walked into the hostel with her, another person walked in joining the tour so we weren’t the last ones which made us feel a lot better. (This was not to be the same for the whole tour, as we were not late for anything else.)
We all walked down to the bus, we were the only ones not carrying anything so I offered to carry some stuff for Jaz as she had heaps of stuff. Got on the little bus and found a seat. We sat in the middle halfway between the cool kids at the back and the nerds at the front.
It was a 2 hr drive to Dover we learnt all about the people who were sitting at the back of the coach, it was very big brother like with all the questions people were asking each other. Almost like everyone was walking around going ASL? (Age Sex Location for those who are not geeks) As if they were in a chat room. I will tell you about everyone on the coach in a later post.
Got to Dover and saw the white cliffs, although they were more of a grey, from the weather but still got to see them in real life. We had to go through French customs as we were going into France and leaving England, crossed over without any problems (lucky Kieran told me to leave the machete and heroin at home!). We had to take all our bags off the bus as it was just the one to drive us from London to Dover; another bus was waiting on the other side, the one we got to know and love that drove us through Europe.
We got our boarding passes, (yellow cards which say bon voyage, they were dodge) Made our way to what some would call a boarding platform, I like to call it a gang plank. Once on the ferry
we explored what was there and then settled down with a meal for lunch/morning tea (it was a kiddies meal that came with a multicolour crayon Yay!). After the meal we headed to the family room to chill out in, Kieran had a sleep to cure the sea movement.
The ferry made it to Calais in 90 mins, at Calais we met the Driver Mav (nickname of Maverick due to the aviator sunnies she wears. Her real name is Peta. Next we met Gavo the cook. All the Topdeck crew are from Australia.
We Packed our bags into the coach (her name is Judy, 'that's a nice name'), took our seat, we took the middle again to best judge our new travel companions. Driving into Paris was a nice drive past the country side, pass the Somme a good history lesson to see the land where the western front was fought.
The first night we stayed in a hotel, Kieran and I had a room to ourselves. There is one other couple with us, they are South African. We took our bags up to our room via the lift as we have massive bags we could only fit us and our bags in there. We ended up on the third floor with a view of the river. The view was through a suicide window that we could open right up and jump out of if we wanted to. I only ever stuck my head out. After we got our bags up to our room we had to meet back down stairs for a tour around the city with Jaz and see some sites. We needed to get the bus back into the city, as our hotel is a bit far out to walk back to.
We took our bus trip back into Paris, had a driving tour of the city saw all the things that we could go back to the following day when we had free time and view them in sunshine. We stopped at and walked up to the Sacr’e-Coeur, a massive Church on the hill built by the Germans as a present to France. It is a really nice church only problem is the finger men on the way up to see it. What are finger men? Well they are these guys (normally of dark African appearance) and they have a piece of string in a loop that they try 
to put on your finger. Then when you cant get it off, they hold onto the other end and you have to pay them to get the string off your finger. It is pretty much black mail. No one on our trip got stung by these ppl. What we did when walking past these men is to put our hands in our pockets, not look and just walk past, when they talk say no thanks and keep on walking.
For dinner Kieran had a hotdog and I had a donner kebab. Now donner kebabs are not the same as back in oz, what they do is open the pita bread (half the size of home) and then stuff the meet and salad inside of it. There is no rolling and pressing it under the sandwich press. It was a massive meal with the chips and drinks. We had some free time and we had a bit of a walk around. Met back up with the rest of the group, got back on the bus and continued to check out the famous sites of Paris such as the louver, Eiffel tower of course!, Arc
De Triomphe etc. After our driving tour we went back to the hotel room for the end of the first day was over, and we needed some sleep. Some of the group stayed up and drank in the bar Kieran and I just went to bed. I did try to watch some TV but there were only 5 channels all in French, it was funny to watch Will and Grace in French.
London to Paris
The day started out by waking up at the nice hour of 4:45, had to rush around as we had to finalise our bags, we had only got to bed at 1:30 that night, so running on hardly any sleep.
Walked with our packs on back and pillows in hand to the tube station, had to catch 2 trains to get to the pick up point from where we were staying. Nice ride on the district line all the workers were looking at us funny as we had so much stuff at such and ungodly hour.
Hoped out of the train at our station and headed to where we thought we had to go. Found the Topdeck bus, but couldn’t find the hostel, asked the driver but he was not sure either, he new it was down that street somewhere (No shit mate). We left our packs on the coach with the driver and ran down the street as it was 6:55 and we had to leave at 7. Ran down the street and out the front of the hostel was the Tour leader Jaz who said as we were running up to her “you must be Kieran and Glen?” and Correct she was. She had been waiting for us. As we walked into the hostel with her, another person walked in joining the tour so we weren’t the last ones which made us feel a lot better. (This was not to be the same for the whole tour, as we were not late for anything else.)
We all walked down to the bus, we were the only ones not carrying anything so I offered to carry some stuff for Jaz as she had heaps of stuff. Got on the little bus and found a seat. We sat in the middle halfway between the cool kids at the back and the nerds at the front.
It was a 2 hr drive to Dover we learnt all about the people who were sitting at the back of the coach, it was very big brother like with all the questions people were asking each other. Almost like everyone was walking around going ASL? (Age Sex Location for those who are not geeks) As if they were in a chat room. I will tell you about everyone on the coach in a later post.
Got to Dover and saw the white cliffs, although they were more of a grey, from the weather but still got to see them in real life. We had to go through French customs as we were going into France and leaving England, crossed over without any problems (lucky Kieran told me to leave the machete and heroin at home!). We had to take all our bags off the bus as it was just the one to drive us from London to Dover; another bus was waiting on the other side, the one we got to know and love that drove us through Europe.We got our boarding passes, (yellow cards which say bon voyage, they were dodge) Made our way to what some would call a boarding platform, I like to call it a gang plank. Once on the ferry
we explored what was there and then settled down with a meal for lunch/morning tea (it was a kiddies meal that came with a multicolour crayon Yay!). After the meal we headed to the family room to chill out in, Kieran had a sleep to cure the sea movement.The ferry made it to Calais in 90 mins, at Calais we met the Driver Mav (nickname of Maverick due to the aviator sunnies she wears. Her real name is Peta. Next we met Gavo the cook. All the Topdeck crew are from Australia.
We Packed our bags into the coach (her name is Judy, 'that's a nice name'), took our seat, we took the middle again to best judge our new travel companions. Driving into Paris was a nice drive past the country side, pass the Somme a good history lesson to see the land where the western front was fought.
The first night we stayed in a hotel, Kieran and I had a room to ourselves. There is one other couple with us, they are South African. We took our bags up to our room via the lift as we have massive bags we could only fit us and our bags in there. We ended up on the third floor with a view of the river. The view was through a suicide window that we could open right up and jump out of if we wanted to. I only ever stuck my head out. After we got our bags up to our room we had to meet back down stairs for a tour around the city with Jaz and see some sites. We needed to get the bus back into the city, as our hotel is a bit far out to walk back to.
We took our bus trip back into Paris, had a driving tour of the city saw all the things that we could go back to the following day when we had free time and view them in sunshine. We stopped at and walked up to the Sacr’e-Coeur, a massive Church on the hill built by the Germans as a present to France. It is a really nice church only problem is the finger men on the way up to see it. What are finger men? Well they are these guys (normally of dark African appearance) and they have a piece of string in a loop that they try 
to put on your finger. Then when you cant get it off, they hold onto the other end and you have to pay them to get the string off your finger. It is pretty much black mail. No one on our trip got stung by these ppl. What we did when walking past these men is to put our hands in our pockets, not look and just walk past, when they talk say no thanks and keep on walking.For dinner Kieran had a hotdog and I had a donner kebab. Now donner kebabs are not the same as back in oz, what they do is open the pita bread (half the size of home) and then stuff the meet and salad inside of it. There is no rolling and pressing it under the sandwich press. It was a massive meal with the chips and drinks. We had some free time and we had a bit of a walk around. Met back up with the rest of the group, got back on the bus and continued to check out the famous sites of Paris such as the louver, Eiffel tower of course!, Arc
De Triomphe etc. After our driving tour we went back to the hotel room for the end of the first day was over, and we needed some sleep. Some of the group stayed up and drank in the bar Kieran and I just went to bed. I did try to watch some TV but there were only 5 channels all in French, it was funny to watch Will and Grace in French. 
No comments:
Post a Comment