Camden Market

Yesterday was a pretty fun day in London, a lot of shopping was done. I spent a lot of money but it was my first time pretty much buying stuff for myself this whole trip. The coolest chain store was topshop which has a guys section called topman, but the best place was Camden Market which was just crazy. It's a really cool neighborhood with lots of little markets in it with canals and some pretty nice old buildings. Plus there are a bunch of really cool stalls. And there's a raver store which is always fun. There are also a lot of second hand Doc Martens, which I need to buy soon. So now I'm leaving, I'll try to do a better blog post later. And Happy Birthday to Mika who turned 11 yesterday!

London!

So I'm finally posting even though this will be my third day in London. My last night in Amsterdam was really fun. In London I was greeted at the train station by Liam, Sarah, Nadia and Feli, and we the went to the apartment we're staying in which is very central and very nice. We first had to take pictures at platform 9 and 3/4s though because it's Harry Potter. Anyways, we did some grocery shopping and went to Trafalgar square later which has a really interesting thing where one statue is missing and there's an art project type thing, so there's always a performer up there. We saw two, the first was a man painted gold with no clothes on (besides underwear) standing still not doing anything. And the second was a woman doing Yoga. The next day we also headed over to Trafalgar area to go shopping, and saw the performer was someone with a big fake video camera on his head. There are camera's everywhere in London, it's kindof scary because your always being watched. We then did a little bit of shopping, but I like it kindof failed because Liam went to the bank and got lost so there was a lot of waiting. At 4 O'clock we went for dinner at Sarah's friend's house that was quite far but in a nice neighborhood. It was nice, we made pizzas. After that me and Liam and Feli went for a walk near the London eye and it was pretty cool. Now we need to leave. so yeah..

Great day in Amsterdam

Today was a very good day here in Amsterdam. In the morning I went for a walk and went to a park with a few guys from my Hostel, one is a high school teacher so that was kindof interesting... After that I went for a bike tour with Pete, it was a really good tour and I learned a lot more about the history of Amsterdam and how it affects the way the city is set up today. For example the streets with cars parked down the middle used to have canals down the middle. I also learned where the original city is, and when the surrounding areas were added on. Mikes bike tours was in a nice quieter neighborhood too and I got to see the newly developed warehouses on the tour. The tour also took us way past where I've explored so it was really cool to see so much of the city on one tour. Also I am happy to report they are playing better music at my hostel tonight, which is always a good thing. So tomorrow I have no real plans yet, I was thinking of going to the Anne Frank house but after seeing the line up today I'm thinking not. But I will try to get in touch with David Wagman Tina's friend, and call it an early night so I can wake up early to catch the train. In any case I'm sure it will be nice, I think my plan is to get a hotel so I can make sure I get a wake up call and just relax for my last night, but I'll have to see.
Untill next time, which might be from London, I'm out.

Amsterdam (same day as last post)

So all was successful with changing the time of my train to London, I will go to London on the 7th now. So that is good, and tomorrow I'm thinking a bike tour maybe..
Also one great thing about the Netherlands are all the stores with walls of little ovens that you can put a coin in and get the food inside. A lot of various breaded things that are deep fried. And also on French fries here you can get them with Curry Ketchup and it's very good.

Amsterdam again!

So I am most likely going to be staying in the "meeting point" hostel for the whole time that I am here in Amsterdam, which so far looks like it will be until the 9th. However today I am going to look into going to London on the 7th instead of the 9th, even though Amsterdam is pretty great. My Hostel is good and in a good location but it's not cheap staying in Hostels.. Well I guess it is cheap but not as cheap as staying with someone, thus not paying. But it's fun here in Amsterdam, I rented a bike yesterday and have it until 5:00 today and yesterday I biked quite far and found a nice fountain. So once I'm done this I will probably finish with my bike by biking around a bit and then I will go talk to the eurostar people and look into going a few days earlier, but I'm a little doubtful that I'll be able to. Oh well, I'm sure everything will be fine.
I think I'll need to then plan my time here, such as when I'll do walking tours, when I'll go to museums and stuff like that, once I know if I can leave on the 7th or not.
Anyways I'll use the second half of my hour later so for now I'm off but I'll update later once I know if I am going to London on the 7th or 9th.

Amsterdam

This will be a quick one because I don't have a lot of time left on the computer. But it turns out I will have to stay in Hostels here for the whole time.
Amsterdam is really nice though, great architecture and a lot of cats. A lot of nice canals too. My plan for now is to go for a walking tour and then at some point rent a bike and bike around a lot. Since I don't have a place to stay maybe I will go somewhere else for a little while because it's pretty expensive here.. anyways only two minutes left so I'd better log off.

Köln

So after that last message I finally got in touch with Jonas, I met him at the train station and then we went back to his house. Before meeting him though I spent some time down by the river in Cologne where it's very nice and historic, I got some pizza which was good and very eggless. Once I met up with Jonas we went to his house and watched some TV with some of his friends, it was a good change to finally be in a home even though it is not my own. Jonas lives pretty far away from downtown Cologne, but in a nice neighborhood near the river.
The next day Jonas and his friends and I went for a day trip to the Netherlands to a nice town called Maastrechet which was nice and had a lot of old buildings, as well as good dutch food such as this breaded pasta kindof a thing which tastes really good.
Today my plan is to go to Amsterdam since Jonas is leaving tomorrow. I'll try to update with an other blog post once I am there.

Cologne day 2 part 2

So it's still the same day as when I last updated.. Right now I'm in an Internet and Call shop trying to reach Jonas.. Which is kindof working. But I did walk around Cologne a lot and found that near the river it's very nice and not filled with chain stores. Also rivers are always nice. But right now I'm unsure of what to do, because I don't have a cell phone Jonas can reach.. I guess I'll have to do a lot of waiting.

Cologne!

So I finally arrived in Cologne yesterday, sorry that the blog posts haven't been too frequent. I like the keyboards here because all the letters are in the same place, unlike in France where they were all mixed up. But the Y and Z are in different places here, besides that and a few differences in the puntuation keys everything is the same. My second day in Paris after writing that last post consisted of walking very far along the river past the statue of Liberty, which is not in a cemetary.. Even though I read somewhere that it is. It's funny that one of those symbols of America is actually just a replica of something in France. I kept walking and walked to a park that was an island in the middle of the river with a very cool art installation that resembled a totem pole. I then walked until I found myself in a very nice little neighborhood far from downtown that was a mix of modern houses and old ones, it reminded me of the neighborhoods in Japan that you see in Miyazaki movies (like Spirited Away). I then walked back to my Hotel and was disappointed to discover that the television in my room had only 3 channels, I was hoping to watch Joann Sfar's show again.. Oh well, when I'm back home I'll try and find it online. The next Morning I woke up and set out along the river to find the louvre. I found it after walking by many big fancy historical monuments. also it was pretty sweet because if you're under 18 it's absolutely free! So that was good. I saw the Mona Lisa which was actually bigger then I thought it would be since everyone always talks about how small it is. And I saw the Venus Demilo, which was very.. armless. I to be honest wasn't that taken away by all the renaissance and classical art mostly because I saw so much of it in Italy. But the ancient Egyptian section was really cool and so was the ancient Middle Eastern and Persian section. The Islamic and East Asian art sections were closed for rennovation or cleaning or something like that, they were just closed for the day, so it was kindof a bad day to go because I wanted to see those sections. Also the really old basement of the Louvre which you can walk through is pretty sweet. I then went to the Pompidou centre which should actually be called the straight up baller centre. It was a really good museum of Modern Art and had lots of interesting exhibits and stuff. There was one where there was a big screen and it showed the forest on it and they had speakers so that it really felt like you were in the woods. And the screen was moving as if you were driving through the forest and every so often you'd hear bats from behind and the sound would move closer untill you'd see them on the screen. Also the museum itself was cool because the building is so strange and you get a good view from the top. But before the Pompideau centre I got some pizza which had an egg on it, which is actually common of Pizza in Paris I don't know why. So then I walked back to the hotel and slept and in the morning headed straight for the Train which was full so I had to get first class, which was expensive, but they served food so I didn't need to get any more food that day.
The train ride to Cologne went through Belgium and I saw some very nice countryside, a lot of really nice villages that I wish I could go to. And then when I got to Cologne I walked around looking for an internet cafe, I was surprised by how modern Cologne is, it's strange because it has all these narrow streets and they're pedestrain only and twist and turn and whatever but all the buildings are modern and there are a lot of chain stores and an H&M on every block. Eventually I found an Internet Cafe and found that Jonas was not yet in Cologne! He should be here today. So I found myself a Hotel, and relaxed. I called home at 11:30 which was nice. So today I woke up at 7:30 and my watch is broken or something because it said it was 1, so I freaked out since check out is at 11 and figured I was just tired from over sleeping. So once I checked out I looked at the clock on the wall and realized it was only like 8:00.. Oh well, I could be sleeping right now but I'll just ignore that fact. I walked to a laundry mat and did my laundry, and then walked to the train station to change into some clean clothes in the bathroom. And then I went to this internet cafe, which is some weird sketchy casino with an internet cafe upstairs. There are a lot of casinos in Cologne which is weird.
So I really don't know where my next blog post will be from, but it will either be from here or from Amsterdam since Jonas is going to Amsterdam and I will probably go with him.

"I'm very 'Toronto'"

I now got Jonas' contact information, so I'm good for cologne I think.

Anyways when I was leaving Montpellier I talked to two Canadian girls and an Egyptian woman in the train station. The two girls said that I'm "very Toronto" because I hadn't heard of any of the small towns in Ontario they were talking about. The Egyptian woman, who was named Yosra, told me all about how hard it is for Egyptians to travel because they need to apply for Visas. Once I got to Paris I had a lot of trouble finding a Hotel. It was very hard and dark out, but eventually I did and it had a TV. Not only did it have a TV but I flicked to the kids channel and was delighted to see Joann Sfar has his own TV show here, about the little vampire. So I think I win because also I bought some Joann Sfar books in the Vampire Loves series in Montpellier. So I win. This morning I left my old hotel kindof far from everything and went back to the train station and eventually found a good hotel after sitting at the foot of the Eiffel tower eating baguette for a few hours. I also so the most charming shanty town under a bridge here, all the residents had tents set up and they even had a book shelf with books and coffee table with a nice tea set on it. Paris is really cool because it's so french and exactly like it is on TV. No surprises here, besides all the tents set up everywhere around the city, which I believe I've read about before as being part of a program to provide shelter to the homeless and make the homeless situation in Paris more evident. Now I'm going to go see the statue of liberty (The original is here, in Paris) and then probably go look for a good view somewhere. Later I expect to go look for a nice view, and then tomorrow I have museums and galleries planned for the day. Then I'll see if I feel like staying for another night after tomorrow night. Or if I'll move on to Cologne.
Also in Montpellier I did something very immoral to backpackers and went to Subway.. I can't really explain my motives but the sweet oninon sause here is much sweeter.
Alright I'll post again tomorrow!

Still in Montpellier

So I'm still in Montpellier, I got a good Hostel though last night, it was only 15 euros and I met a lot of.. interesting.. people. And I have a train to paris booked for Tomorrow afternoon. Montpellier is nice, it has it's own Arch de Triumph.. And a Tin Tin store, but it was closed today because everything closes on sundays. Everything is closed today, even the grocery stores which is weird because in Canada the grocery stores are busiest on Sundays. But tomorrow I have my whole day planned out before 4, when I have to be at the train station. I'm going to go to the downtown area and find a book store, I know there are at least two there, and I'm going to see if they have any Joann Sfar books for me to purchase. After that, I will venture off to the Tin Tin store and buy some Tin Tin merchandise. Also, the clock must've changed over here. What sucks though is my long train ride to Paris tomorrow, hopefully there will be no shortage of Joann Sfar books in the book stores, because if there is I will be sad. If they have them at Chapters back home they probably will have them at book stores here. Also Jonas hasn't got back to me yet so I really don't know what to do about that, I might just have to go to Cologne and ask everyone on the street if they know Jonas Wagner, but I probably wont do that. If he doesn't get back to me before I go to Cologne, I'll stay there for a few days and then go to Amsterdam early. If anyone reading this has any of Jonas' contact information or anything like that, if you could give it to me that would be great.. Alright, I'm gonna leave it at that for today, I probably wont update tomorrow because I'll be on a train pretty much all day, but the day after tomorrow I'll be sure to update from Paris.

Nelson Mandella

So after my last blog post I went for a swim in the mediterranean at Barcelona's beach and swam out to these rocks where a lot of other people swam out to. After that I got lost by trying to take a short cut back to my Hostel but eventually found it and went to sleep. After sleeping in I missed the early train to Montpellier, but managed to catch one in the afternoon, the only trouble being that I got to Montpellier at 9 00, oh well. I eventually found a hotel. But while waiting for the Train in Barcelona I had a very interesting conversation with an old English man who is currently living in Carcassone. He said he was 72 years old and he told me about when he lived in South Africa right after Mandella became president right after the apartheid was abolished. He was a proffessor from some university in England who was sent to South Africa along with several others as a sortof apology gift from Britain for setting up the apartheid. His job there was to provide education to those who were denied it in the past because of their skin color. From what he told me it sounded like quite a good life expirience, and he went on to tell me that he even met Nelson Mandella. Quite an interesting fellow to run into in a train station.
Anyways, after the long Train ride to Montpellier, which had amazing scenery, I found a hotel and then decided to go for a walk. Turns out I got here right in time for some crazy festival, so it was really fun to walk around and listen to the cover bands and observe all the festival goers. This morning after being kicked out of my hotel (not really kicked out, but my time was up) I went for a walk to the train station to reserve a ticket. I didn't find the train station, but I did find a really nice park with all kinds of great views of the city. Montpellier is actually so nice I'd say it's my favourite place I've been so far. Now I found the train station and there are no trains to Paris today or tomorrow (They're all full).. So I haven't quite figured out what my plan is yet but I'll be sure to update my blog very soon so that I don't have anyone worried.
Alright, you'll hear from me tomorrow!

Barcelona Loves You!

I love Barcelona so much that I decided to stay another night here because it is awesome! I made up my mind yesterday when I decided to go find a beach to swim on. I walked down ¨La Rumbla¨, the crazy street in the centre of the city where my hostel is (full of tourists and street performers) and when I got to the water I was disappointed by a big harbour, but I stayed optimistic, and turned right and kept walking only to find that after 20 minutes of walking there was nothing but industrial stuff down by the waterfront. I figured that all the beaches must be far away from the downtown and required a car to reach. So I walked back to La Rambla and saw a lot of people with towels, I figures these people were just naive foreigners such as myself who were euqally disappointed by the lack of beach. But then I noticed there were a lot of people, and some of them were wet, so I decided to keep walking past La Rumbla as if I had turned left when I reached the bottom. I was very happy to discover there is a really nice old neighborhood down there surrounded by a very crowded beach. The beach has a hotel on it that looks like that big one in Dubai. I eventually found a good place to put my stuff so I could keep an eye on it from the water. I had a really fun swim because the waves are huge and..
SIDE NOTE: They´re playing that song in this internet cafe that was played everywhere in Italy!
... the water is warm. The water is very salty though so it made all my cuts sting (hope that´s because of the salt, not pollution) and my eyes were kindof hurting quite a bit afterwards. A few times the waves kindof sucked me under and once they got me by surprise and since the water was full of sand I accidently got all this sandy water up my nose, which was kindof painful. Also I´ve decided to get a proper dinner tonight, because I´m sick on Bread and Nutella, they didn´t have penut butter at the supermarket in Madrid. Today I slept in so much, I slept from 8 at night because I was so tired and slept till about 11 this morning. I guess I needed it though because I´m still tired today. In any case since I have places to stay in Amsterdam, London and hopefully Cologne (if Jonas would get back to me) I can spend a little extra money here and in France, which is good because I need a proper dinner, I´m thinking pizza or something like that. I like Barcelona a lot better the Madrid mostly because there´s more backpackers and more of an opportunity to meet people. I think it´s pretty swell that it´s on the mediterranean too. Anyways, after sleeping in, I went for a walk looking for Gaudi stuff, which I found by accident, because I didn´t actually ever ask anyone where to find his architecture but I kept wandering aimlessly and ran right into that giant Cathedral he designed. My next decision was to find a good view of the city, so I walked toward the big hill (maybe it´s a mountain, but it´s really big whatever it is). Once I got up the big hill I noticed a lot of impact tour groups, they were there because that´s where Gaudi´s park is. So I walked through the park, looked at some nice views, and had a great time. Then I walked to this Cafe and now I plan on going back to my hostel, relaxing a bit, and then going for another swim and then see what I want to do next, but I also need to grab food at some point. I´m looking forward to this dinner very much.
Alright, my next update will probably not be tomorrow because it will be a transit day, but the day after from Montpellier I will make sure to update.

Barcelona

I´m in Barcelona! It´s very nice but too expensive. I left first thing in the morning after my first night in Madrid, no one spoke English and there weren´t mant backpackers, it was nice though. This morning I took the train and am finally in Barcelona, it´s quite nice here. I need to buy some dinner and then I´ll go look at the sea for a bit. Tomorrow I plan on going to see the Gaudi architecture and then moving right a long to Montpellier since it is so expensive here and I could not get a good hostel, although this one does have a Parrot. I´ll try to update tomorrow, but if I don´t I´ll make sure I do in Montpellier.

Finished Packing

I'm pretty much done packing and ready to go on my trip. My flight leaves Toronto tomorrow at 9 at night and I get to Madrid in the Morning. I have four weeks in Europe, my second stop is Barcelona followed by Montpellier, Paris, Cologne, Amsterdam and then finally London before returning home. At this point I'm very excited but also a little bit nervous, I really don't know what to expect as the last place I travelled to (Italy) was so far from my expectations (In a good way). I don't really know much about Madrid and it's my first stop, but I have a hostel booked at least.

My next blog post will probably be from Madrid.