Paris

Even though it was my last weekend before exams I was not ready to hold back and study. This was my last chance to go to Paris and I was going to take it. Thank God I did, because Paris is not a city to miss. I went with a Spanish girl I knew who is also on exchange. I was glad to go with her because she has been to Paris before, is a very fun girl and she knows how to speak French. We overnighted on the train and bus and I actually managed to get enough sleep. So I was ready to check out all the sites when we arrived in the morning.

We started with non-other than the Eiffel Tower. This guy is huge and menacing. Definitely easy to see from a distance. After the Eiffel Tower my personal tour guide took me to check out the Military school and the Napoleon museum. We decided to not go into the museum because we didn’t have enough time to check everything out before it closed. Instead we went to beautiful bridge with the giant golden monuments. This was built during Napoleon’s rule when they were filthy rich.

We then made our way to Le Louvre aka. Labyrinth of art and history. This place is huge! We checked out the Egyptian exhibits, Greek exhibits and medieval exhibits. We were there for a good three hours and only covered like a fifth of the museum. Ridiculously big but very nice none the less. Some exhibits you might be familiar with that I saw were the Venice de Milo, the Mona Lisa, the painting when Jesus turned water into wine and those cool pyramids you saw in Da Vinci’s Code.

We were beat after Le Louvre so we decided to have some good French food. For some reason those French like to put their eggs on top of the steaks and douse it with sauce. Crazy French! Very tasty though…

The next day we woke up to rain and cold weather. So much for going up to the Eiffel Tower. We had a lot of other places to see anyways. We went up the one huge skyscraper that is even taller than the Eiffel tower. 220 meters plus and thankfully indoors. You really get an idea of how big Paris really is from up there. You can pretty much see all the big monuments and building up there.

Later that day we went to the Luxembourg Gardens. This park has a nice fountain and statues throughout. It is supposed to be really nice during the spring when everything is blooming. We then ventured to the Sucre Coeur. This is one of the nicest churches I have seen in Europe. The outside looks like a mini version of the Taj Mahal and the inside has this giant mural of Jesus Christ. It is layered with monuments and paintings as well.

After looking through some souvenir shops we went down to Moulin Rouge. I’m sure you guys know all about that place. I managed to find a present for my roommate in one of the sex shops along that street. I knew he’d love it… :D

We headed over to the isolated island within Paris that held the Notre Dame. I particularly liked this cathedral just because of its medieval twist. We walked over to the Hotel de Ville which is this giant building which is supposed to be there town hall. They had a giant igloo and skating rink which stood in front of the building. Definitely a nice touch…

After that we went to one of the nicest places in Paris. The Champs de Lyse which has the Arc de Triumph on one side and Le Louvre on the other. This street was fully lit with Christmas decorations and was lined by expensive clothing stores, restaurants and Car shows. The Arc de Triumph is actually a monument for the previous French Wars. You can even climb to the top from the stairs inside of one of the legs.

We managed to check out the flame of the statue of liberty which is right beside the tunnel where Princess Di died from that Paparazzi accident. From there we got a great view of the Eiffel Tower in its hourly flashing. During the night they light up the Eiffel Tower and every hour they spark up blue lights which make the Eiffel Tower look like its sparkling. Cheesy, perhaps…but it still looks nice.

After, we headed to the canal for one of the bridge tours. We got a lot of cool history of Paris and saw all the bridges that line the Seine River. From the boats get to see a lot of things on the bridges that you would not see from on top of them. I definitely recommend going on one of these tours just not when it’s frigging super cold!

We decided we pretty seen all we wanted to see in Paris and we went for some Chinese food. There was this Chinese Wedding Party going on that night and surprise, surprise they couldn’t hold there alcohol. We had a nice dinner entertainment of a guy dry heaving on the bench close to us. It really added a nice touch to the meal…

That night we celebrated our last night in Paris with a bottle of Spanish Rum Lucia recommended. I have to say, pretty potent stuff, haha.

Then next day we made the long trek back to Maastricht for about studying till the end of exams. Woohoo! It was definitely worth it. It might have resulted in some long nights of studying but that’s what you have to do in Europe. No holding back!

Kean

Switzerland

It was time for a real European road trip. We had five guys (Two Canadians, an America, a Swiss and an Austrian) and the original plan was to take a beamer down to Zurich. Thing was there weren’t any BMW’s left so we had to settle for a Ford Mondeo. No worries though, this car had some punch. It wasn’t hard to get this thing 2 bucks plus on the autobahn.

So once we made good time J to Zurich from Maastricht we unpacked at Rafael’s (Our Swiss friend) friends’ house. They were two lovely Swiss girls who lived just outside of Zurich. We arrived on Thursday night and we were ready to party. After grabbing some Kabob’s we headed to Zurich to check it out for a bit. Zurich is a very nice looking city. The whole main street of Zurich is lit by thousands of light bars that hangover the street. It’s nice at night but even better during the day. You can tell everyone is rich in Zurich. It’s common to see top of the line SUV’s, hummers and other luxury vehicles go by. Many of the main banks are in Zurich and all the rich bankers live in Zurich.

We ended up going to this student party right beside the university. It was in this warehouse-like building with three floors. Other than the sticky ass floor, the party was good times. We met some Swiss girls and danced to some funky ass techno.

The next day we went to Zurich during the day to check out some of the sites. We had a pretty clear day and were finally able to see the Alps. The Alps are higher than the Rockies but the Rockies are much wider. The Rockies are also more forested than the Alps. Overall, the Rockies are better ;). We checked out the lake that is right in Zurich, the nice squares, buildings and the very aesthetic pleasing university and library. The Zurich University would have to be the nicest university I’ve ever seen. It’s full of pillars sculptures, paintings and monuments. Definitely a step up from UVic…

That night we went to a club called Vibes in Winterthur, a small area just outside of Zurich. This place was loaded with Swiss people, but lucky for us pretty much all of them spoke English. Even the hot Swiss girl ;).

On Saturday we decided to head over the remote mountain town, Lucerne. It’s about an hour and a half South of Zurich. This town is surrounded by the Alps and is looks a lot more traditionally Swiss with the typical Swiss buildings and houses. After some substances we checked out the rest of Lucerne. Definitely made for an interesting trip around Lucerne, haha.

When we got back to the house we had a big Fondue with other Swiss friends. This is where you heat bowls full of Swiss Raclette cheese and you dip pieces of bread in the cheese to eat. Very tasty dinner and a cool Swiss tradition. After an intense pre-drinking sesh we headed over to the Swiss Rave ‘Infinity 2006’. What an intense rave this was. It was in a hockey stadium and was full of “Swiss Outsiders”. These are the people that don’t quite fit into Swiss culture and go to raves looking like freaks (Very entertaining). The rave had five fairly famous DJ’s: 4 Strings, Signum, Dave 202, Cosmic Gate and Rank 1. They played some awesome sets and had wicked effects and surprises.

We left at about 6AM for the journey back. Thanks to our good ol’ friend Mary Jane it made for one hilarious trip back. It’s funny what can be funny during an all-nighter.

For our last day in Zurich we checked out as much of Zurich as we could. Since it got dark fast we didn’t have much time. Sunday was mostly a relaxed day before our trip back to Maastricht.

Switzerland was an awesome road trip. We had a wicked crew who really knew how to have fun. I’d definitely put Switzerland up there for my best trips and would recommend doing road trips with friends in Europe. There’s something about a road trip that you can’t get when traveling in the train or plane…

Kean

Berlin

What an exhausting trip this was. An Italian, another Canadian and I were in Berlin for two nights and one day, leaving on the Saturday morning. In other words there wasn't going to be much sleep in this trip. That was fine though, there's a lot to see in Berlin.

I would have to say Berlin was the most unique European city I've been too. It has that alternative atmosphere to it. You'll meet people there from all over the world which donates to Berlin's uniqueness. The difference between the East and West side of Berlin is very noticeable which adds another cool twist to Berlin. The West side is the corporate / modern / rich side of Berlin and the East side is the artsy / laid back / poorer side of Berlin. Many tourists prefer the East side just because its the most unique, fun and interesting.

We started off the morning in Berlin in Alexanderplatz. See is one of the most famous areas in Berlin. This is where the Berlin tower, Christmas festival, cathedrals, museums and other famous architecture and statues. So you have this famous platz in the middle of your city with cathedrals and churches and then literally there is a basketball court and a beach volleyball court right beside them. You know you're in Berlin when...

We then checked out Checkpoint Charlie. This is where people had to check-in and out between East and West Berlin during the Cold War. All thats left is the little checkpoint house but a big part of Berlin's history as you can imagine. We then went to checkout the infamous Berlin Wall. They had several pieces of the wall displayed in the downtown. The pieces were about 12ft tall and 3ft wide full of graffiti. It gave you a good idea what it would have looked like if the wall were to span the middle of the city. If you were to look to your left though, you could see an artificial sledding hill in the middle of downtown. They built a giant ramp and put snow on it so people could trek up their to sled down on their sleds. Again, you know you're in Berlin when...

After we decided to head over to the Jewish memorial. This was a big field of concrete blocks sticking out of the ground (You can see in the photos). This field of concrete blocks symbolized the events of teh Halocaust. We then headed over to the Gateway to Freedom. This arch was imported from Rome and you can definately tell. It's very similar to the monuments you would find in Rome and arguably the most beautiful monument in Rome. Right beside the gate is the parliament building which is another magnificent building. These Germans have some architectural skills up their sleeves...

That night we decided to go on a pub crawl to experience Berlin's night life. All the bars had the ir own unique style. There'd be bars with pictures of naked midgets to other ones with open flames bursting from the roof. We ended up in this really cool club that had several rooms with different music in each one. They had cage dancers and the whole deal. Pretty cool place but we couldn't stay that long becasue we had a plane to catch.

We then headed back to hostel to grab our stuff and to grab another one of those unbelievably good Berlin kabobs. Berlin is famous for their kabobs and I have to say I definately took advantage. The best kabobs in the world are from Berlin. If you go to Berlin get a kabob period...

We then headed over to the airport for our tiresome trek back to Maastricht. Overall, a really cool trip to one of Europe's coolest cities. I wish I could've stayed longer but unfortunately that wasn't possible. Oh well, there's always a next time...

Kean