Paris

30th January 2013
Paris was my last European city and Sunbear's father dropped us off at the train station so we could catch the train from his hometown to Amsterdam and board the Thalys train to Paris.


Our room's balcony.










Sorry what?


Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris



The church was quite nice although by this stage I was a little sick of churches.




Dinner was terrible. We were starving and couldn't find anything so we settled on a dodgy looking Chinese restaurant. This was how it worked. You ordered by 100 grams of the side dishes which they then proceeded to scoop onto a plastic plate and then heated up in the microwave. Seriously. After the disappointing dinner we turned a corner and then, lo behold, all the restaurants appeared. The most annoying moment. We then bought an amazing burger from this little stall and decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower. That was a bad decision since it was quite a long walk. It was a 7km walk. Whoops. Honestly, the Eiffel Tower didn't seem too far way hence why we decided to not catch the Metro.










31st January 2013
For breakfast the next morning, we popped into this cute little bakery and purchased some croissants and this amazing snail. I also found this ginormous rubbish bin.


















'They had jet-packs back then!'

After a while,we got bored of all the artworks and sculptures and headed to Sacré-Coeur Basilica.






On the way up, we stopped at a little cafe for some hot chips and the ceiling was covered with bank notes from various countries. I also spotted the Henry Parkes $5 bill and I was tempted to swap it with note that I had in my wallet. When I was working at my old place of employment, it took me so many years to finally get my hands on some of the bills and now I have 2 of those bills.

Walking down the stairs, I noticed -albeit a little too late- that a few African men were approaching us and actually surrounded us and the guy was trying to make us bracelets ~for free~ but I refused and Sunbear refused but somehow they took his finger and made one for him and the other guy tried to take my hand but I pulled away and made a bracelet for "the lady too". Actually the guy asked if we were from Japan and if we were on our honeymoon. My face must have been something along the lines of, "are you kidding me" because he suddenly stopped. He wanted money (d'oh) and asked for €1 originally since he 'made the bracelets for us and we therefore had to accept'* but when Sunbear opened his wallet he had hundreds of Euros (since I had paid him back in Germany, in hindsight I actually don't know why he didn't drop off most of the money at his hometown) and the guy started to demand for €20 per bracelet. In the end, we paid €5 for both and walked off. How annoying.

* I really wanted to tell him that he actually said the bracelets were free therefore he couldn't suddenly claim otherwise as that would make him a liar. But I also didn't want to cause trouble so I just kept my mouth shut.












We had a three course dinner at one of the streets that we found the first night. The waiter was interesting. He asked where I was from and I told him and then he said, "I am from Woy Woy! Do you know where that is?". At this point, I told him that yes I did, and it was north of Sydney. He then claimed "no, you don't know where it is. It is south west of Sydney". Ummmm. No.

North Holland

I am sure that I have mentioned it before, but Sunbear is a Dutchie and and he brought me to his hometown (I think the word "hometown" is just so cute!) which was Steenwijk. It was really weird being introduced to his parents (his dad knew very little English and his mum didn't know any) and to see his childhood bedroom (he lives in Rotterdam for university) and to see that his mum had assembled a little bed for me.


Travelling like pack mules.



I sometimes do wonder how I managed to share a single bed for nearly 3 months as I now sleep sprawled  in the middle of my double bed.







We went for a drive in his dad's old Saab and his dog, Hella. The Netherlands is flat. So incredibly flat. Literally. Also, there was so much planning it was really weird and unnatural. All the trees along the side of the road/ in the "forest" were arranged either in a line or a grid formation. Seriously. It was also really strange to see that even in the middle of no where, there would be a bicycle path next to the road. Yes, I know that bicycles are ingrained in the Dutch culture, but there was nothing in the surrounding area. For example, it was an empty field for at least 15km in each direction and yet, there would be a bicycle path. Okay.









We stopped off at another town (towns are really close together in the Netherlands) for lunch which consisted of pea and ham soup, amazing coffee and pumpernickel bread.

Dinner was at his parents and it was so awkward and adorable. His mum made mashed potatoes for me (I love mash) and also custard for dessert (I love custard) and there was a really awkward story that his mum was telling and then got translated for me. So when his mum and and were dating, once she slept over at his place but in a separate room and during the night, she crept into his room but the door creaked. Next morning, the dad's grandfather announced at breakfast: 'I oiled the door. Tonight it will be alright'. I think they were hinting at the fact that even though there were two beds, it was completely okay to be sharing one (which we did). I felt a little bad though because if they knew that, then it was such a waste of effort to set up the other bed. Ah well.





After dinner, we went to Dutch Venice aka Giethoorn. We walked his dog and it was a nice walk ... in the drizzle. I never knew what drizzle actually was until I visited Europe. I always thought that there were: showers, sprinkles or rain. Drizzle and mist is actually really strange, it feels like it is raining but it also isn't. 

We had a second dessert at this random cafe with amazing hot chocolate. The thing I found interesting (perhaps it is a country thing rather than a Dutch thing) was that the dog could go into every single cafe/ shop and the owner would often bring a bowl of water for the dog. 

Where we went:

Amsterdam

From Munich, we drove to Salzburg to drop off our rental car and fly to Amsterdam since it was cheaper than leaving from Munich directly. It was a short flight (heck, any flight is a short flight within Europe) and we were sitting in the very last row. Upside was that I managed to take shots without the wing of the plane.


I  love this shot. It looks like clouds, but most of the white is actually snow.







When we landed, I discovered that they had damaged my backpack. It also had a footprint on the top so I don't even know what happened. I don't actually know how they even damaged it because the damage was at my front straps which tightened my bag, but I have lifted my bag via those straps before and there was never a problem. Hmm. Also, the tram doors opened and I allowed other people to get on first since I needed to get the correct change for the fare. Sunbear asked the driver if he stopped at a certain location and just as I found my correct change (and it wasn't as though I was standing there for 2 minutes, it was literally 30 seconds) the driver closed the door and drove off. Sorry, what? Rude.






Okay this was the coolest thing! Not the food per se, but the shop we bought it from. It is almost like a vending machine and you insert your money which would allow you to take the hamburger. Of course, who knows how long that burger was sitting there. You could also order it from the counter and they would make it fresh which is what we did. But still, it was pretty cool! Febo













We went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner and ordered the same thing we ordered on our first date (which actually was back in early December. Whoops) and it was really nice. I need to get around to visiting Hard Rock Cafe in Sydney at some point before it closes down. Well, it went into bankruptcy recently and who knows what will happen as the new owner has a lot of debt to repay.

My Overall Thoughts
Honestly, I didn't have much of an opinion of Amsterdam. It did feel really comfortable and familiar in way, so it didn't really feel very interesting or exciting or anything like that. Actually, the only impression was that it felt so gimicky. As Amsterdam is known for the red light district, it was just sex stores upon sex store selling things that just had a shock factor. Also, it had a lot of those 'coffee shops' (where you could smoke marijuana) and ridiculous signs promoting it.

Would I re-visit?
No.