Day 12-17

Quite an adventure I had this last weekend...

So, I have some catching up to do.

When I left off I was in the middle of trying to get my classes together and what not. Well, I have all of that pretty much figured out now - I'm taking that easy Scottish Culture and Society class, Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience. Those won't be so easy. But extremely rewarding nonetheless. My Cognitive Neuroscience teacher is great, we had a talk after class because I had to talk to her about taking the course and all that due to the prerequisite differences. She is actually talking to her husband now, who is a professor at Edinburgh University, about me helping him with his research lab. He runs a rat lab on learning and memory, this would be great for me to get in because I have experience with human labs, but not any animal labs thus far.

After my day death of school (9am-6pm) got out Wednesday I met up with some friends and started the night early. We had a mini beer pong tourney and friends over at Jordans place. It was all a lot of fun (and i'm still undefeated), then we headed out for the night. Jordan, Marc, Jaime, Paige and I met up with Shannon and Rebecca at a place called Binny Mulligans - A famous Scottish Pub. The atmosphere there was great, so good that I tried my luck with a 1-pound slot pull, to no avail, of course. Live music and loud chatter filled the place, we all had a great time talking and hanging out.

Needless to say I slept in a bit after that long day, I woke up at about 2:30PM with Marc knocking on my door. I just remember "We have a car, get up, pack your bags, we're going to France"... and that's all I needed to hear. Next thing I know Jordan, Marc, Paige and I are in a little Ford Fiesta rental ready to embark on quite an adventure. Our ferry to France leaves the port of Dover (which is on the very very bottom of the UK) at 1:30AM, we leave Edinburgh around 5:30PM. From the start it was a race against time, with a series of construction zones combined with multiple pit stops and gas fill ups we found ourselves a mere 20 miles outside of Dover around 1AM. The gas tank reads 0 miles to empty, but time is running out, we decided to make the quick stop and fill up then hit the road ASAP. We fly into the port around 1:10. We made it! After 7+ hours of driving and wondering if we were going to make it here in time, we made it... so we thought. Customs had a little problem with Marc's passport not having a UK entry stamp and felt the need to interrogate us for a good 10 minutes. Just long enough so that when we pulled into the ferry loading gate at 1:17, we missed the 15 minute mark that apparently was needed to board the ship. What a let down. The next ship leaves at 7am, I guess it is time to get some sleep...

We drove to a nearby 24 hour Testco (kind of like walmart), got some food then headed to the car. Mind you, this is a very very small car. Needless to say, no one slept a wink. So off we go again heading to the port, this time, an hour and half before we needed too. Once we got on the massive ferry of 9 decks in all, we immediately hit the ''horizontal lounge'' for some shuteye. We got to France around 10am and found our way to a nearby shopping plaza. I pulled out 80 Euros for the journey and got my first espresso and croissant from a nearby cafe. Paris here we come... 280KM away.

Who would have known that a measly 20KM away from Paris our tire blows out! What luck, so, on the spare goes and we putt-putt into Paris... slightly dismayed and ready to go we ditch the car in a carpark and set off to find the sights. We walked around for a good hour or two before we ended up finding where we wanted to go, a crepe stand! No not really, but we did stop at a crepe stand before heading to the arc de triumph, I got a chocolat crepe, it was delicious, but so sweet. After devouring that, we headed to the arc. There were sights all around us as we walked there, magnificent buildings and the Eiffel tower off in the distance. The Arc de Triumph was great, it was kind of funny at first, because here this giant monument sits in the middle of a huge round-about, there are no crosswalks or anything to get to it, yet we see people walking around it and on top of it! How the hell do we get there?! It took us a while, but we found the underground tunnel that led us to our prize. The view from up top was amazing. I took a set of pictures including panoramics of both sides. What a view...

By the time we left everyone was starving, so we wandered the streets looking for a good place to eat. Apparently we picked the wrong street though, everything was high priced over our heads and we begrudgingly settled on a little sweets/bakery kinda shop. I got a ham/cheese croissant, which was quite good. The shop keepers couldn't speak english and I am sure were making fun of us, but I think one of them liked me or wanted to fatten me up, because she threw in an extra 5 little sweet donut puff pastries.. on we went ;)

There are things to see everywhere, the Opera house, Churches, Parliament buildings, Statues... absolutely terrible driving... no but really, France has probably the most unorganized yet efficient driving system. Everyone has the right away, honk, swerve, drive across traffic, just don't hit anyone. I am still amazed we were able to dash across the streets without being pummeled... anyway, while we were at the Arc, Jordan and Paige looked up hostels for us to stay in. As we are now on 2 hours of sleep, day 2. They found a place that was nearby, yet again, so we thought. A 200 mile hike! At least it felt like that, everyone was so exhausted and we all had our backpacks the whole day. But I mean, this was a lonnnng journey, Marc even stopped to change into his running shoes - smart man. We finally made it to the hostel, and they were out of rooms. The guy gave us the option of waiting for an hour for a reservation that was suppose to show up, if they didn't, the rooms were ours, I didn't care, I was already sleeping in the corner. Turns out, we weren't able to stay there, but we found another hostel close to the Eiffle tower for 17 euros each. Not bad at all, we took the metro nearby then a taxi to our destination, the 3 ducks. The guy at the counter was pretty impressive, quickly shuffling from language to language as people from all over tried to book rooms. We were able to get ours, oh yeah, sheets cost 7 euros, 3.50 deposit, don't you steal our sheets! We said screw it, this trip is costing enough already, when we ended up getting to our room there was someones stuff already in one of the four beds! A little mexican man, so we thought, judging from the spanish books on the bed. A quick talk with the guy up front and he was outta there, poor Pablo (he got rebooked to a different room, we aren't that cruel). A quick cat nap and then off to the tower! It was pretty breathtaking up close and personal, every hour a vast amount of strobe-like lights go off like clockwork. Giving everyone within a 100 yard radius seizures. After we had enough we walked around late-night Paris then called it a night.

We missed breakfast at 8am (nice alarm Marc), it's bordering 930 now and raining. We still need a tire. To the free internet we go, looking up the rental car places number in hopes insurance covers blown out tires. They didn't. Anyway, we got some food from a local shop and decided it was dumb for all 4 of us to go tire hunting. I guess I got the good end of the deal as Marc and I were off the Louvre while Paige and Jordan were off to find a tire.

Before we made it to the Louvre, Marc and I walked around the city a bit more. We popped into a colossal-pillared building that turned out to be a church. It had high vaulted ceilings with statues and brilliant architecture throughout... only to be topped by the Louvre's! WOW. Just like out of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, there was the top of the glass pyramid that holds centuries of art. It was enormous, statues every which way we looked. I couldn't stop clicking my camera, I went through 2 batteries in less then 2 hours. Every ceiling had amazing frescos and paintings strewed against them. I said hi to Monna Lisa, and tangoed with the Venus de Milo. What an experience. I was encompassed by beauty, portrayed in so many different ways. There were ancient Mayan statues, statues from extinct African tribes, sarcophagus', paintings from every country, ancient scriptures, hieroglyphics, parts of broken templates, weapons throughout the ages... I could go on. What's funnier is what they let me bring into this masterpiece of art, the sign directly outside of the x-ray scanner and security says "no food, no drinks, etc".. this is when I remembered I had half a bottle of rum in my backpack! I quickly took it out and asked the security guard, "would you like me to throw this away?" as there was a trash can next to me. He gave me a jovial laugh and hand wave while saying "oh no no it's ok." Resulting in me walking around the Louvre with a half bottle of rum in my backpack... now who can say they have done that? All in all, quite the trip.

But it's not over yet, we made one last journey to the Eiffel tower, ate one last meal... then headed out. We drove like the wind, again in a race against time to make the ferry, it was about 8pm, the ferry left at 1130. And yet again, we found ourselves just outside about to run out of gas. This time, we chanced it, running on fumes and the will of the car gods we made it to the ferry! The ferry people were waiting for us, when we pulled up, they called us by name, we quickly got ushered through customs and then had a car waiting for us to follow to the boat. On we went. Thank god, the next ferry wasn't until 11am the next morning. We rummaged around the boat, got dinner (or whatever meal it was), and then tried to get some shuteye. When we got off the ferry, we went the wrong direction - mind you, still on 0 miles to empty. Found two closed gas stations, and decided to head back in the right direction to hopefully make it to the gas station we filled up at on the way to the ferry. We stopped at a gas station just before then, only to find out they only took chip debit cards, which is the type used throughout europe and the UK. Paige had 7 pounds left on hers... That's all we needed to get us to the next gas station. We made it there! YES. What a relief. Now our tank is filled and we are on our way... next stop Edinburgh.

What a journey...

6 Tanks of Gas for a Roadtrip to France: 240 pounds/ 3 = 80 pounds

Food for the roadtrip: 15 pounds

Ferry to France: 12 pounds

First Espresso ever w/Croissant (in France): 2 Euro

Crepes (chocolat and ham/egg/cheese): 7 Euros

Saucisse + Fritas: 6.50 Euros

Fritas: 2 Euros

Croissant w/ham/cheese: 3.50 Euro

6 Hours in the Lourve: 9.50 Euro

Up the Arc de Triumph: 5.50 Euro

Seeing the Eifle Tower 4 times: Free

Staying in a little hostel one night to get my only real sleep on the trip: 20 Euro

Parking in Paris: 15 Euro

Getting a flat tire 20 miles from Paris: To be announced...

Having a ridiculous roadtrip/experience: Priceless