Paris avec le Frere.

March was full of traveling and more importantly, family! After getting back from a veryyy long vacation to Malta, London and Dublin, I had exactly four days to rest, regroup and do tons of laundry because the next weekend I was off to Paris to meet up with my brother.

Scott had a conference in Amsterdam and decided to stop off in Paris before heading off to do some serious business. It of course took a veryy long train ride from Lozere to get to Paris, but it was well worth it! The first day comprised of us mainly wandering the streets as Scott was very jet-lagged. We walked from the Louvre up the Champs Elysees all the way to the Arc de Triomphe. Everything in Paris is just so much larger than it looks on a map. You can easily see the Arc de Triomphe from the Louvre and it doesn't look far. Well, it isn't really far, it's about a 45 minute walk, but since all these Parisien landmarks are so huge, especially the Arc, it looks to be about a 20 minute walk. We discovered this when both my siblings came and visited me when I was studying in France... unforunately it was hailing that day.

The weekend was mostly us eating delicious food, let's be honest Scott. We ate at an amazing Bouchon Lyonnaise on Friday and consumed fantastic Chateauneuf du Pape wine and Scott basically fell asleep at the table after his cheese course. The next day we walked around some more, Notre Dame, Ile de la Cite, etc, and eventually made to the Quartier Latin where we went to our favorite, extremely touristy creperie. Scott and I have been there together three times... the first was when Scott was teaching in France and I tried to order the l'Exotique crepe, but my accent was so horrific the waitress had no idea what I was saying and figured I was American and put ice in my water glass... the ultimate insult.

We strolled around some more and made our way to Montmartre, my, and most people's, favorite part of Paris. We climbed endless stairs and ended up at Sacre Coeur, a beautiful cathedral with a fantastic view of the city. After watching the best street performers I've ever seen and getting offered about 16 times to have our portraits done (Scott, apparently, is very drawable...) we trudged on to le Centre Pompidou. After quite a few visits to Paris, neither Scott nor I have ever been to this museum. It's a modern art museum with all of it's piping and plumbing on the outside of the building. To say the least, it doesn't really go with the whole Parisien landscape. What can I say about le Centre Pompidou. Most overrated museum ever. I know I'm not very educated on the art scene and perhaps I just didn't "get it," but honestly, what is artistic about a video of a naked woman hulahooping barbed wire on a beach? We spent as little time as possible in this museum and were then in search of a Moroccan restaurant. Couscous was on our mind. Mission accomplished.

The next day was unseasonably cold and windy. In fact, it was blizzarding in the south of France! We were going to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower since I've never done it, but we decided otherwise. Nothing fun about getting blown off of a big old tower. After some steak-frites and some relaxing in the hotel, it was time for me to go home. After departing from Scott at a metro stop you didn't have to pay to enter (our little secret) I was on my train and into some serious snow. I then took a bus from a city about 1.5 hours north of me, Clermont Ferrand, to Marvejols in what turned into a blizzard. Well, a blizzard by French standards. I was nervous. Now if I had been in the US, no worries, bus drivers have to drive in terrible conditions all the time, but being in France and seeing cars fish tailing and sliding to the side of the road was not very comforting. Needless to say I was extremely relieved to be back in Marvejols and wished the bus driver endless amount of luck in his continuation.

London and Dublin.

I realize I have been very neglectful of my blog these past weeks and I haven't even finished writing about my February vacation while my April vacation is coming up in less than three weeks! So. I left off leaving Malta and on my way to London.

London was great, of course, I love that city. It was grey and rainy, which wasn't surprising. It was a difficult transition from Malta to London, but it had to be done. I had been to London while studying abroad two years, but it's such a huge city that I didn't even come close to seeing everything I had wanted to see. So the first day, in wind and rain, I trekked to the Tate museum for some art and culture. I grew bored of that quickly and went off with Adam to go meet Lisa who was staying with friends outside the city. We had a lovely meal of fish and chips and wandered along the river by the London Eye, Parliament and Westminster. The next day, Lisa and I lost eachother in South Kensington for about two hours as she had lunch with a friend and I visited the Victoria and Albert Museum. After FINALLY finding eachother (my phone had died) we celebrated with cupcakes from the Hummingbird Cafe, an adorable bakery that my friends who had been studying in London showed me. The rest of the day was spent wandering, eventually to Soho and Picadilly Circus. London's a great town, but I wouldn't recommend going in February. COLD.

The next day we got up leisurely and headed off to the airport. See the whole reasons we went to London (for me at least) was so that we could catch this flight to Dublin that cost £2. Yes. TWO POUNDS. Ryanair: Love/Hate Relationship. Upon arrival to Dublin, we checked into our hostel and immediately started exploring. Take note: this is Tuesday, we're in Dublin until Saturday. Now Dublin was a great city, but let's just say four days there? Excessive. The city is very small and nothing is more than a 20 minute walk. Also, at this point Lisa and I were feeling exceptionally poor so a lot of our site seeing was literally just sight, no entering sites. But, we did see the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript from 800 AD, at Trinity College, which was well worth the entrance fee.

We saw the essentials of Dublin, or so we think. St. Stephan's Green, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the old part of the city, Temple Bar (which is a pub district) and a bunch of other things that are difficult to recall now. As for the Guinness Storehouse tour? Well, apparently it's a must-see, but let's be honest. I've been to the Heineken Brewery in Amsterdam, I know how beer is made. The whole experience would have cost us 12 euros and we would get a beer at the end. Well instead, Lisa and I had our own Guinness tour where we found pints for 4 euros in a little pub in the middle of no where. We asked the bartender and the local drinkers what was special about Guiness. They then bought us pints. In the end, I think we understood Guinness very well and we each only spent 4 euros. Excellent tour.

By Friday we were growing weary of wandering Dublin in the rain with little money so we decided to venture out of the city. It was reccommended to us to visit a little seaside town about an hour outside Dublin called Howth (pronounced How-t.) We hoped on the train for a round trip of 4 euros and were soon in a beautiful fishing village. We explored the port, saw a ton of seals and decided to venture on a cliff walk that was advertised on the map. As we began our ascent, it started raining, surprise! But only for a second and it was sunny, so what did we see? A rainbow!! In Ireland!! The end of the rainbow was right on a little island a couple hundred meters from the port. After about five or so minutes of Pot of Gold references, etc, we continued on our hike.

As I have written previously. My shoe selection for this vacation was poor. This day I decided to wear my boots... which have a heel. Mind you, a very reasonable heel and they are extremely comfortable, but of course, I looked ABSURD hiking along this cliff walk in black leather heeled boots and my stupid black and red coat. It was a gorgeous sight to see, not me, the cliffs. 6 or 7 kilometers later, the hike was finished and Lisa and I were exhausted. When we returned to Dublin, we decided a movie would be the best idea to finish our time in Dublin, especially since the next day involved an EPIC journey home. So we loved Dublin but, man, we were ready to go home.

Instead of going through each step of our journey home, I will summarize.

1. 1 hour bus ride to the Dublin airport

2. 2.5 hour flight to Girona airport, terrible turbulence, almost cried

3. 2.5 hour wait in Girona airport for bus to take us to Perpignan, France

4. 6 hour wait in Perpignan, where we reluctantly got a hotel, for the first train in the morning

5. 2 hour train to Montpellier

From Dublin to Lisa's appartment was a 20 hour journey. Sigh. All to save a little money. Well, after passing out at Lisa's for most of Sunday, I got on my four hour train ride back to Lozere and, boy was I happy to finally reach my bed.

The End of our Maltese Magic

Now, I shall finally finish my Maltese saga, seriously this time. I realize now that it’s nearly impossible to write about Malta and have everyone understand it. These posts are more just lists of things we did, but I guess it’s the best I can do until you all visit Malta… which I highly recommend. The last three days in Malta were less jam-packed as the others so this post should be easy. Here we go, Thursday through Saturday.

Thursday was the last day for two of the voyagers who were off to London next, where I would meet them on Saturday. Lisa and I woke up early to attempt to get our breaking boots fixed before we went to colder climates. Upon exiting the hotel, we looked at each other in total shock. It was summer. Once we met up with our Maltesers we found out it was 24.1 degrees out… that’s 78 degrees for you ‘mericans… and it was the second hottest February day in Maltese history. We’ll take it. We met the others on the beach after they had gone swimming, something I didn’t dare attempt, and we hung out on the beach (well, rocks) for a good part of the morning. Our pale skin needed that sunlight desperately and a couple people even got sunburned. We were in heaven. We then drove along the coast to a great little café called the Busy Bee, which came highly recommended by Krista’s mom. After filling our stomachs with sandwiches and cannolis, we set our sights on some more outdoor activities.

When it was suggested we go to the Maltese national forest, many of us were perplexed. No where on this rock of an island had we seen any semblance of a forest, but in fact, there is something one may be able to call a forest. I say this because, being from New Hampshire, my life is in one giant forest. You don’t need to drive to get to a forest, just walk across the street. Anyway, the park was great and we saw a castle-thing that I think is the Maltese president’s summer home. We romped around the woods, threw some rocks for a while and played some park games while the sun set. But the hour was growing late and to the airport we went. Two down, six to go.

That night we got our first glimpse at Paceville, an area (town??) near Sliema that is utterly covered in bars and nightclubs… we just got some pizza and Cisk beer and ate down by the waterfront, much more relaxing. After a few hours, exhaustion was setting in so back to the hotel we went. The next morning, Friday, was a morning I had been dreading. Well, dreading is awfully dramatic, but see this was a day we were meant to hike. Being me, I brought the most wildly inappropriate shoes ever for a two week vacation: reef flip flops, flimsy, crappy black flats and a pair of heeled black leather boots. What I was thinking, I’ll never know. Anyway, from these options, I chose flip flops and it was probably the best decision considering. So we were off, my intelligent friends in sneakers and jeans and Alissa… in flip flops, leggings and basically a wool sweater. Sighh. We hiked along the beautiful beach at Golden and Apple Bays (I think…) though I wish I could remember their Maltese names. Between each bay were gorgeous cliffs and at the top of the first one we reached were giant clay cliffs. Stefan joked, “we’re going to slide down those!” Did I say joke? Wait, it wasn’t a joke. One by one, we slid down a clay cliff on our butts, picking up tremendous amounts of velocity. FLIP FLOPS. I survived, but my feet were none too pleased. Then we had to get back up the cliff. Sigh. I had some people watch my back as we climbed back up the steep cliffs… then the clay started giving way so we had to run up the cliffs…. FLIP FLOPS. I survived, scolded myself and Krista for the strenuous trail we had taken. But then we found a sweet cave and ate a delicious lunch. While the others climbed the cliffs and rocks, I stayed behind and enjoyed the cave and not dying due to poor footwear. We returned to Krista’s house for tea and got ready to drop Darcy off at the airport who was venturing on to Iceland. Three down, five to go. That night we went out for a real night in Paceville and met a bunch of Krista and Stefan’s friends. We struggled to stay out with all the youngins, but our week of intense tourism was catching up with us, not to mention some people had relatively early flights the next day.

So sadly, the next day, Saturday, Sam, Wes, Katie and John were all brought to the airport in the morning and seen off. Seven down… one to go? Yes. I was definitely the smartest of the group and I got an entire afternoon to myself of Malta, Krista and Stefan. We went back to Valetta for lunch and some more exploring. We lied across the ramparts and let the wind nearly tear us apart. We went down to the seaport and sat by the water talking about what an amazing week it had been. I was so glad to be able to have this last afternoon in Malta, I didn’t want to leave a second earlier… well, I didn’t want to leave at all. So after tea and many patizzi at Stefan’s, I was the last to go to the airport. Off to London, I was, and off on some new adventures.

More Malta!

Now, to complete my Malta saga, I hope. On Monday we took the public bus system to Valetta, the capital city, just to have the true experience. Many of Malta's buses are old fashion and seriously cool looking, bright orange and red, so we paid our 47 cents... yes 47... and arrived in Valetta to see hundreds of people (mainly children) dressed up for Carnival. Our first stop was St. John's Co-Cathedral, a massive baroque cathedral with amazing marble floors. We learned about the 8 pointed Maltese cross and saw two beautiful Caravaggios. After a quick lunch of sandwiches we hung out in a park that over looked the grand harbor and The Three Cities, which are three cities that are on peninsulas just across the harbor from Valetta. We went to St. Paul's Shipwreck Church next, another baroque, extravagant church dedicated to, obviously, when St. Paul was shipwrecked on Malta... coolest. island. ever. As the sun was setting we took a ferry back to Sliema to enjoy the view and were off to Krista's house where her family fed us an amazing meal of what I can only describe as pasta pie. Heaven.

Tuesday was insanely windy and we were nearly blown off the island when we visited the Dingli Cliffs, the highest point in Malta (I believe...) We ventured on to St. Agatha's crypt and into some catacombs, where the tour guide told us just before we entered that we could only be in the caves for 20 minutes due to high levels of carbon monoxide, so imagine our nervousness when he stated that we were behind schedule once we had gotten deep into the cave!! Next... we went to Mdina, the old capital of Malta and another fortified city. We went to a place called Crystal Palace that had the best patizzi in Malta. I tried to take a picture, but I didn't want to take a picture of locals living their everyday lives, very awkward. We walked through Howard Gardens, yes I am Maltese, and all through the city, another church and another museum. The city was full of bright buildings, even on such a cloudy day. It's still Tuesday and we went to yet another city, Mosta. Here, there is a church with the third largest dome in Europe. The church is impressive on its own but, as we're in Malta and nothing is ordinary, it had very cool history. During WWII, Malta was bombed by the Germans and one particular bomb pierced the dome of the church and fell to the floor without exploding. The only evidence of the bombing of the church was a hole in the ceiling, which was expertly patched up. No other damage!

Wednesday, while the Maltese finally went to their lectures, us visitors went to the Ghar Dalam caves. These caves contained hundreds of fossils of animals and plants. Apparently, at one point there was a land bridge from Sicily to Malta which allowed for animals likes elephants, hippos and deer to cross over to Malta... which are now extinct, no hippos that I saw. We also learned that during the Ice Age, Malta experienced a Rain Age which carved the land into what it is today. From the cave we went to a beautiful fishing village for lunch. Traditional Maltese fishing boats, Luzzus, are bright blue, yellow, red and green and they were everywhere! We sat down to a lunch of fresh fish and Maltese wine. The owner of the restaurant was a jolly Malteser who bragged of all the celebrities that have visited his restaurant. Because Malta is the coolest place ever, tons of movies are filmed there, Troy and Gladiator for example. Stefan's sister even met Brad Pitt (luckyyy).

Next were some temples. Oh actually, not just some temples, the second oldest standing structures in the world. No big deal. The first are on Gozo, like I said, but we missed them. The temples are located on a hill the slopes rapidly down to the water and the day we visited them it was insanely gorgeous. After haggling with the ticket agent and insisting we were all students, we decended a long path to the Ħaġar Qim temples that were built in 3600 BC. The stones that made up the temples were huge! However they got moved 5000 years ago, I'll never understand. We wandered the temple and wandered the hills exploring little stone huts that hunters use to hunt birds. Next were the Mnajdra temples just up the hill, just some more old temples.

It's still Wednesday and we're still seeing more stuff. Close to the temples was Il-Maqluba, in Maltese "upside down" or "reversed"... but let's call it the Lost World, yes like Jurassic Park. This is a huge, well, hole in the island where an earthquake collapsed a huge cave. The myth is that there used to be a town where the hole is that was full of sinners, so God scooped up the land and threw it out to sea and created the island of Filfla, the island that was then used by the British as shooting practice, sweet. The site looked like something out of Jurassic Park, extremely creepy. As the sun was setting, we went to Blue Grotto, cliffs to filled with stray, but very clean, cats. So many cats. For dinner that night, we ate at Stefan's whose amazing family made us an amazing dinner of rabbit. Oh, yes. Rabbit. Heaven once again.

This post is getting far to lengthy. Next post will include the rest of Malta... then I'll move on to the next week. So much to write about!

Malta: Carnival and Gozo

I have finally returned from another two week vacation where I spent my time on the other side of the road and with three prong plugs. It hadn't dawned on me that in all three countries I visited that people drove on the other (wrong) side of the road and used the British plug! But my first stop was Malta, and I wished I could stop there forever. After a train, a bus and a night in the Girona, Spain airport, me and seven friends hopped on a flight to the small island of Malta, just south of Sicily. Our two Maltese friends we had met in Montpellier graciously agreed to let us invade their beautiful country for a week... the best week. I'm going to have to break down my trip to Malta in a few posts or else my readers may grow weary.

We were greeted at the airport by the lovely Stefan and Krista and were off to find our rental car that would be driven on the other side of the road. Some of us travellers felt a little more confident than others driving on the wrong side of the road, so I left the driving up to them. After a few tours around a marina, our first driver Darcy was ready to go and ready to follow Krista's Maltese driving to the island of Gozo for Carnival. We took a ferry from Malta to Gozo and flew off the ferry in search of our hotel. For Carnival, Gozo is invaded by party goers and it's population doubles... from 35,000 to 70,000. I love Malta. After consulting a map and traveling on what were denoted as "main roads" we made it to our destination, Xlendi Bay and our hotel. By hotel, I really mean huge apartments looking over a gorgeous bay and the Med. I decided right then and there, I never wanted to leave. We spent the day recovering from our overnight in the airport and ate some patizzi, the most delicious food ever. You will find, Malta is full of superlatives, best, oldest, coolest, most amazing... etc.

That night we all headed into Nadur for carnival (after getting lost and traversing the entire island, which took 20 minutes) and were greeted by an insane sight! Carnival is no joke for these people, I've never seen such amazing costumes and in such a concentration. It was just a huge party in the streets with floats blasting music, bands playing every where and thousands of people looking absolutely ridiculous. Amazing. We even found a bar called the "American Bar," but I am sure we were the first Americans to ever grace this bar... epic.

The next day, after some rest, we were off to discover the entire island of Gozo in one afternoon. Mission quasi- Completed. First we went to the Citadel which was the old fortified city where the surrounding villages would take refuge during pirate and Turkish invasions. Malta is covered in old cities with fortified walls to protect itself against invasion due to it's particularly vulnerable placement in the middle of the Med between Italy, Africa, near Turkey etc. Anyway, the citadel was beautiful and we had a 360 degree view of the ocean. Our Maltesers picked us up some authentic Gozitan cheese and galleti (delicious crackers) and we ventured on to attempt to find a new site.

Attempt is a good word for this. If one looks at a map of Gozo, it seems to have main roads, but this is a lie. The main roads are often what one might consider a small side street or a country lane... or a ramp into the ocean. But in our wandering to find said "main roads" we stumbled across beautiful salt pans, had a photo opt, continued on some extremely bumpy roads where Krista's car speakers would fall every 20 minutes or so, and went on a side trip to a beautiful sanctuary called Ta' Pinu. The second car was unaware of this plan so they thought we were lost... no no. We had a strategy, we swore.

After Ta' Pinu and asking about the entire population of Gozo where the Azure Window was, we finally made it and, to play into my American linguistic stereotype, oh. my. GOD. It was super windy and I was ill prepared in clothing and footwear for this trip, so my plaid lumberjack jacket and flipflops were slighty out of place, but with a little help from my friends I was able to hike some rocks and see one of the most epic views ever. I could have stared at the Azure window for hours... but we had more to see on this little island. We walked down to the Inland Sea to see a little doorway to the ocean that apparently you can swim through. The boys then proceeded to throw rocks into the water for around an hour. Boys will be boys.

So. Since the boys decided to reverse evolution a couple thousand years with their rocks, we missed some other rocks, or actually the oldest standing structures in the world, the Ggantija temples. But it was okay, we'd just go back to Malta and see the second oldest, that'll do. Missing the temples was disappointing, but we drove on, Krista's car shaking under the weight of five people on less than stable roads blasting our theme song for the week... "I'm in Malta... *expletive*". We rolled up to Ramla Bay and a beautiful beach that contained Romain Ruins. The Ruins were actually stark white stones from an underwater wall just off the shore. We enjoyed the view and decided to try to climb the nearby big hill to see the sunset. My flipflops couldn't make it up the slippery clay hill so me and two other stayed behind while the others made it up to Calypso's Cave. We drove up. Calypso's Cave is the supposed point where Odysseus encountered Calypso on his journeys. Have I mentioned Malta is filled with amazing histories??

The sun was setting and we needed to get off the island and back to the bigger island of Malta to find our hotel for the week. After a two hour queue to get the ferry back to the main island, we were rolling again to Sliema, Krista and Stefan's home town and gorgeous place right on the water. After a little Valentine's celebration of "gifts, songs and poems," we chowed down on more patizzi and fell asleep before we could turn the lights out.