NICE last day

Day 17, Nice, France - 17/07/2007

- had breakfast (wich was included in the price thank you!)

- took adventage of the free internet (yes Madam!) so I took the time to update my blog and book other hostels

-went drop my stuff to the other hostel (pomal plus près du centre-ville)

-wanted to go to museums, expositions etc, but did you know that everything closes on Mondays here instead of Sundays??!! not me....

-did a bit of shopping...., you heard, ME, shopping!

- j'ai monté une grosse côte pour voir un château - mais lui aussi y'étais fermé! Très belle vue par contre!

-I went swimming in the sea, j'ai litérallement eu un moment de délire: c'est là que j'ai réalisé que j'étais au milieu de NoWhere- à l'autre bout du monde, seule, personne qui me connait, moi qui connait personne...je trippait!! J'était dans le beau soleil à me laisser danser dans les vagues AHHHH!! J'étais tellement bien!

-met a guy while swimming (Kevin). He invited me to his raggae concert he was going to play at... unfortunately it was 3 days from now, and today was my last day there, but he was fun!

-After hearing them play some free style tam tam, I went to walk along the beach where there was a bunch of street performers

- two guys passed by me and said «Hello!!!» Yep, in english! So I said hello back, politely. After 5 minutes, the two same guys came and talked to me while I was watching a Mickeal Jackson interpreter. They asked if I was alone... I said NO right away, that my friends were waiting for me not too far from here. We started talking and make fun of each others accents. (they were actually both Italians born in France. So we both had weird accents.) Spent a few hours on the beach.

- We only realized at 2h30 a.m that time actually passed by pretty quickly! My hostel was closing down at 3h00 a.m and opening back at 6h00 a.m ( quand il y a des restrictions comme ça, laissez-moi vous dire que c'est pas toujours cool!)

- donc je leurs aient dits que je devais retourner à mon auberge. Je me suis donc retourné...mais je me suis vite apperçue que j'étais perdue.... 4 gars, un après l'autre m'ont dit genre «Ah, mignone! Tu es toute seule? Tu es perdue?» (in a gross kinda way) Dison que j'ai vite réalisé pourquoi il n'y avais pas beaucoup de filles qui se promenaient seules tard le soir....

-Faisant comme si je savais où je m'en allais ( ce qui n'étais pas vrai du tout!!) j'entend un gars qui me siflait après et s'approchait de moi très vite.. dison que mon coeur s'est mit à battre pomal vite... Lorsqu'il s'approchait j'ai réalisé que c'étais les deux gars que j'avais rencontré sur la plage!! Ils ont dit qu'ils ne voulaient pas me laisser marcher seule à mon auberge.

-Lets just say that I was pretty relieved seing those two guys again, at least I kinda knew them a bit. They told me they just missed their bus so they decided to spend a bit more time with me. But after a while, I realized it was 3h20 already! My hostel was now closed and I had no where to go. The guys offered me to stay at their place or even to rent a hotel room for the night.

-Ok, so I'm a friendly girl, but I'm not THAT stupid here! I knew the guys a bit, but not enough to think it was the best thing to do. (I realized quite fast that I didn't have the same intentions as them...) At that time, only one option came to me: grab your stuff and sleep on the beach. (pretty smart huh?) he he Actually, I don't regret it (well, what other option did I have right?)
Again the guys didn't want to leave me alone so they decided to come and sleep on the beach with me. At that point, the sun was rising and some early birds were swimming in the salty water. So we didn't sleep. At one point I actually told the guys to leave, they began to really act weird and they freaked me out for a bit... When they realized I was very serious, they left the beach leaving their phone number and saying they both had fallen in love with me.

- One thing: Come on!! Can you beleive those guys!!?? Anyways, it was one of the freakiest experience I had so far. Yeah, so far....

-Anywho, at 6h a.m I decided to go to the hostel (their doors where opening back at that time) but I still wasn't sure if I was going in the right direction...and I had to go pee SO bad! No seriously, I never had to go pee THAT bad. So I was walking very awkwardly looking for a public bathroom: none!!! And none of the stores where open yet! When I finally realized where I was going, I tried to run but it sure didn't help! Like come on, theres one thing about peeing in your pants, but when you're backpacking, you REALLY don't want to carry those wet pants for 4 days till you find a place to do some laundry, especially when you ONLY have 1 pair of long pants! To make a VERY long story short (seamed for ever!), I finally got to the hostel's bathroom on time! You can't imagine how relieved I was! I'm still surprised I didn't pee myself that day!

Mon train partait dans 2hrs 1/2, donc je me suis couché pour 1hrs dans l'auberge (eh oui, j'ai payé pour une nuit que j'ai vraiment utilisé pour 1 heure!) et je me suis enssuite réveillé pour aller en destination de Cannes!

France, pretty Nice!

Day 15, Nice, France 15/07/2007

-arrived in Nice by train, went to look for hostel
-very weird hostel - in a restaurant, weird lady (calls herself the Pink Lady....) ish.. We were 6 waiting in the so called restaurant.
-I´ve been place with the Belgium girl, she was cool. We went to go buy groceries together and cooked good pasta with veggies..Mmmm!! She was traveling alone as well, but doing du pouce (autostop). pretty crazy stories she had... even if I like to be adventurous sometimes, I think I´ll stick with the Train pass..
-met some Australian guys, cooked in their kitchen. We all went to the beach together: my first time swimming in the sea! It was great!!! Waves and salt, great combinaison!
-Chatted with people in the hostel
-Did some lundry, dodo.

Day 16th, Nice, France 16/07/2007

-left for other hostel in the morning (the hostels were so packed, I couldnt book for more than one night in all the places I looked..so spended 3 nights in Nice, all in different hostels!)
-bus wasnt going far, had to walk a while to get to hostel. Happened to be on the verry top of some UGE hill! Looked like some kind of resort.. but room wasnt ready so I left my luggage there and walked back downtown.
-Went to Nice National Theater, Art gallery, Church.
-Dicided to go get groceries and eat in a park, lots of beautiful fountains.
-Man, I didn´t realise how french men can be so direct! During the day, 3 different guys I crossed in the street told me one of those lines: ¨Canadienne? Alors tu parles anglais? Moi aussi, I love you babe!¨ Or ¨Ah! Tres jolie! De joli yeux mademoiselle!, or the best one ¨Tu te cherches un mari?¨ What the?? I had to make him repeat that last one like 3 times..couldnt beleive someone could be that direct! Don´t know if that usually works with the France chicks, sure doesn´t work with me!
-Explored the city, walked a lot.
-Went back to hostel, everybody seemed to have stayed there the whole day! Lame!
-Talked to some people, read a bit.
-lots of awesome people in my hostel room, had great chats.
-Dodo!

Genova

Day 13 - Genova, Italy 13/07/2007

-woke up
-said bye to friends from Roma
-the bus was late of 1h1/2... missed my train.... waited, got an other one
-sat in the 1st class section without knowing, got kicked in the 2nd class one..HA!
-met guy from La Spazia, had a good chat.
-when that guy left, an other one came and talk to me.. he was a FREAK!!!! He was only speaking Italian but I knew I didnt want to be around him too long. He was saying stuff translating into :you, me, now, why not?? FREAK!! He was always staring at me and asking me for my phone number.... Was glad when I notice he didnt got off at the same stop as me...
-I took the bus to the hostel. Everyone was looking at me weird... like EVERYONE! I still don,t know why.... I supose they dont have a lot of backpackers going their way, kind of true. I just didnt really feel welcome there...
-The Hostel was, of course, on the top of a hill...like always. But this one was uge!!!
-Met a Canadian girl, Lisa, (from Ottawa) We decided to go downtown to have a peace of pizza (it was 9h30 at night, but its normal to go for diner at that time in Europe.) Explored the city.
-Went back to hostel, Dodo time!


Day 14 -Genova, Italy 14/07/2007

-woke up since people where VERY loud in room. 6h a.m (older people of course!)
breakfast was included: a bun and jam, Super!!
-went to get a bit of groceries for the day, went to reserve my train for the next day
-walked by the post, very beatiful, but smelled fishy... he he
-A guy started to talk to me (Daniel), he came from Africa and was now working at the Genova port. Had a chat and showed me around the city. Went to the UGE aquarium there.. saw sharks and pinguins! Since he worked at the port, he had free food in some places in town, so he bought me a Kebab (kind of pita, pretty good!)
-Town was pretty nice. He brought me to that CD place, listnen to some, searched for some EuroBeats... Brought me to a place where there was free internet, did some hostel booking.
-I bought the book The Da Vinci Code (why not, after all, Im in Europe! Best time to read it!
-Walked downtown, saw a instrumental concert in the streets, ate an ice cream.
-Met some of Daniels friends. They were going out, but my hostel had a curfew and the buses where not running after 12h... (Hostel REALLY far from downtown)
-Decided to be good and have a good night sleep before heading to France the next day.
-The streets were packed with prostitutes... Walked back home since it was still early enough.
-Read a couple of chapters from my new book, went to bed.

Update #2

Day 8- Venezia, Italy 08/07/2007

-woke up with a cold
-very hot day!
-we wanted to go to the beach, the bus was not coming...
-we decided to try hitchhicking (faire du pouce)...personne ne voulais de nous donc nous avons marcher...he he
-info, decouvert quil ny q pas de plage proche....
-retourner au camping ground by foot (located out of nowhere!!!)
-decided to spend a relax day in the pool on the site (good cause wasnt feeling too good...)
-fell asleep and woke up with a HUGE sunburn...great!! Brad was laughing at me, of course.
-grocery store, finaly saw some Italians (that worked there) and of coursem they had to flirt with me (suposevly, they LOVE canadians....I was abble to witness that!)
-did messages (with Aloe Verra this time..he he)
-talked the night away

Day 9- Roma, Italy 09/07/2007

-preped, breakfast, put aloe verra
-took train in dirrection of Roma!
-decided not to reserve and just hop on, Brad s genious idea, speak french and act dumd.......didn t work...had to pay 19E each or get kicked out....we paid the guy.
-first impression of Roma, lots of traffic & scootters & lots of pollution!
-finally arrived to our camping ground, beauty! (but trasportation is really bad...)
-set up in tent, met people from New Zealand (?)
-dodo

Day 10- Roma, Italy 10/07/2007

-breakfast
-went to go see the Vaticano!
-lots of people & very hot
-started to visit the Basilica (church). My day pack snaped and fell on the ground.....had a jar of nutella in there..you can imagine. Huge noise in the church, bottle of water cracked open, nutella all over me, thousands of people staring.....thank you Lord!
-after washing everything up, told what happened to Bradm cause of course he wasnt there to help me when it happenned! He was just upset about losing our Nutella.....lol
-par la suite, nous avons visiter toutes les tombes des anciens Papes....endroit un peu trop touristique...
-monter les 350 marches de la Coupola - a la fin les marches sont TRES etroites et croches!
-ete voir la Castel St-Angelo (juste de loin)
-we met the Pope, shook his hand, had a cup of tea with him.... ha ha Yeah right!!
-decided to get lost in the city, saw lots of other attractions arround & sculptures
-retour au camping, ecouter un chanssonier
-Brad went to the pool, I read a book near. The guys in the same tub as Brad started to talk to me, wanted me to go in the tub with them. Said no but they were still flirting (have to say they were pretty hot....lol) Of course, Brad wanted to have some attention as well... so he got out of the tub and came to talk to me, grabed his towel close to me and we left together just like that. The other guys were stunt, we had a good laugh.
-dodo!

Day 11- Roma, Italy 11/07/08

-went to go see the Colosseo (Collisium), were there use to be Gladiators! Was very interesting!
-met 2 girls from Poland, visited with them. Loved that place!
-visiter l Areo di Tito, ce sont des ruines des debuts de Rome, le Palais Royale des anciens Romains
-nous avons arreter a la Coloma Traiana, appris beaucoup d histoire sur la ville
-diriger vers la fameuse Fontana del Tritone. Plein de gens! Lancer des cennes pour nous permettre de revenir a la maison sain et sauf, c est la legende! (donc ne vous inquietez pas trop pour nous!! he he)
-de retour au camping, ecouter le chanssonier.
-When we stayed in Rome, the Euro Soccer Cup was happening, and all the soccer teams from Europe stayed at the same place as us! I met plenty of new people! Brad went to bed early that night. I stayed up with my new friends, the German Star Soccer Team. We had so much fun!! Learned new words (not all good I must say...Philipp you will def have a good laught when Ill say them...lol) So I went out to the bar with them. Had a blast!
-HAD MY FIRST FULL BEER EVER!! ha ha The German guy told me he would take it as an insult if I wasnt taking it....dont want to insult a German with a beer here! lol I was satisfied with one.. just to say I had my first beer in Italy with a bunch of Germans. Was worth it!
-Went to bed at 5h a.m.

Day 12- Roma, Italy 12/07/2007

-Woke up at around 8h a.m. (with only 3 hours of sleep)
-Looked around, all of Brads stuff was gone, and him as well.... I was a bit confused...
-Saw a note on his bed that said something about him wanted to try traveling on his own. We talked before about that, saying it would be fun since you do the stuff you want whenever you want...but nothing too seriously. I guess our perceptions about this trip where not the same cause I have to admit that we certainly felt like obligated to follow each other at a certain point. It was not satisfying both our needs.
-I was kind of wondering if he was mad at me for not going to bed at the same time he did the night before...whatever it was, I wasnt going to know before we see each other again on the plane leaving from Madrid on the 31st of July.
-I have to say that stressed me a bit. We had planed to leave Rome that morning to go to a small town near, to do some hiking. We decided not to book any hostel since our idea was to camp along the way (we bought a tent together). But when Brad left, he took the tent with him, thinking I was going to find a hostel I beleive.
-so with a bit of thinking, I decided the best was to stay one more night in Rome cause all other hostels in the other towns where booked.....have to say it was pretty last minute to book a hostel.
-searched for hostels in Genova for the day after (only place available in Italy). Zent dozn to the train station to book the reservation. After all that, I was really releived and less stressed.
-met a guy from USA (Adam), chat and ate together, very cool and nice guy!
-we then met other people from Canada(Toronto) and from Australia. Had a really god time all together. The party was at our place (Adam lived right beside me).
-we all went to the bar on site. Hung out with the German soccer team again and we all danced like crazy people. We all had soooo much fun!
-when the sun started to show (yep, morning already....) me and Adam chatted for a bit longer, surprisingly not tired. We seriously felt like we ve known each other for ever! Crazy!
-we fell asleep there for a bit, till the birds woke us up...lol
-I then realised I would have an amazing time traveling alone.

Till next time!

Update

Ok, so I realized it was impossible to write on this blog everyday. It s eighter too expenssive, or I just don t have the time to write. (there is soooo much to do here!) So here s some updates point form style:

Vienna, Austria 04/07/2007
-went to some markets in town
-went to visit the Parlement
-met someone from Norway (Eistein) and Michigan (Greg). We made fun of him because he asked us if we wanted to go to McDonalds (maudit Americains!!!) lol
-went to the internationnal film festival; saw a ballet
-had ice cream!!!

Vienna, Austria 05/07/2007
-dejeunner
-été voir le Palais de Shaunbrhunn (celui de la princesse Sissi!); très impressionnant! super beau! été dans son Labyrinth et nous nous sommes perdus!! lol
-Voir un parc des artistes reconnus de l,Autriche: comme Mozart!
-exploré une citée ancienne découverte sous-terrre!
-été a l,Opera (festival)

Vienna, Austria 06/07/2007
-breakfast
-see museums; Weapons and Artilery, Musica, Acient Sculptures
-went to Stephen,s Platz; huge Church and Catacombs!! The catacombs were awesome!! We saw dead priests and big piles of bones everywere! Enought to give you the chills!!
-did some Metro hopping
-gave ourselves back messages (these bags are heavy!!)
-hopped on a night train to bring us to Italy!!
-met Nhien and Chris on the train; from Toronto!! Had a good time with them.
-realised that me and Brad paid 25 Euros more each for our reservation;not refoundable, of course....booh!!!

Venezia, Italy 07/07/2007
-pas eu un bon sommeil sur le train; reveillé avec un mal de gorge et un mal de tete!!
-dit aurevoir a nos nouveau amis
-été directement sur l,Ile de Venise
-dans une journée, nous avons marché d,un bout a l,autre de l,Ile!!!
-très beau!!! Très chaud!!
-notre premier repas dans un restaurant; PIZZA!!! Mmmmm!!!
-revu Nhien et Chris (amis du train) sur l,Ile! Nous avons allors décidé de faire un tour de Gondola (vous savez, les bateau romantiques! On pouvais pas aller a Venise sans embarquer dedans!!
-été au camping: très belle place!

Prochain update Bientot!!

Meeting with Brad

Day 2- Vienna, Austria - 3/07/2007

I had to take several kinds of transportation to be able to go at the meeting point me and Brad had set up (3h p.m.,Train station, Vienna, Austria). Airplanes, buses, metro, taxi....ect. I arrived in Vienna at about 1h30 a.m. and went to my hostel right away (good thing Ryan and I booked a hostel for my arrival.. I was soooo tired!

(pardon pour les accents, les claviers sont vraiment bizarres ici!!)
Quand j ai arrivé à l auberge, ils m ont dit qu il m avait mit dans leur , là je me suit dit que ça ne devait pas être trop beau là dedans! Mais j ai été très surprise! C était super! Très propre et très commode, pas très loin du centre-ville.

So on the next morning, I woke up early (can t really sleep in when there s a buch of other people sleeping only inches from where you are....) and decided to make my way to that train station where me and Brad were supose to meet. So I made my way there pretty easily for someone who didn t know the city at all. I have to say that I hopped on different buses and asked people around to know wich direction I could take, but on the long run, it was pretty good! I actualy managed to have a 5 min conversation with a German guy that didn t speak a word in english (or french) and me not knowing a word in German eighter! Let me just say that I was proud of myself!!

Alors j ai arrivé à la station de train très tot. J ai donc décidée d aller explorer les environs un peu. Je me suis retrouvée dans un parc. J ai visité, pris un somme (j étais très fatiguée) et je me suis permis de suivre un groupe de tour guidée qui ne m a rien couté! Par la suite, je me suis dirrigé vers la station de train pour attendre Brad, toute excitée. Donc j attend, j attend, j attend...... Il est rendu 6h p.m. et Brad n est toujours pas là... Je décide donc de vérrifier mes courriels, pour voir s il ne m aurais pas écrit...toujours pas de nouvelles. Je décide donc de trouver mon chemin vers la deuxième station de train, située à l autre bout de la ville, juste au cas ou il s aurais trompé de station..... Pas de Brad là non plus... J attends un peu...... je retourne à l autre station, je laise un message pour lui à cette station avec l auberge ou il peu me rejoindre au cas... 10h p.m. je me fait à l idée que je vais faire le voyage seule.. ce qui ne me dérange pas trop, mais je suis extrèmement inquiète de ce qui aurais pu lui arriver...

I walk to the other hostel I booked for us that night (35 min with my big backpack on, rainy day) And who do I see at the counter???? Micheal Jackson!! HA!! No no, BRAD was there!!!! He pretty much just arrived (missed his transfer) saw my e-mail and came to the hostel.

Man was I glad to see him!

Bye Bye Ottawa!!

Day 1 - Ottawa - 01/07/2007

J'ai donc parti d'Ottawa dimanche passé à 10h55 vers London, England. Il faut dire qu'avant de partir, j'ai eu un peu d'inquiétude: Est-ce que je vais me perdre? Est-ce que mes baggages vont se rendre? Est-ce que j'vais etre en mesure de rencontrer Brad? ect ect. Disons que quelques larmes ont tombées avant de partir... c'est sur que j'allais m'ennuyer un peu de Ryan aussi tsé!

At the gate, I met someone pretty cool, her name was Bélise. It made the trip to London a lot more interesting. I also met Stephania, going to London as well. I don't know if it's a coincidence, but on the plane they served us so much tea. Usually, I'm not a huge fan of tea, but there I drank a lot of it!!! Must have been the England vibe. I was so exited to hear the English ancent!! I got shivers when I heard this girl tell us: "Do you need some help?" (in a strong english accent) while we were trying to find our way, struggling with our luggage.

J'était un peu fatiguée vu du décalage horaire de 5h..surtout que j'était sur un vol de nuit. Mais tout c'est tout de même bien déroulé. J'était très excitée d'y être. Par contre il y avait définitivement de l'aventure qui m'attendait!!......