Finally, all my exams are over!! Not to offend anyone back at home, but when you have more than 6 classes, the feeling of pure joy is much more enjoyable.  Continuing on.  With all the exams and orals out of the way, there were 3 weeks left in Europe for me.  What to do?  Travel with what little money I have left!  I’ve talked about going to Amsterdam and Netherlands since I arrived here since it really isn’t too far from where we lived in France.  It just made sense to go there for our celebratory “no more classes” party.
    Ahh buses, we meet again.  Curse you for being so much cheaper than taking trains!  I shake my fist at my laptop screen.  The biggest problem with busing (besides being locked up on a nauseating moving box for hours) is the unpredictability of traffic.  We got stuck in a traffic jam for an hour and a half before we finally pulled into Amstelstaation.  Thank. Goodness. Buses are not my forte.
    Now, Amsterdam is most well known for two things - their Red Light District, and the amount of weed you can buy and smoke in the open.  Some will be dissappointed that I didn’t participate in either, but I have two good reasons:  a) For 15 minutes alone with one of the ahem, workers at the Red Light District starts at 50€ and I obviously don’t have that type of money, and b) smoking’s not for me thanks (mum should be proud).  Despite that, we still had a wicked time!

    We took a free tour of Amsterdam, with our tour guide, Lee!  Instead of paying a flat rate, the guides make money by tips that their groups give them, if they think that they did a good job at the end of the tour.  Our guide was born in Amsterdam, grew up in Canada, and came back because her hometown was too awesome, and I don’t blame her!  It was super informative without being boring, and made us appreciate the city even more.
    The next day, we rented bikes so we could be just like the locals and ride around the city.  It’s probably more common to get run over by a bike than any other type of vehicle in Amsterdam.  Cruising around the city centre on bikes was so refreshing and allowed us to go see more sites with less effort.  We stopped by a microbrewery, the famous I Amsterdam sign, and then I took a solo trip to the Van Gogh museum!  It was hella expensive (14€…) but so worth it.

Other highlights of our trip included:
me getting caught in a storm while riding back to the hostel
finding Chinatown in Amsterdam and getting delicious dinner
going to H&M so that we can say we went to one in every city
getting frites everyday
getting beer everyday
…not a glutton. I promise.

It was just really good beer.
Still don’t understand a word of Dutch,
S.

    Ahh, another reason why I’m in love with Europe - the possibility of a day trip.  Day trips are possible in North America as well, but travel time increases, and options as well.  Being able to study in Northern France was a huge advantage, because our city is literally 20km from Belgium, and if I had any more money, I could easily hop on a train and go to Paris in an hour.  Sure everybody loves a capital city, but experience some hidden gems!  Calais was the perfect choice. 
Calais is a city in the region Pas-de-Calais, on the northwestern coast of France.  It is closest part of France to England, and if you look hard enough, you can actually see the famous white cliffs of Dover.  Calais was under English power for awhile, but was eventually returned to French hands.  Although Southern is arguably more well known for fabulous beaches (because face it, when you can easily drop the name Mediterranean, you’re probably going to win), that’s not to say that Northern France can’t put up a good fight.  We decided to take a day trip to check it out.  Let’s go!

    Calais was pretty quiet when we first arrived, but immediately we had smiles on our faces when we saw clear blue skies and a beautiful city hall building surrounded by flowers.  Seriously, I wish Lille had more flowers like this in our main squares!  They also have a sculpture by Auguste Rodin in front of the building.  But enough about flowers, because we wanted a beach.

    I have to say that after being lucky enough to lounge around at the beaches in Cannes, Calais’ beach is equally fantastic.  It was quiet windy and not “lay outside with no clothing” time yet, but the super soft sand and general magnitude was awesome.  We enjoyed so much that we stuck around for a few hours while picnicking near the ocean.  I felt like I stuck my head through a postcard.  Oh wait, I would just get a face of paper like that.  Nevermind.

    We didn’t do much more that day, besides grab some ice cream, but it was so relaxing and refreshing that we could not have had a better day there.  We did hear a lot of English being spoken though.  One possibility is that the ferry that crosses the strait brings many English tourists.  I didn’t mind, of course, but that accent does get a bit thick sometimes.
Now I feel like getting some more ice cream,
S.

When someone tells you that Northern Europe can be extremely cloudy and rainy, do not question it because it’s true.  For the past few weeks, Lille had not been nothing but clouds and storms.  Not just Lille, but Paris as well.  We were in dire need of some sunshine, so our trip to the south of France came at the perfect time.  A week with 5 other girls on the beaches of the Côte d’Azur was exactly what we needed.  Before I start my (generally extremely long) blog, I just want to say that we beat the odds, did not have any cat fights, and were a fantastic group despite being six females.  Woot!
    We had a little trouble with our trains and locating our apartment, but it was worth it when we saw gorgeous everything was.  The beaches, the city, the apartment, everything was beautiful.  I guess you luck out when your city is graced with celebrities every year for the Cannes film festival. 

    We alternated our days between lounging around the beach and doing more exciting and stimulating activities - renting vespas, taking day trips to other cities and countries, and catching ferries to islands and crystal waters.  I feel like this is one of those trips where words can’t capture anything, so I’ll just leave photos.  It also means that people might actually look at my blog because there are more pictures than words.

Our favourite beach

Nice, the Florence of France

San Remo, Italy, and Monte Carlo, Monaco

Île St-Margherite.  Look, Kirst touched a jellyfish!

I think half of us got heat stroke or burnt because we’re trying to compensate for the Vitamin D that we’ve been lacking.  Alas, the fairytale has ended, and here I am, typing up an endless number of blog entries on the train back home.  SNCF has also been having lots of issues recently.  What’s going on? 
This train better take me back home and not to Siberia,
S.

Update:  Our first train got delayed, and since SNCF knew that we wouldn’t be able to make the connection, we were told to stay on and get off at Paris, then take the metro over to our trusted Gare du Nord and take the latest train home.  Good heaven help me, I never want to run around metros at night with heavy luggage again.  I’m just glad that the trip ended well and I’m safe at home.  Now, time to pass out.

    I seem to have a knack for certain things - picking the slowest line in the grocery store, running into problems with doors, and going on trips during the busiest times.  Last weekend was the Paris marathon, and then this 4 day trip coincided with the 1st round of the presidential elections here in France.  Seriously, every single channel on tv just talked about the elections and nothing else.  Thank goodness there weren’t any riots, or else mother probably wouldn’t go back to Paris anytime soon. 
    My companions for this trip - KB and FarmBoy.  We were to do one day in Versailles, and three days in Paris.  FB left on the 3rd day to fly to Germany, which left me and KB to do whatever we pleased in the #1 vacation hotspot in the world.  To my readers (meaning people I have forced to read my blog), there is one thing you should know - never, and I mean NEVER, give me the option to do whatever I want.  Why?  Because I will unearth every single museum and gallery in that city and drag you to all of them, even if you’re kicking and screaming.  That fact that Paris is packed with galleries definitely did not help anything.

    Day 1- Versailles.  I will never understand why taking the Paris metro on the weekend is sufficiently less expensive than taking it during the week.  Anyway, we started off our trip on a fantastic note when there was a Starbucks across the street from the Versailles stop!  In Europe, you can never say No to a Starbucks, no matter how overpriced it may be.  As a castle, Versailles did not disappoint, having numerous statues carved from porphyry, and nearly everything gilded in gold.  That was until we reached the gardens.  Now, I’m not saying that the gardens of Versailles were not beautiful (although I will always place Chenonceau at the top of my list for gardens).  It was the fact that they charged you to go into the gardens, even though you didn’t have to pay to take a tour of the castle.

What? …Fine, you win this time, Francois XIV.  Even though you were kind of a jerk and did mean things to Protestants, I’ll pay the stupid fees so that I can tour your gardens with fountains that only run for 3 hours each day while getting rained on periodically without any form of shelter.  Frankly, any garden and grounds that charges admissions will be great, but while we strolled (and took an infinite number of ridiculous photos), I kept thinking back to another trip.  In high school, I was part of a youth choir for one year, and was lucky enough to go on a tour of the Baltic countries in western Europe, stopping at Finland, Estonia, and Russia.  We got to see the Summer Palace of Czar Nicolas II, and one thing that I remembered from that trip was that the tour guide boasted that the Summer Palace was superior to Versailles both in beauty and the fact that the fountains there would run all the time, unlike the French castles.  No offense to the french, but maybe you should turn on your fountains earlier, unless you’re actually doing this to conserve water, then I retract my previous comment. 

    Thank goodness the rain stopped when we got back into Paris, so that we could have a picnic in front of the Effiel Tower (where I failed spectacularly at a cheese eating contest), then hung around until dark to watch the Tower light up and sparkle. 
Yes, I am a girl.  Yes, I like sparkle.  Tough.
    The next day started off our epic tour of “every-single-museum-Serena-I-visit-before-she-falls-over”.  First stop - Musée d’Orsay!  KB hadn’t come here yet, and I never turn down a visit to my favourite museum (and also because they had a new temporary exhibit on Degas).  We ran into my favourite HoneyB and friend from #yeg, and just enjoyed all the beautiful art.  Ahhh, I really could live here.  Not Paris, just in the museum. 
    Honestly, we didn’t do much else that day, besides constantly ducking into stores to escape the rain.  We almost got stuck in a flash storm on Pont des Arts, the bridge where couples write their names on a lock, secure it to the side of the bridge, and toss the key into the river.  Couples everywhere?  No thanks.  We played a game where the first person to find their name on a lock would win.  Immediately, KB and I realized that we were at a disadvantage because FarmBoy has one of the most common names in the world.  Oops. 

    KB and I started day 3 of our trip separately, since we stayed in different locations the night before and wanted to peruse the Louvre on our own.  As I check off more and more museums from my never-ending list, I realize that the Louvre is slowly dropping on this list.  Why?  Because there is never a day when it’s quiet, their collection stops after mid 19th century, and they make you pay for the temporary exhibit.  I waited in line for almost half an hour before they told me that I can just flash my student ID for access, but left out the detail about paying to see one of Da Vinci’s most famous paintings (no, not Mona).  I was not a happy camper, and to spite everyone, I got in people’s way when I planted myself in front paintings to sketch them. 

    Our favourite WisconTwin (sorry FarmBoy) and I regrouped after lunch and set off for Centre Pompidou, home of the national gallery of modern art.  Pompidou covers art from the beginning of the 20th century to the present.  While I do appreciate modern art, I was definitely drawn to their section on the first half the 20th century.  Some of my favourites, like Dali, Yves Tanguy, and Chagall were there, and was very refreshing from the classical that we normally associate with fine art.  They also had a fantastic temporary exhibit on Henri Matisse (which we grudgingly paid for) which made up for the time that I missed the Matisse exhibit back at home.

    For our final day, we lucked on these hidden gems.  My thirst for modern art was not yet satiated, so we went to the Modern Art Gallery of Paris, which had an impressive collection of Delauney and De Chirico when they have to compete with a national gallery.  Good on you, MAC!  We also visited Musée Quai Branly, about African, Americain, Asian, and Oceanic cultures.  It wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, but still very impressive and it was free, so who am I to complain?
    It’s almost scary for me to say this, but after this crazy museum crawl, I might have maxed out my capacity for museums for at least a few weeks.  I know, the world is ending.  Don’t worry, I’ll recover soon enough.  Besides, the first Sunday of the month is coming, which means all museums are free all day!  Hey Palais Beaux-arts, I’m looking at you!!  I heard you have some Goyas waiting for me! *wink*
Surprised that none of my travel buddies have ditched me yet,
S.