Rotterdam

We slept in again today. We missed our free breakfast. So we headed to Markthall which is an enormous indoor farmers market and food hall. It was built in 2014 because the EU threatened to make selling fruits and vegetables in an open air space illegal. We found some spicy Asian noodles to eat, sweated profusely due to the humid, standing air, then got out of there.

We strolled around Rotterdam without aim, but we saw the famous cube houses, the White House, the Erasmus bridge, the port, the old harbor, lots of boats, and many other architectural oddities.

We found several fantastic pubs with some great beer, had a pile of delicious shawarma for dinner, and found ourselves drinking Heineken and dancing with an oversized pikachu to end the night.

The next morning we forced ourselves to get up for breakfast; I mostly just looked at mine and sipped cheap automatic machine espresso. After some showers and another slow start, we got out and about.

We rented bikes from a nearby shop and started cycling around town in search of a grocery store. Once found, paninis were in had along with water and snacks for the rest of our day. We brought our bikes on the waterbus and rode up the river towards Kinderdijk.

Kinderdijk is a UNESCO World Heritage Site because it is an area of reclaimed land made possible by 19 windmills built in the 18C. Wind power was harnessed and used to pump water out of patches of land so it could be used for living or farming. We cycled around this picturesque area for about 3 hours and making way too many pictures.

My Dutch-Canadian ass started to show its inexperience at this point.

We couldn't decide on dinner so we went back to the Markthall because it had a ton of options. After some brief and totally atypical rude treatment by a Dutch waitress in a Greek restaurant, we settled on a different Greek ish place.

Paris to Rotterdam

At 2am last night we had to have a trip planning party to get our day figured out today. We booked high speed train tickets back to Rotterdam and booked a hotel for the remainder of our stay in Europe.

We slept off our Disneyland hangovers, drank my 5 two-sip coffees, and left our big bags at the hotel for a few hours of Paris sightseeing. We had some delicious pizza for lunch and then took the metro to the Pere Lachaise Cemetery. We wandered around on a sort of scavenger hunt for famous graves: Rossini, Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, and Edith Piaf.

We did some shopping for our train ride and had beer o'clock before getting aboard our Thalys high speed train. We entertained ourselves by chatting with all the travelers in our car. We had two stereotypical, ignorant, overweight American women, two native Dutch ladies, and an Ethiopian man. Josie's tech skills broke the ice because she was able to get everyone's devices connected to the train's Wi-Fi (in Holland, pronounced "wee-fee"). As this happened, I happily worked my way through my stock of train beers.

We arrived in RotterDAM-I-look-sexy and had a small domestic regarding our cartography skills. We found our room, and headed out in the mist for dinner. In order to avoid eating more bread, we opted for Vietnamese. Exhausted, we headed back to our room to sleep.

Paris Disneyland!

We woke up early, I had my 5 complementary two-sip Nespresso coffees, Josie did her hair, and we talked to our fantastic hotel receptionist on the beat way to get to the park. The RER A line is under construction so we had to take the RER E to the RER A. Big stuff!

Our pre-purchased online tickets allowed us quick entrance into the park, and within 10 minutes Josie and I were screaming on Sapce Mountain. That was followed up with a severe Josie-ass-kicking on Buzz Lightyear's space shootout ride. To distract her from the pain we took in the mandatory Disneyland indoctrination of it's a small world and sang it for the rest of the day.

We had a fairly delicious Mexican lunch before checking out the haunted house, then made our way to the Disney Studios park for some serious thrills. In total, we rode Steven Tyler's Rocking Rollercoaster three times and the Tower of Terror twice. The Nemo rollercoaster was fun and unique and we skipped a large part of the queue by going in the single riders line. Armageddon and Rattatouille provided us with incredible immersive experiences; first, our space station was getting pounded by asteroids and falling apart, then we were rats in a French kitchen. 

Josie went on a food parade and I dutifully followed. We finally settled on sausages on buns, but, for the second time in two days, they ran out before we reached the window. This immediately hijacked my amygdala so I shot the impossibly happy Disneyland clerk my Canadian death glare and stomped off in search of the shitty "margarita pizza" we spotted earlier.

Our best calculation is that we hit 20 rides in total today.  We never waited more than 40 minutes for anything and typically we waited about 20. I consider that a huge success. As the sun went down, I had a deja vu moment: I got cold. So, for the second time while at a Disneyland resort, I had to buy a sweater. Josie pretended to be cold so she could buy one too.

Warm, we enjoyed the evening show at the magical castle and were impressed by the combination of fountains, lights, lasers, fireworks, projections, and music. We headed home tired, fulfilled, and with slight touches of headaches from our final Space Mountain ride.

Versailles 2

Versailles Pics

Versailles

Well, after waiting for two and a half hours, we finally got into the Palace of Versailles. Luckily, it was beautiful and we enjoyed a crowded tour around with audio guides. The meltdown didn't happen until around 3, when we finally reached a food destination.

We had to wait in line to get in... And then wait at the counter... And when we finally got to the counter about half hour later, they ran out of sandwiches. We stormed off and I went to use the bathroom. The bathroom had a ridiculously long line!!! At this point, a hangry Brad almost lost his shit and began flailing his arms and stomping around like a beta fish that saw it's own reflection. When we went to leave the snack parlour, there were sandwiches left there. Brad cut in front of the line, the man handed him two, we paid and inhaled them. We were sort of better after this.

We finished the Palace (hall of mirrors was amazing) and toured the gardens. Unfortunately, none of the foundations were on, but the extravagance of the gardens was unmatched. We walked around to the king's "break" house to get away from his job. It was at this point we both realized we were done. Versailles was beautiful, but to be quite honest the whole experience was Hell.

We took the train back to Paris and took the metro to the Sacre Coeur after dinner. It was beautiful and we got to watch the sunset.  The setting sun on the view of the city was spectacular. Brad negotiated two beer for 3€. Bonus!

We are now drinking wine on our balcony. Pretty great way to end the day!

Paris

Oh don't worry, I'm still waiting in line at Versailles. It's been... Two hours. Yay.

The good news is that I'm almost caught up on the blog!

August 8 we started by getting up and having breakfast at a cafe. We rode the metro to it, and got off by the Notre Dame Cathedral. We walked to the church and waiting in line (a much shorter line) to get inside. It is beautiful, majestic, and everything you expect it to be. It is also ridiculously busy, so you get a little different of an experience than usual churches. The spiritual affliction was diminished, but you could still appreciate how grand the church is. We then walked to the Louvre. I bought tickets online so we got to jump the queue (this would have not helped me today unfortunately) and enter. We spent the first hour battling with our stupid Louvre cellphone app, with Brad almost losing his mind. We did go see the Mona Lisa during this time. It was pretty awesome to see, but very crowded. It's not as small as people say it is; it's only that It is roped off far away and you can't see it that closely. We then buckled and bought the audio guides, which are on Nintendo 3-DS. Pretty high-tech. We walked around and did the highlights tour, taking in just as much of the art as the beautiful palace the Louvre itself is in. We saw the Mona Lisa, Slaves by Michaelangelo, the coronation of Napoleon, the Venus de Milo and countless others I can't remember the name off. It was beautiful.

Brad took me to Pont Neuf. I don't know why. I took a picture and I'll read about it later.

We walked to the Arc Dr Triomphe after this, a beautiful stroll down Champes d' Elysees. The arc is beautiful, enormous, and awesome. We saw the Tomb of the Unknown soldier.

We took a metro to the Latin Quarter for dinner, and had a nice time at a fancy/Greek restaurant. We looked at Notre Dame from the side, bought cheap wine and beer and went back to our hotel.

Today we got up, took two Metros and a train to Versailles. We waited in a long line for tickets, and luckily someone told us we could skip ahead if we wanted to use the machines with s credit card. We did, and now we've been waiting in line for two and a half hours. I'll let you know if it's worth it.

PS. There's a shit ton of military personnel hanging out at every landmark in Paris right now. It's crazy.