Goodbye, Bordeaux

This morning was ridiculously difficult. First, the goodbye to downtown last night--thank god Adrianna was there. It was such a nice closing night, complete with fireworks, salsa dancing, muskrats and perfect reflections in the miroir d'eau.

This morning, I woke up early to say bye to Kareen. That was hard. She has become such a mother figure to me. I couldn't stop crying. She had to leave in order to stop herself from crying. I feel like I'm going to see her soon, but sadly, I know it is not so.

After, Pascal and Matthis drove Steph and I to the train station. Laughs, jokes, pictures and promises to return were made. Steph and I boarded the train. While Matthis and I tried to keep it together, the train started leaving, with Pascal and Matthis next to it blowing bisous and the tears started flowing. I can't believe that was goodbye.

My adventure in Bordeaux may be over, but my friendships there are not. My family there will always be in my heart. I will return. I have a feeling that no matter where i travel after college, I will route it through France. I can't stay away.

We are headed to Paris to couchsurf for 5 days with a girl named Julia who lives next to the Louvre.

Nice can be Nice, right?

We got to Nice about sunset, exhausted but I was stoked be back in my second home country. Just hearing French on the train again gave me a few little chills.

When we got off the train, I called the hostel to get directions. The woman I talked to on the phone told me they were on the street that had a pharmacy on the corner. And hung up. Oh crap. There were 5 pharmacies on the street. Luckily we had the street name and ended up finding it fine. But what we found was not what we had in mind. We had read that we had to go to a restaurant and ask for "the Pink Lady." Sketchy, right? Right.

The Pink Lady was about 80, the chef and owner of the restaurant, and the owner of the hostel. She was adorable and dressed in all mismatched pink, but a bit crazy. She told us, in a reprimanding manner, that we came during the dinner rush and had to come back in an hour.

Steph and I immediately started looking for free wifi to look up another hostel and food. We ended up getting Kebobs with really good mint tea but couldn't find another hostel with any availability. So we went back to the Pink Lady and asked to see the room before we committed.

The hostel turned out to be a converted apartment (we think..) It was a little cluttered and shabby but the beds seemed clean and it had a kitchen, which we weren't expecting. We decided we wanted a story and said.

That 1st night was spend splitting a bottle of wine on the Promenade des Anglais. We had a lovely conversation and really enjoyed watching the planes land at the airport and the lights on the water.

We had a leisurely morning of pain au chocolates and cereal then hit the stores and beach. But of course, there was a flash thunderstorm, so we ended up back at the hostel, looking up ways to sanitize our beds after waking up with some unwanted and unpleasant bites. We decided we needed to get a drink or two to relieve our hostel situation and went to a pub that is known for having live music. There was no dance floor so everyone was dancing on the tables. It was a blast and we met some neat Kiwis and Russians.

The next day was spent at the beach. It was so relaxing. We got to swim, tan and eat quiche. Although we were tired and had a 6am train the next morning, we were afraid of our beds so we decided to go out all night, if not only to avoid sleeping in those beds again. We went out with the same people from the night before and a few from our hostel.

That morning, we grabbed 2 pain au chocolates each from the bakery we frequented 2x a day (they knew our order by that morning), worked out a horrific ticket situation with the help from a wonderful SNCF employee and boarded a train to go to Bordeaux.

And now here we are. On the way to Bordeaux, for the last time this trip. Holy wow, I can't believe we are already at this point. It seemed so far away.

I'm nervous about being in Bordeaux without the other Californians, but I'm excited to be back "home". Because that is what I'm feeling right now- that I'm going home. Home to Bordeaux, where a meal will be waiting for me. Where some French friends and I will reunite. Mission accomplished.

I feel so independent and I can't wait to make another town feel like home in the future. I love traveling and I love new cultures. I just want to se them for longer. I was to dissect a culture, a town. I want to become a local. I did that in Bordeaux and I will never forget it. I can't wait to do it again. where will be "home" next?

5 Hours in Venice

After Austria, we headed to Venice and were back on track with our itinerary. The train station in Venice is a fair bit away from the city center and we had to wait in the rain to get the bus to our hostel in the rain for about an hour. We were exhausted, smelly, wet and ready to eat some Italian food.

We got to Camp Fusina to find that was a trailer park with portable rooms also on the property. At first glance, we were a little worried, but we found our room to be clean and quiet. And it was a private room for 15€ so we were happy. The ferry was expensive so we decided only to see Venice that evening as our train left for Nice the next morning.

So we had 5 hours to spend in Venice- another canal city that is difficult to navigate. We fell in love with the other island surrounding the main one and getting lost between canals. We decided that it was necessary to at least see the Piazza of Pigeons and the main canal. The piazza was overrated and we didn't find it very pretty but did manage to get some great pigeon-scaring pictures.

After getting lost getting out, we ended up at a cute pizza place and lived it up. We ate a full pizza each, drank wine and had some amazing gelato. It ended up being a blast.

The next morning, we headed out to the train station again to start our longest day of travelling. Destination: Nice, France. I'd finally be back to home #2!

Adventuring in Austria

We are alive! And not only in the physical Alex-didn't-turn-out-to-be-a-cereal-killer way, but in a mental way. We are all completely still intoxicated from the massive hike we took yesterday and today.

The Austrian Adventure started out great-complete with Italian pasta, lemon beer, guitar and non-awkwardness. St Anton is such a typical countryside town--sandwiched between a ski resort in a lush green valley. You can actually ski between the towns in the valley in a day and the chair lifts are situated in the middle of the town with stores and bars around them all. Wild flowers are in bloom and we went on a night star-glazing hike in a thunderstorm and ended up frolicking in a field. And that was just adventure number one. The more expensive tickets have already paid for themselves.

Yesterday, we began our supposedly 7 hour, overnight, hike. All were in good spirits and it was beautiful. The first hut we found was decked out to the max (stove, blankets, cards, candles, beds) and we were stoked to see what the mountain had in store for us. The hut had a fresh water pond that you could drink straight out of.

After quenching our thirst, we set off towards peak #1 which had some pretty thick sections of snow. While it started out appearing very doable and even safe, the higher we went, the less secure it all was. Rock climbing, snow hiking, mountain scaling defined the next 2 hours as we zig-zagged towards a false peak and back and then across a chute that turned adventure into brillant stupidity. We had considered turning around to go back to the first hut and just call it a day, but going down became scarier and more dangerous than going up. I will always remember Alex calling out ahead of us "do you feel crazy?" Why, yes. Yes we do. We had hit, quite literally, the point of no return.

So we continued going up; putting all our trust in our fatigued legs and arms. That first peak felt so good. Although our legs were shaking, we were so pumped, nothing else mattered. Until we realized that we had another peak to go before the downhill.

Peak #2 was just as challenging as fatigue had hit us all pretty hard. It was more snowy but not as steep. Our shoes (not hiking shoes, mind you) were soaked and it was getting to be dusk (which lasts about 3 hours in Austria so light wasn't really a primary concern). While I was questioning what the hell we were thinking not turning back 3 hours ago with hut #1, I reached the summit and saw the endles alps. Everything was worth it. It was unbelievable how far that mountain range stretches.

The decent began and we faced 2 hours of non-snowy patches through a ski resort. Dehydration, exhaustion and the fading sunlight kept us on the move--planning to stop at the next hut we saw. Well that hut turned out being a cattle house so we had to make a tiny asent to the 3rd hut. Which was on top of a hill. Overlooking the Eastern Alps for miles. With a pond right there. And a waterfall next to that. The word perfection had never had a more real surreality attached to it.

Alex got the wood stove going in the "winter room" which is open to crazy winter hikers and Steph and I water and tried to get warm. While the hut-stored just-add-water broccoli soup with hot dogs was on the stove, the 3 of us used 12 blankets for 3 people and regained feeling in our feet. The meal was warm, the guitar came out, as did the stars and the night was spend in warmth and laughs.

This morning's hike was a "short" (we started to learn how to not trust Alex's distance perception) ascent to our last peak and down into the valley that would lead us back to St Anton. The peak was muddy, which made it very "dodgy" but the flower fields, pure blue/teal lakes, and promise of downhill pushed us through. We even made it back ahead of schedule.

We were all pushed to our limits and grew so much in the process. I am so proud of Steph for facing her fears and overcoming them. While our bodies are paying for it now and will be for the next few days, the bonds that were formed and the inner strength that was found has created an unnatural high in the most natural form. We are all positively high off of the last few days. I hope it lasts for a very long time to come.

Train to St Anton am Arlberg

What. Are. We. Doing? Going to Austria to stay with a friend we made in Amsterdam from New Zealand for a weekend? Passing through Switzerland? How the hell did we end up here?

It's so Pretty!

      Lake Como and Menaggio were so pretty. Literally, that is the only way to describe it. Every word to describe its beauty is an understatement. It was so night to get out of a city for 2 nights and to hike.
      Our hostel was not as nice as the others, but for 15 euro a night and an outdoor deck looking out over the lake, how can I really complain? The first afternoon was spent waiting for the reception to open by eating some bomb chocolate gelato and taking naps on a bench. Berlin had wiped us out real good so we hit the hay early that night in order to gear up for our hike the next day.
     Little did we know that the next day was a national holiday so none of the buses were running to take us to our starting point of a 5 hour hike. So, as usual, Steph and I decide to do the hard thing and walk to the starting place by combining 3 different hiking trails, hoping we were ending up on the right trail. This actually worked pretty well, but we underestimated that the trails we were combining involved going over many different mountains instead of climbing up just one. We never made it to our original destination, but did find some pretty sweet views and ate some good chocolate so all was well.
     That night, we stayed at the hostel for dinner. It turned out to be one of my favorite nights of the trip. Not only were we in a beautiful place with the sun setting over the lake, but we were in good company of other Californians, Texans, Kiwis and French-Swiss with live music.
     The next morning Steph and I caught a 6am bus to Como to start an adventure that was not in our itinerary. We were going to Austria. What?

Berlin: Poor but Sexy

Never has a tour slogan had a more accurate definition of a city. Berlin is poor, but it is sexy. It was such an interesting city. So full of recent disaster, recent discrepancy, recent pain, recent reconstruction. It is every sociology majors dreamland. The contrast between the East and the West and the presence of all the memorials- whether they are over 2,000 cement blocks in a plaza of miniature cobblestones laid out in front of the last known residences of holocaust victims was fascinating. It is nice that there is a presence of the past.

It seems that Germany has rapidly embraced non-suppression and has made very conscious efforts to commemorate the past, but focus and change the future. The amount of pain and strife that Berlin has seen is unfathomable. It is a once in a world opportunity to rebuild an already-modern city. Everything could change and everything did. It was a perfect opportunity after the Cold War to rebuild and recreate. Half the city was destroyed in World War II and again in the Cold war. It is a city sought by foreigners, artists and people looking to live in a cheap European city.

My favorite part of the city was honestly the East Side Gallery. It is the longest left-standing portion of the Berlin Wall and it is painted by difference artists from around the world. It shows the biggest social commentary about the wall and is the most realistic in terms of grasping how huge the wall was. It was truly confining. It felt hopeless. The art brought to life the necessity of not allowing history to repeat itself, to always remember but to continue to live.

I feel like I hit everything in Berlin I wanted to hit. We went on a free walking tour that showed us the historical areas and interesting anecdotes. We went on an "alternative pub crawl" that lead us to bars I will never return to. We saw a concentration camp and became completely overwhelmed with the reality of brutality. While it was one of the most difficult parts of the trip, I feel like I finally bore witness to the holocaust. I never want to return to a concentration camp to visit. It was simply too much for me.

We went on political history tour in order to try and comprehend life under Hitler and grasp how a country could look away from the horrors. We went to a techno club with Texans and danced til dawn-unintentionally. We slept in the Tiergarden. We ate Bratwurst almost every day and tried Schnitzal. We drank, we laughed, we cried and we coped.

This was the last leg of the trip for Ms. Sandy. It was really difficult to say bye to her. But luckily she lives close and I know I will see her soon.

I am currently a few cities behind on this blog. Steph and I are in Austria (and have been for the last 2 nights) visiting a new friend. We leave for Venice tomorrow and then France.

Alright, I am far to tired to be writing after 17 hours of hiking in the last 24 hours. Peace out.