Ben Murrell

I got up at 9:20am and checked out of St. Christopher’s, Paris and then had breakfast with Marigold (the Australian I met on the metro on day 1). I left at 9:50 to Gare du Nord to go to Amsterdam. Got tickets that left at 11:58 and got there at 16:02 with a one hour stopover in Brussels, Belgium. With the pass, it cost me 3 euros to get to the edge of France… but that’s as far as my pass goes. It cost 62 euros to get from Lille to Amsterdam. I need to look into a better rail pass and a better backpack and sunglasses and cologne and clothes. Just realized I didn’t buy anything in France .

So, I think this trip is awesome. I am getting so good at just meeting people and having fun with people I haven’t know for long. Also, at remembering names. I have learned the value of doing “nothing” and I’ve learned how to move from there to mad fun on command. When I came, I just thought I’d be seeing the sights – didn’t realize it would be 5 solid weeks of partying and transforming. I literally feel happier, more confident, more charged, etc. I feel like I’ve missed out on antire side of life until now, but discovering it has given me ambition and purpose to do more than just work and have things. Now I want to live. I want to be free and do what I want. I want to do random stuff like sky drive, take guitar lessons, learn more languages, etc [[I guess I was like this already, looking back...]]. I am wondering (and hoping) that all of this stays with me once I start the daily grind of having a job and being back home.

During my stop in Brussels, I had a Belgium Waffle. Yay!

I got to Amsterdam around 6:00. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that this is two hours after I was supposed to arrive… the train got delayed in Brussels. I stayed in St. Christopher’s which was right on the edge of the red light district. I had dinner there, then went on a pub crawl and met some cool people from Chicago and Amsterdam. I walked home around 3:00am and got offered cocaine by like three dealers on the way. Oh my.

I got up at 9:00, packed up (had to check out and back into a new room) then left for Versailles. Had a baguette on the way, and the train ride ended up taking an hour and a half. Worth it? Definitely.

I spent about 1.5 hours wandering the palace with an audio guide then another 1.5 hours in the garden (unfortunately, they don’t run the fountains every day, and this wasn’t one of those days), then another 1.5 hours on a guided tour of the King’s private apartments and the chapel. On the tour, we went to the room where King Louis XVI received Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and agreed to fund the American Revolution! Awesome.

I got home at about 6:40pm and had the hostel dinner at 7. Met a Scottish girl (Mel) and ran into James again. James was going to the Eiffel tower again, but I decided I’d go on the pub crawl. [[I'm pretty sure this was my first...]] The pub crawl ended up being really fun! There were about 50 people total and probably 40 of them were from Michigan State University studying abroad – they were crazy. We went to four bars, then ended up in a club. Danced with a lot of hot girls, then I left with Tina and her friend… then on the way home, Tina started puking in the cab (wtf?) so I was like “Oh, my hostel is real close, here’s 3 euros see you later!” and got out in the middle of Paris. I started walking back to the hostel. I saw the cheap rental bikes, so I tried to get one but my credit card wouldn’t work (Europe has chip cards, and I think I needed one of those). I kept walking for about an hour and made it through one of three districts I needed to walk through to get to my hostel. At this point, I decided it would be worth dealing with Parisian cab drivers and caught a cab at 4:00am. It ended up costing less than 10 euros… which was better than I expected. In hindsight, I should have stayed at the club and met more people, but oh well.

It was a good last night in Paris

Got up at 9:30 and caught the Sandeman’s free walking tour at 10:15. It was a good tour with lots of history and lots of sights. It started in Plaza San Michel, went over Pont Neuf, by Notre Dame, by the Louvre, through the Teulieres, by the Egyptial Obelisk (site of the guillotine during the revolution), down Avenue des Champs-Élysées, within view of the Arc de Triumph, and probably more that I’ve forgotten.

After the tour, I went to the Catacombs. The Catacombs were cool – there are around 6 million people’s worth of bones down there! After the Catacombs, I headed over to the Louvre. I made it through the Louvre in about 2 hours. I made sure to see all of the big things and the things that interested me – the Mona Lisa, Hammurabi’s Code, etc. I pretty much went through every room… I even saw some rooms full of stuff by a Spanish painted named Murillo, so I had to get some pictures for Roberto – haha! After the Louvre, I walked all the way down Avenue des Champs-Élysées to le Arc de Triumph and the tomb of the unknown soldier. After all of that, I caught the metro back to the hostel and arrived around 9pm. I had a 10 euro burger (blech) with some guys from Texas (Scott & two other guys). Did the Eiffel tower again then went home and got to bed by 12:15.

I got up at 5:40, packed up, got to the train station at 6:09 for the 6:30am train to Paris. There were no seats left for Eurail pass holders (surprise, surprise) – this is when I learned that there is a limit of 20 per train. There was no turning back this time though, so I paid the … 114 euros (!!!) … for the ticket. Balls, but I already have reservations at hostels. The train isn’t even full. I’m guessing there is enough room for 800 people on this train, and for a good part of the journey it felt empty.

[[I'm just  not going to type this next section... but basically it's about [[Venice girl]] and then reflecting on how ridiculous it is to get hung up on anyone like that on a trip like this. And about weird dreams I had about my ex after spending time with girls.]]

I arrived in Paris and bought  a 24 hour metro pass. The machines only took coins, and I had no coins at the time, so I waiting in a long line behind two kids. One was really annoying and it started to bother me, then I tuned him out. Anyways… I got the metro pass, then found my way to St. Christopher’s hostel. I checked in, but it was too early to go up to my room, so I left my bags in the luggage room then started to head to the Eiffel tower. When I went into the metro station, there was a girl that looked lost so I chatted her up. She ended up being from the same hostel and was looking for a tourist information center (I think). We became metro buddies and rode the metro together for about 15 minutes till I had to get off and switch lines to get to the Eiffel tower. She was cool, and from Australia (A rarity for me – I don’t have anything against Australian women, I just don’t usually run into any that I’d view any other way than platonic). I think she told me her name, but I didn’t hear it, so for the next two or three days I’d run into her and we’d talk and I’d just not know her name! haha. To make things easier, I’ll call her Marigold here.

Anyways, I rode the metro to the Trocadero station to see the Eiffel tower. As you round the corner to see the giant plaza with the Eiffel tower at the end of it, there was a crepe vendor. Seeing this as a great opportunity to have a French experience, I bought a crepe with bananas and chocolate, then rounded the corner and saw the Eiffel tower and ate my first crepe ever simultaneously The crepe was good – I sat on some stairs and finished it, then I started taking pictures. I think I took too many pictures of the Eiffel tower. Oh well!

I came back to the hostel and had the hostel dinner – while there, I met Ryan (Boston), Ryan (Canada), James (Australia), and Bryan (Australia). We decided we’d go to the Eiffel tower at night when it sparkles – we didn’t end up leaving until 11:30 or so though. I went up to my room to change – on the way, two girls gave me the “You’re tall!” and I gave them the “Yeah, you should come to the Eiffel tower with me and my friends,” so they did. They were staying in my room, it was their last night in Europe and they wanted to stay up all night until their flight out. We stopped by a shop on the way to the metro and picked up some wine, then went to the Eiffel tower. We made it at about 12:30 – the Eiffel tower sparkles something like every hour on the hour for 5 minutes. We hung out and waited, and I laid out with one of the girls and had wine while waiting. The Eiffel tower sparkled, we got some pictures, then we all caught a cab to the Plaza San Michel and tried to find a bar. We didn’t have any luck finding anything good. The girls got kind of stuck up so we ditched them at 3:00am, got kebabs, and caught cabs back home.

Got up at 9 to check out of Hostel Baccarat and into Hostel Mayerbeer. After that, I went to the beach for a few hours, then came back and showered. Listened to some pump me up music and read some stuff online to get [[Venice girl]] out of my head. Got in a really good mood then hit the road, grabbed coffee and a 2gb SD card for 7 euros. Then I got a kebab (my first ever!) and some wine then trekked to Baccarat’s courtyard. A bit of background: Meyerbeer sucked. The only good thing they had were computers that I used to upload some pictures… but besides that… they had no common area and the rooms were all away from the main reception area. It was one of the converted apartment style hostels. It was closer to the beach, and that was about it. I walked into Baccarat like I belonged there and went to the courtyard. I met two more Aussies there (Jason and Jade) who ended up being with Pete and Sam. They came back and we all hung out for a while. They had a burping game called Schwartz! – when someone burped, they called out “Schwartz!” and put their thumb on their forehead. The last person to get their thumb up got slapped in the forehead. After this went on for a while, I introduced the color game. We ended up going to the Old Town, then to the beach. Sam was loose cannon with every shady person he met (since he had a lot of money stolen from him the night before). The whole group skinny dipped in the Mediterranean, then we ended up sitting with a Moroccan on the beach with a guitar (Malik). Same got rough with some guys that were sitting around there… they ended up troubling us for the rest of the night. Sat out and sang with Malik on the beach, and also sang this crazy song the Australians had picked up from some American girl a few days before… it went something like “Arribbityboparouba… [words] … I wish that all the ladies …” It was funny! In the end, Sam got punched in the nose/eye and 3 French/German guys with empty bottles gave chase so we got the hell out of there (It ended with us being on the opposite side of the street, and this coked up 14 year old dealer throwing a bottle at us… but being coked up, he didn’t even get it close… ha).

On the way back to the hostel, I was accosted by my first prostitute on the trip. She started coming after me and talking in French and I was just like “No” and she backed down. [[Compare this to Barcelona later...]] When I got into the main building of the hostel, I saw a rat in the stairwell. It jumped down the middle and I heard it hit the ground and scurry off. When I got to the second floor, I couldn’t get the key to open the door. I gave up after a while and got on the wireless with my iPod, made a post about the situation I was in, then tried the door again. Still no luck, so I went up another flight of stairs hoping I had tried the wrong door. On the next floor, I found a homeless lady sleeping in the stairwell – I think I scared the crap out of her… oops! I went back down and tried the key again – I was starting to get desperate. It was past 3am and I had a 6:30 train to catch! I twisted the key HARD – I thought it was going to break, but then the lock turned and the door opened. Success, I got in! And I went to sleep.

This is the most confusing keyboard I’ve used so far… the french have swapped some keys around… all of these are in different positions: awzmq and the punctuation is all over the place. I am sort of typing this entry for the sake of typing and burning time because right now I am transferring 2gb of photos from my SD card to the computer so I can let them upload overnight.

Now that I know my trip is extended, I have downloaded hostel info for even more countries. Tomorrow morning I am leaving for Paris – I’ll be spending 3 nights there, then moving on to Amsterdam. From there, I want to go through the central Europe area and hit Berlin/Munich/Prague/Vienna. I don’t know how long that will take, but if I have time/money I will fly to Greece and spend some time there, then fly to southern Spain and work through there. Like any other plans I have though, they’re not official until I have booked the hostels/tickets… so things may change. Starting to wish I had sprung for the global rail pass and not just the pass for France, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland.

Last night I hung out with a bunch of Australians and New Zealanders. It was funny to hear them say “Hello ladies” because I am used to hearing Elliot say that with an Aussie accent. It was fun!

Today I spent the day out on the beaches of Nice. The Mediterranean is cold, and it wasn’t very hot today but I still took a swim!