The past week I spent a few days at the beach in Noordwijk in the Netherlands, and even though it was beautiful it is one of the coldest times of my life. I spent a lot of time shivering while admiring the scenery, and while most of Europe is amazing even during the off season, this little town was dead. Still, I got the chance to see the flower fields as they began to blossom, and the windmills there are not without their charm. This is a place I would go back to in warmer weather.
For reasons nobody seemed to understand, President Obama was coming into the town and as I was there they set up so many barricades and traffic stops it was unreal. I was actually lucky to leave when I did, right after I left for Paris the President got there and along with him came a lot of security and passport checks. Thanks Obama.
Paris is truly a magical city, but it was the biggest headache getting there. With the Eurail pass in France you are limited to the types of trains you can take, so I ended up taking 6 trains over the course of 8 hours to get into Paris. Luckily the people at train stations are incredibly helpful, otherwise who knows if I would have made it or if I would have just given up and stayed in Amsterdam forever. But, to make it all worth it, I got to witness the most beautiful sunset of my life on my final train into the city. Completely priceless.
Of course my hostel is in the shadiest part of Paris, which is an adventure. The Moulin Rouge is near by, and with that comes all of the joys of a red light district. On my first couple of days I got an amazing look at the big sights Paris has to offer. There is the Louvre and the former royal palace, along with the gardens. Then of course the Champs Elysees and Arc de Triumph, and the Eiffel Tower. None of these sights are realistically within walking distance of each other, but that didn't stop me because I have no common sense apparently. After a day of walking the city I watched the sun go down behind the Eiffel Tower and drank wine while the lights of the city came on. It would have been more magical if a guy didn't decide I was incredibly beautiful and expend a lot of energy trying to woo me. It may sound flattering, but European men are very over aggressive and it gets very old. Plus they really want to get into your personal space. For future reference , just say no and walk away. But not even that could ruin the beauty of this city at night. There is nothing more I can say to describe it.
I also visited Notre Dame and saw the many brides around the city where loves come to attach a lock with their names on it and throw the keys into the river. Although there is a famous bridge in the city for this, people do it all along the river and you see the locks every where. Special tip, if you want to do this at some point, put you lock on the bridge behind Norte Dame, those locks are never removed, but elsewhere in the city the locks get taken off periodically.
The Louvre is probably the most impressive and overwhelming museum I have ever been to, I do not recommend going there after you have already been walking all day. On Friday after 6pm the museum is free to anyone under 26, so I decided to take advantage. When I got there it was easy to get in, and after seeing some amazing painting and visiting the Mona Lisa I realized that I had barely scratched the surface of what you can see there and got very overwhelmed. Needless to say I decided to leave the rest of the museum for another time and went to admire the pyramids from outside, where I was promptly harassed by another very enthusiastic Frenchman who really enjoyed touching my hands. No thank you. I decided to go home at that point.
There is still so much left to see here, and so much more cheap wine (1 euro a bottle!) left to drink, I can't wait to settle into my new hostel tomorrow. Although the place I am now seems fairly nice, they have given me the run around a little bit and I'm tired of that nonsense.
I can say that British travelers are some of the best I have met so far. They have been so genuine and interesting, and have no trouble talking for hours with anyone they meet. On this trip I have gained a real appreciation for the British, a wonderful lot of you asked me. One of my hostel mates, a hound Brit named Matt, spent quite a while one night attempting to do the cup sequence from the movie pitch perfect using a toilet paper roll. It was priceless.
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