paris, je taime!

the eiffel tour. the river seine. arc de triomphe. champ de elysees. notre dame. the centre pompidou. the gardens of the louvre and luxembourg. moulin rouge. cafe de 2 moulins. palais de tokyo. european football. the eiffel tour at night. pete doherty?

we spent the last 5 days of our trip in the 'city of lights' and it couldnt have been a better way to end our time in europe. for the entire trip, when asked what our favorite city was, we would naturally respond: 'berlin.' however, paris changed all that after the first 5 minutes. first of all, the people are extremely pleasant and we certainly didnt witness any anti-american sentiment of any kind. paris was beautiful in every respect...the culture, the language, the architecture, the art, the pastries. the city is absolutely huge but you can see the eiffel tour from anywhere you're at and any picture we had ever seen of the eiffel tour did no justice when we stood in front of it....whether we were having picnic lunches underneath it during the day or a bottle of rose' while it was glowing at night. every hour after 9pm, the tour sparkles with thousands of white lights that flash for ten incredible minutes. during the days, there was never a shortage of famous sights to see and even after 5 days we felt we had just started to scratch the surface. we had cappucino's at the wonderful cafe where amelie was filmed and walked over to moulin rouge. shopped on champ de elysees, the legendary street that ends with the arc de triomphe. spent way too many hours at the centre pompidou and palais de tokyo museums. walked through the charming gardens of the palais de luxembourg and the louvre. became obsessed with european football....go france in the 2008 euros!!! canceled our last night in a hostel to save money we didnt have and spent the night outside the train station, freezing and grumpy, only to look up at 3am to a crowd of teenage girls, who looked more like vultures with cameras. miah realized that they were hovering over pete doherty (i.e. baby shambles/ex singer of the libertines/ex boyfriend of kate moss during last summer's cocaine phase)...and then he took out our camera and joined them.

there really isnt a proper way to summarize our time in europe, because we have seen and learned so much, it would truly be impossible. but one of the things we noticed and appreciated was how most europeans aren't constrained by rigid standards that we sometimes see here in america. everyone takes siestas. grocery clerks have stools to sit on at the check out counter. young people who graduate from university travel the world for a year or two before even thinking about jumping into the work force. waiters take their smoke breaks in the front of the restaurant and not behind it. grown men sing with wild abandon for their favorite teams on the subways. old people are out at the cafe's till 1 in the morning. people just aren't afraid to be themselves no matter whose watching and thats something both of us want to take home with us.

switzerland

so we left kevin and jill in italy and took a train to lausanne switzerland for one reason and one reason only...saul williams!! we got there in the late afternoon not expecting too much of the town and were pleasantly surprised once again. its super clean, beautiful, and full of hip kids with good fashion. we checked into our hotel, changed, and walked to the venue Le Docks. we became 14 again with butterflies in our stomach, getting there way before anyone else and waiting at the front of the stage with huge smiles on our faces...so no one could take our spot, of course. unfortunately there was a terrible french jazz/hip-hop band who played for over an hour, which just shouldnt be done as an opener. but then saul came out in full costume and bowie-esque make up and killed it. it was just as good as phx and for those of you who had to listen to us rave about that show, you will know that it means it was one of the best shows we've ever seen and it also happened to be in switzerland!

the next day we got on another train and headed to zurich for one reason and one reason only...the bruno bischofberger gallery!! which houses jean-michel basquiat and julian schnabel, two of our very favorite artists and both of whom we've never seen in person. it was incredible standing in front of such powerful pieces of art that hold so much meaning to us. the lady who ran the gallery was super nice and even gave us a free poster from the current show.

after that we met back up with kevin and jill and traveled to interlaken, which is between two gorgeous lakes. we spent the next day hiking thru trees and by streams to different waterfalls. switzerland is a beautiful country. there is snow on the top of the alps and you are encouraged to drink tap water straight from different water fountains they have everywhere.

cinque terre, italy

we met up with kevin and jill where were staying in riomaggiore (one of the 5 towns on the italian riviera known as cinque terre). it was super nice to be able to have conversations with friends that went deeper than.."so what places have you been to already?" or "where are you going after this?" the coast here is something similar to maui or malibu only add the quaint old towns and italians. the water is bright blue and not too cold, so we all kicked it at the beach for kevo´s birthday and threw a frisbee around in the water. thanks to becky´s incredible knack for finding the hot spots anywhere she goes and then being kind enough to tell us about it, we went to an amazing bar with stone walls, great music, tapas, and the nicest owners.

nice

so we got into nice in the evening and checked into our hostel. the next morning we woke up to one of our roommates saying, "yesterday we went to cannes for the film festival and saw michelle williams...and that one guy, who one the oscar last year...what was his name? phillip seymour something? " first of all, we didnt know that cannes film festival was going on right now but jeremiah and i layed in our separate bunks (not knowing if the other one was awake yet) both equally as jealous as we were angry that someone saw our favorite actor and didnt even know who he was!!! you can guess what we decided to do that day..hop on the next train over to cannes and get in on the action. and would you believe with all the celebrities that were there we didnt see even one. but we still had a great time and got to see a group of french actors in one of the films get announced and walk up the red carpet (we later read that the film they were in won an award..its called "entre le murs.") we ended the day sitting on the beach in cannes eating paninis.

the next day, back in nice, we had planned to go to the beach but it was raining so we went to the contemporary art museum of nice. it was incredible and had pieces from some of jeremiahs favorite artists. he was a kid in a candy shop! it was four stories high and there was even stuff on the roof that you could walk around and look at. it was the best way we could have utilized a rainy day.

venice

just in case any one is wondering, the only train out of ljubljana going to venice leaves at 3:00 am. and don't forget the train station closes at 10pm. this then left us with a lot of options. so we braved the cold slovenian night and waited for our train to come and when it finally did, of course it was packed and so of course we didn't get very much sleep. in any case, we arrived at 8 greeted by the waterways of venice, ready to tackle the day....and by tackle i mean take a 5 hour nap. the next two days were great and they both pretty much went exactly like this: wake up, drink strong italian latte machiattos, meander through narrow passages, fight off vendors, buy from vendors, take photos of gondolas on the water, eat way to much pasta, become real sluggish, call it a day.

slovenia (ljubljana then bled)

ljubljana was a decent spot. it had a river running thru it and kind of reminded us of scottsdale.

pros: clean.nice.safe.
cons: not much to do. ultra caucasian. a bit uppity.

also, on one of the days we were there, there were about 500 high schoolers for some nokia sponsored event with bright orange shirts and referee whistles walking around blowing them as loud as they could...ALL afternoon! yeah we were over that real quick. but bled on the other hand, was super peaceful and incredibly gorgeous. lake bled is the center of the town, with crystal clear water and an island in the middle which had a small church on it. there was also a family of swans who cruise around on it. the lake is surrounded by huge trees, a castle on one side, and you can walk around the entire lake in about 2 hours...which is what we did the first afternoon we were there. we were lucky that we did because the next day ( our only other day there) it poured non-stop, so we just recharged and watched mystic river...and yes, of course nole, we thought of you.

Budapest (boo-da-pesht)

so budapest was a super nice surprise. before we got there we really had nothing special planned for the 2 1/2 days we were gonna be there but after the first 5 minutes of talking to the girl who ran our hostel, we didnt know how we were gonna fit it all in. we were pretty tired from traveling all day, so we made a quick run around the city to scope things out and were gonna call it a night but not before we joyfully discovered Arriba Taqueria! (a.k.a. the best chipotle rip-off you could imagine as well as the first mexican food joint weve been able to find....and lets just say that was our only taste of hungarian food for the entire stay). we then tried to get some sleep but were suddenly awakened by one of our slightly inebriated roommates who thought his bed was a urinal. thank God he was across the room and facing the other way. we got a good laugh out of it and the staff felt so bad the next day they did our laundry for free, which was such a bonus. the whole city of budapest is built on top of natural hot springs, so we decided to take full advantage of it and hit up their turkish baths. it was definitely a little bit of heaven for two kids who have walked more in these last 2 weeks than in all of last year combined. that night, some of our local hostel friends took us to a secret rooftop bar that overlooked the city. it had a great atmosphere and they played amazing music...its pretty much one of those places we would all go to regularly if we all lived in budapest. our last day we got up early and went to a big local flea market full rare antiques and all those cool things you always wanted to pawn off a central european. shells managed to behave herself somewhat but thats probably cause she didnt want to lug anything huge and awkward around for 3 more weeks. that afternoon we hiked to a beautiful old church on the buda side of town and then fell into the kitschy tourist traps set nearby. that night we just chilled out, did some reading and finished it off with some outstanding baklava.