Since this is the last post and Andrée has graduated there are feelings of sadness and happiness.  I feel that these 2 songs are appropriate:

Sad Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdKqMJ0O88I&feature=related
Happy Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeTgx_pj6m8

Amsterdam was an extremely fun city, when we arrived we hopped on a street car and made our way to our hotel.  The hotel was located on a side road right in the entertainment district.   The beds were extremely comfy (unlike our foam beds in Reims) and the service was good. They even had a chess board in the lobby!  Woohoo!  That was not the highlight though.

The next morning we spent some time looking around and then met up with Andree’s friend, Jasmine.  She’s going to school in Amsterdam so she gave us the “grand tour”.  Right away, she took us to the red light district and pointed out how there aren’t that many girls in the afternoon, but she said she knew where there was going to be some.  We followed her into an alley off the main strip and she told us this was the “discount bin”.  They were bigger girls if you know what I mean.

That night we met up with some of our Swedish friends, Maggie and Axel.  We ended up going out for an Indonesian supper with them.  Supper was amazing, it was without a doubt the best meal we’ve had since being in Europe.

The next day we went to visit the Anne Frank house – or should i say Anne Frank huis?

To be continued…

Later on that night we went to an Indonesian restaurant with our friends Maggie and Axel.  Andrée had tried to pay with her credit card and the machine said the same thing, “Not Accepted”.  By this point Andrée was terribly worried and tried desperately to put on her “Sherlock Holmes hat” to start investigating, since it was late at night we decided it was best to not put “hat” on until the next day.

We made our way to a tourism booth the next day to get tickets to the Heineken Tour.  While we were at the tourism booth we noticed they had payphones.  Andrée had her list of phone numbers written down and was eager to crack the case of “The Compromised Credit Cards”.  Andrée ended up having to purchase a 10 euro phone card to make the collect call to North America – by this point, she was not impressed.   Andrée got a hold of a representative for CIBC after a long stage of trial-and-error-dialing.  The man asked her if she purchased gas in the United States recently.  A shock rose to her face as she stared blankly into nothingness, her heart skipped a beat as she spoke softly and replied “uhhmmm… no I’m in France”.  The representative quickly canceled her Visa account and suggested that she contact Visa for any further emergency funds and/or card.

Now this had me a little bit worried, I decided to go online to check my Visa transactions and sure enough, someone had purchased something from a Wal-Mart in Arizona – it was probably someone from www.peopleofwalmart.com.  I phoned up Visa right away and the lady asked “So you want to cancel your card?” and I replied with “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when someone steals it?  I mean, I can’t use it anyways cause it’s on hold.”, she said “Well, yes most of the time we cancel them”.  I was shocked and blurted “Yes! I want you to cancel my card!” DERRRR.  So here we are, back in Reims without any credit cards.  Thank god we can still take out money with our debit cards.

This wasn’t our entire Amsterdam trip, we had an amazing time.  We will write a full post about it soon!

We’re off to Amsterdam today. Should be an eventful trip! I have a friend who has been studying there for the last three months who will show us around and a few friends from Reims are coming with us to Amsterdam too. It’ll be a packed four-day vacation – here’s what our ‘to-do’ list consists of:

• Red Light District Tour
• Heineken Tour
• Anne Frank House
• Van Gogh Museum
• Sex Museum
• Coffee House
• Cannabis Cup + Concerts
• Shopping

I just finished my International Business Law course and now I have only two weeks left of classes before I am officially a graduate! Can’t wait to be done my undergrad. Jordan’s been busy working on contracts during the days.

On Friday night we went to a Russian supper and wow, it was tasty. We had borscht, some tomatoes topped with cheese and garlic, smoked fish, and something that tasted like potato salad but it also had capers, carrots, peas, and other vegetables. They told us that before each dish, we had to toast with a shot of vodka. Vodka and I aren’t friends, but I had to try it a few times to not insult the Russians. They said that it was a really good accompaniment for borscht. Jordan tried it and said it was really good. Who knew! Well…the Russians did, of course. Anyways, it was fun and the Canadians in Reims are talking about returning the favour by cooking a Canadian brunch, including eggs, bacon, fruit salad. But since that might not be uniquely Canadian, we’re including pancakes with maple syrup. Thankfully, the christmas market in happening right now in Reims and there are some Canadian log cabins set-up that sell REAL Canadian Maple Syrup. I heard the price is steep, but it will be worth every penny for this brunch.

Well, we’re off to the Netherlands. Tata for now!

I’m writing this post on the train on the way to Toulouse. We’ve been in Bordeaux for the last two days and once again, we wish we had more time to visit. The weather wasn’t ideal for touring around the city – lots of rain and around 7 degrees but we had our umbrellas and made our way around town. Apparently, 10 days ago it was 25 degrees and sunny in Bordeaux. Most people recognized our Canadian accent and said we must be used to this ‘cold’ weather. Cold? It’s above zero! A woman we talked to in a market in Paris said the same thing, but it was clear she didn’t realize how cold it could really be in Canada. When we told her about our -30 winters, she looked confused and asked ‘but how do people get around to run errands and go to the market in that kind of weather?’ I think she’d have trouble in Canada.

Where was I…Oh yes. In Bordeaux, we spent most our time in the downtown area. Like many cities in France, the downtown was a web of narrow winding streets with so many unique food, clothing and wine shops. I love these streets so much because just when you think you saw all there was to see, you look to your right and there’s another neat place to check out. Apart from shopping, we checked out a concert our first night in town. Coeur de Pirate (Béatrice Martin) is a musician from Montréal who has become quite popular in France. All her songs are in French and she’s really a great artist. So when Jordan found out at 6pm that she was playing in Bordeaux that very night at 9pm, we decided we HAD to go. Here’s the pickle: the concert was sold out. Jordan, however, saw this as a challenge. So at 7pm we hopped on a Tram and were on our way hoping there would be scalpers. We walked around a bit and didn’t see or hear anyone selling their tickets. I got in line anyways so that if we did get tickets, we’d be close to the stage. Meanwhile, Jordan went up and down the big line asking….wait, I should say screaming: ‘Est-ce que quelqu’un vend leur billet?’ (Translation: Is anyone selling their ticket?). A few people didn’t really understand him said “Quoi?” but eventually someone said ‘Yes’. Too bad it was just one ticket. Now we were in line with one ticket, wondering if we should try to sell it or keep asking for another ticket. Every 10 minutes Jordan went back down the line and he’d hear people saying, “oh, il retourne encore” (Translation: “Oh, here he comes again”). Hahah it was too funny to see. Anyways, I’m glad to report that Jordan’s efforts paid off. Just as we were about to enter the building with only one ticket in hand, the guy behind us said he had an extra one and in we went.

The opener was a girl from Paris who sounded a bit ‘blues-y’ and she was really good. Then at 10pm, Coeur de Pirate took the stage! After her first song, she started talking and her voice sounded awful. Turns out she had strep throat but didn’t want to cancel the show. What a trooper. So instead, she asked for the crowd’s help to sing the songs. Raspy voice aside, she was great. But about six songs in, things started to get weird. A woman passed out and was carried out. Then, about 10 minutes later, the fire department interrupted the show and asked anyone felt sick because three girls had just fallen ill. Nobody said anything, so the show went on. But then, another 10 minutes later, a guy in the audience interrupts the show again saying another girl had just passed out beside him. Jordan and I decided that was it: we needed to leave. Something weird was going on there because it wasn’t that hot in the building and the girls who passed out came from around the concert hall. When we made our way out, the lounge just outside the hall was full of girls looking sick and one was convulsing. Very, very weird. We checked the news the next day and didn’t find a mention of it so whatever was going on that night will remain a mystery. That aside, the show was great and we’re glad we went.

Next stop: Toulouse!

It was without a doubt, one of our most favorite places we’ve been!  We took a flight with British Airways to get to London and it was quick and smooth, only about 45 minutes in the air before we started our descent.  We touched down on British soil at around 9 PM and started to make our way to customs and the border patrol.  Andree went to one booth and I went to the other.  I was taken off guard by how many questions he asked me, it went a little something like this:

Officer: Why are you here?
Me: Just a small vacation.
Officer: But you’re coming from France?
Me: Yes, I’m living there until mid December.
Officer: What are you doing in France?
Me: I’m living with my girlfriend while she’s studying at school there.
Officer: Do you have proof that you’re leaving back to Canada.
Me: Not on me, no.
Officer: Where is your girlfriend?
Me: Uhmm… that booth over there.
Officer: OK, you should really stick together when coming through.
Me: Oh, sorry.
Officer: Does she have a Visa?
Me: Yes.
Officer: So where’s your Visa?
Me: I was told I didn’t have to get one by the lady at the Consulate of France in Toronto, since I’m allowed to stay in France for 3 months.
Officer: But you’re staying longer, you got here Sept 1 and you’re leaving Dec 14.
Me: Yes but I will be visiting other countries like Germany, Italy etc. As long as I don’t stay in the country of France for 3 months she said I’m fine.
Officer: It seems kind of silly to me that she has a Visa and you don’t.
Officer: What I’m worried about is that there is no proof that you’ve left the country, because Germany and the other Schengen countries don’t stamp passports. I’m more concerned about you when you have to go back to France.
Me: Right, I found that out when I got here. I was misinformed.
Officer: Why would you want to go back to Canada, with the recession and everything.
Me: Oh, Saskatchewan is actually booming in Canada, I don’t expect I would have a problem finding a job.
Officer: Ok, go ahead.

Phew, I think I was on the verge of some forehead sweat.  London absolutely drilled me with questions while going back to France it was like it was when we first came, they look at me, stamp my passport and you’re through.

We took a London express train that got us to the tube station (the underground train).  We transferred and made our way to the K+K Hotel.  We got to the hotel and wow – it was beautiful.  For $275/night (CAD) we sort-of expected beauty, and Champagne fountains.  There were no Champagne fountains but they did serve it as part of the breakfast the next morning!  Sorry… “Sparking wine”.  When we saw the breakfast we knew we were going to have to pace ourselves – 1 plate at a time.  We also had a nice view of the hotels courtyard from the breakfast table.

After breakfast we inquired about our free bus tour that came with the hotel package we bought.  We then made our way down to Oxford Circus – it absolutely was a circus.  We made our way through a giant park to where we needed to catch the bus.  We boarded the lovely double decker and made our way around London.  We sat at the top of the bus where there was an open roof so we got a nice breeze as we listened to our audio tour guide.  Half way through the bus tour we decided to jump off the bus and continue with a boat tour (also included by K+K Hotel).  The boat tour was ok, the tour guide had such a thick accent that it was hard to hear what he was talking about.  The British are naturally hilarious so we just decided to laugh whenever everyone else laughed – it all worked out.

On our boat tour the tour guide pointed out a large ship called the HMS Belfast.  Being the guy I am, I was immediately taken with the turrets and other fire power that the vessel contained – it was a beast.  After we got off the boat, we decided to cross the Tower Bridge and make our way over to the “all-that-is-man” ship.  Of course we took the audio tour, nothing beats it!  The ship was full of history and creepy wax statues.

Now it’s time to head back to our hotel for the most important part of our trip… Tea time!  Like the free tours, tea time came with our hotel package.  Well hunky-dory, we’re so english – tea and scones! They were by far the best scones we’ve ever had.  Unfortunately we only got one free tea time pass.

Later that night we met up with our friends James and Kate.  For supper, they took us to a place called “My Old Dutch Pancake House”. They served gigantic crepes.  You could either order a “sweet” crepe or a “savory” one.  The sweet crepes were basically crepes with sugar, chocolate, bananas etc. And a savory one would be one with meat and/or veggies.

We heard that almost all the museums in London are free, so the next day we decided to check out the War Museum.  This was really cool but it was littered with children and you couldn’t hear anything but the sound of 10 year-olds talking and whining – not to mention them climbing on all of the artifacts, oh kiddies.  We spent most of our time in the Holocaust museum on the 3rd floor, not too many kiddies there! We learnt a lot about the Holocaust from our trip to Dachau in Germany and then coming to see the museum here in London.  Later on that evening James got us tickets to a show.  This wasn’t just ANY type of show, this was a play!  The play was called “An Inspector Calls”.  It was riveting and had us on the edge of our seat the whole time – you couldn’t be too far on the edge of your seat though cause you’d fall off the balcony into the crowd below.

All in all, London is a place we both want to go back to.

On another note, we’ve posted all our pictures from Venice, London and more from Reims.  Sorry Venice, you don’t deserve a blog post.

On Saturday we went out for supper with a group of people to an Indian restaurant on the tourist strip, it was delicious!  After that we went to our friends, Axel and Magies’ place.  They live really close the Champagne Pommery so it made it easy to get home.

There are a lot of people getting sick right now – hopefully a non-swiny sort of sick if you know what I mean.  Andrée is in bed right now trying to fight a cold while I had a mini cold last week.  Just gotta stay hydrated and well rested!  I guess we should probably get bookin’ our trip for Barcelona since we’re planning on going there in a few weeks.

Heavens me, where do I begin? Oh ja! BEEEEER!  Munich was definitely an unforgettable trip.  We arrived at the Munich train station at about 9 PM.   As soon as we got off the train, we were greeted by a parade of heavy drinkers in their Lederhosen, stumbling and swaying back and forth – we knew we were in the right place!  The metro station was also littered with drunks.  It was not abnormal to see a man on a bench trying to keep his eyes open while his head bobs up and down.  Just keep your distance if you know what I mean.

We quickly figured out how to get a metro ticket and made our way to the K+K Hotel for our first night.  Since we don’t have a printer I had taken a few screenshot of the map of where the hotel was.  I thought I had the right place… oops.  We ended up wandering in the dark in the opposite direction for about 45 minutes until we realized that the hotel was no where to be found.  We quickly made our way back to the metro station that we got off at and we saw the K+K Hotel on the other side of street.  Phew!  The hotel was comfortable and they even had wireless internet!… Oh sorry, there was fine print… The wireless internet was only available in the lobby. BAH!  It ended up being ok though cause we had wired internet in our room – who knows what we would have done had we not been able to check Facebook status’ that night!

We woke up the next morning and had a nice 36 Euro ($55 Canadian) breakfast – you can imagine that we did not leave any room in our stomachs if we were paying that much for breakfast. We checked out and went to find our other next hotel (yes we did a bit of hotel hopping).  We took the metro and within 20 minutes we were at our metro stop for the hotel.  Just like the first hotel search went, I got us into the same little mess.  Within the first 10 minutes we figured we weren’t on the right track, so I took out my baby (the laptop) and looked at the directions – yep, wrong way!  My bad.  Our hotel was ridiculously hard to find even after we found the parking lot for it, how embarrassing.  We checked in and all was well, time to head to Oktoberfest!

We took the metro and arrived to Oktoberfest at around 12 noon.  It’s as if we arrived at a party that started weeks ago… well, technically it did.  Oktoberfest from a distance looked like what we would call an “Exhibition”.  It had rides, food and beer!  For folks who attended the mighty Craven Country Jamboree, Oktoberfest makes Craven look like a child’s birthday party.  We made our way to a beer tent and quickly got in.  We went to look for a place to sit and of course all the benches were full.  We hovered around until we saw a couple get up – time to move in.  We sat down and the people we were sitting with were all German and didn’t speak a word of English – it’s ok though, because everyone speaks the universal language of “Smile and Drink”.  When you get through your first liter of beer, you normally have to go pee.  We got in line for the bathroom and miraculously, the guys line was WAY longer than the girls.

I met a guy from Australia while we were in line for the bathroom, he invited us to come join him and his mates at his table.  We joined them and had a few rounds.  We also met a couple from Nelson, BC who were living in Munich.  Part way through the beer fest we noticed that there was a lot of commotion by the bathroom.  We looked and saw a middle aged lady trying to sneak out 2 full beer mugs.  She was quickly grabbed by security – the funny thing is, she wrestled with him as he tried to stop her and pry the mugs out of her hand.  Beer was splashing everywhere!  After they took the beer from her her and the security guard duked it out in a good ol’ fashion mercy fight.  The video is below.

After drinks with our Aussi friends we decided to bid them farewell.  We walked around for a bit and I eventually convinced Andrée to go on this giant swing ride.  It probably wasn’t the best idea when you’ve already had 3 liters of beer.  We both felt a little dizzy and sick after it.

Around supper time we headed back to our hotel where we hung out in the lobby and had some beers with some friendly Germans.  One of them could speak a little bit of English and the other one couldn’t speak a word of it.  His friend had to translate almost every few sentences for him.  It made us wish that we could speak German and I’m sure he wished he spoke English.

The next day was a little more somber, quite the opposite of the night before.  We woke up early to go on a tour of the Dachau concentration camp.   It was a 5 hour tour and our tour guide gave us quite an interesting history lesson followed by an emotional walk through of the buildings and court yards where such horrible things took place.  We all know know the just of what happened in concentration camps, people were starved and tortured.  But what most don’t know are the ways the prisoners were tortured and the average day of a prisoner.  Our tour guide described incredibly graphic scenarios that made your hairs stand on end.  Overall, an incredibly insightful tour and I highly recommend it.

We also went to Venice, Italy right after Munich so maybe when my fingers are less tired I’ll write a post on that.

Let me start off by saying, Nice is beautiful – as you can see by the picture above.  We boarded a train in Reims at about 3 PM and we didn’t arrived to Nice until about 11 PM at night on September 24th.

We awoke the next morning bushy tailed and bright eyed – it was nice in Nice (ok I will have to stop myself from over-using that pun).  We thought “hey, it’s really nice outside… and there’s a beach on the south of France!”, so we did what any tourist would do on a beautiful day, head down to the beach!  Although the beaches were a little crowded it didn’t stop us from soaking up the sun.  As we were basking we couldn’t help but over hear some German and some more English – phew, we’re not alone!  In fact, some of these German guys were buying beer from this beach boy and for some reason they had a Coke in there, so they pointed at us and with a friendly smile asked if we wanted it.  Wooohoo!  We would have preferred a beer though

After some walking around and taking in some southern France air, we decided to go for a little hike up Colline du Château – and what a hike it was.  I had to carry Andree on my back for the last 100 set of stairs while I jogged in agony without looking back, my muscles bulging and sweat pouring down my face… Ok that’s not entirely true, it wasn’t too treacherous and the view from the top was gorgeous!  We headed back down and went to grab some drinks, we found a nice bar right off of the main street.  Here is a view from Google Streets that shows you the bar.  The empty table on the left is where we sat!  We also took this picture of the Tram going by while we were sitting down.

Next up, Monaco!  We asked people if we should check out Monaco and without hesitation, they said “Yes!” so the next day we decided to hop on the train and go to the rich and glamorous city of Monaco.  The train ride was about a half hour to get from Nice to Monaco.  We got to Monaco and were in shock and awe with the landscape.  Our train goes through the hills and you actually have to walk down the hill to get to the city.  There was a Yacht show going on while we got there so you can imagine all the rich folks that were hanging around there,  it was a very exclusive yacht show.

We asked a lady at the yacht show booth for directions to the beach and she gladly pointed us in the right direction.   We went through some busy tunnels but eventually made it to the beach.  Needless to say, men in speedos and topless women in Europe is an accurate stereotype (hint: don’t stare, it just makes for awkwardness between the two of you).  Andreé and I played in the water, then went back to sun dry, then went back in the water, then went back to sun dry, then went back….  you get the idea.  After the beach we walked around a bit and ended up running into the ever-so famous Monte Carlo Casino.  You can bet we didn’t see any Ford pickup trucks or Chevrolet Cavaliers there!  Every car in that parking lot was either a Mercedes, BMW, Porsche or Bentley.   Andreé and I were pretty intimidated by it, especially since we were in front of it in our bathing suits – a bathing suit is still a suit though, right?

We were told that Monaco had Europe’s biggest aquarium, so why not check it out?  We hiked up yet another hill to get there but this time we had had previous experience!  We got to the top and i felt like a little kid again, I was going to see Sharks! Daaaaa naaaaaaa.  Daaaa naaaaaa. Daa naa daa naa daa naaa (Jaws shark theme).   We got our ice cream before entering the aquarium (as any kid would do) and walked around a bit, saw some little fishies, saw some ugly sea serpents and some tiny sharks.  We made our way through the aquarium in about 10 minutes and then made our way back upstairs.  I asked one of the workers if they had Sharks here, he said yes and that we have to go two floors down.  We just came from two floors down but I guess we must have missed them.  We had seen on a map inside the aquarium that said a “Shark Lagoon” was 2 floors down and we both knew we had already been there.  We decided to check it out again and sure enough, there were sharks but they were baby Sharks!  Awwwwww…  It was a good trip but the aquarium is just basically little fish, nothing spectacular.  Maybe we’ll come back in a few years when they have an Octopus, some Dolphins and a Great White Shark.

All in all,  Nice was our favorite and we would definitely go back!

Next up,  Munich for Oktoberfest!  Au revoir!

In other news, this morning I got my schedule for my upcoming class, ‘Strategic Marketing’. For the next two weeks, I have classes 9am-4pm Monday to Wednesday and 9am-noon Thursdays and Fridays.

I mean, I heard the classes were easy here, but I never expected this! First thing Jordan and I did when we saw this is head to the train station to book an earlier train to Oktoberfest. We’re now going to be in Munich from Oct.2nd-6th. We can’t wait!

We’ve also decided to go to Venice, Italy to recuperate after Munich. The hotel we booked through Hotwire for Venice is called Hotel Riviera Venice Italy. It looks pretty nice! We just hope the weather is nice in October.

Anyhoo, those are the upcoming adventures, but for now, I have to keep reminding myself that I came here for school…which starts Thursday with two Welcome Days. Jordan’s also decided to do some studying of his own over the next two weeks. He plans to learn German. Wish him luck!