Amsterdam!

On our second day in Amsterdam we decided to go on a walking tour of the city. We left the hostel a bit earlier than we needed to get to the tour on time so that we could wander around the streets for a bit. We were headed towards the city centre when we happened to come across a market! Now I promise this market was an accidental find, and not me being market crazy again. I was super happy to find it though. This market was more like Camden markets had been, with stalls selling jewellery, clothes and homemade things. We wandered around for a little while, weaving in and out of stalls and before we knew it, it was time to head to the tour! I got a pretty handbag type thing from one of the stalls to keep my camera in! I love it! 

As per usual the walking tour was very interesting and we learnt a lot! We saw loads of the city, this was the longest walking tour we have done (3 hours)! And it actually ended up being longer than that because our guide liked to go on about pointless things for a little too long at each stop. We thought it was a little too long, and weren't that impressed with our guide, but we enjoyed the tour nonetheless! From there we wandered around the streets more, discovering quirky little alleyways and some of the strangest shops. I think that Amsterdam is one of my favourite places that we have been to so far. It has such an amazing, vibrant atmosphere. It's so alive with people and colours and smells! And it's just so different to any other place I have ever been, there are so many new things to see and learn about and experience. I have really enjoyed my time here. 

Anyway, once we were done exploring we headed back to the hostel for a quick dinner and made our way to the red light district. We had decided to go to the prostitution museum as we had a discount coupon, and the guide from the bus had said it was an interesting museum. And it was really interesting! We learnt a lot about the prostitution trade in Amsterdam. It is definitely worth a visit if in Amsterdam. 

You learn about the girls of the red light district and what it's like to work there. And you get the be in the window yourself as they have set up a room that is the same as one of the real rooms behind the windows, with a window that you can stand in and look down onto the street from. We found out that to be a girl working in the red light district you need to register with the council, as they see it as a real job that gets taxed. You get to see how the girls are looked after, which is a part of the museum I really liked. They get food and drinks from local cafés and restaurants and their rooms are cleaned everyday. I think it's great the council and the community look after the girls so well. There was a confessions board at the end of the museum which was absolutely hilarious! We spent a good 15 minutes reading all of the sexual confessions people had written. 

After the museum we tried a Dutch waffle from a shop nearby. It was so delicious! 

We sat next to the canal, in the middle of the red light district, and ate our waffle and watched all sorts of people go by. Amsterdam is truly beautiful by night. 

It had gotten quite late so after we had finished, we headed back to the hostel. 

The next day we went to the torture museum. It took us ages to find it, as it's in a strange place and there was a very misleading sign pointing in the wrong direction. Once we got there and paid the entrance fee, we were so disappointed. The museum was pathetic. I love learning about medieval times and torture and all that, so I was really upset! It was a dimly lit, tiny museum that took us all of 20 minutes to go through, and that's with reading every piece of information! The information was very little and looked like it had just been copied and pasted from Wikipedia or something! It didn't really explain the devices it was showing. There was no music or anything to enhance to experience. It was just really disappointing. 

The only good thing about it was that it was opposite the tulip markets! We wandered through the tulip markets looking at the beautiful colours and flowers. There were a bunch of cheese shops scattered throughout the markets so we got to try all sorts of different cheeses! They were amazing! The best cheese I have ever eaten! We both wished we could have got some, but as we are travelling we just can't keep it. We had a quick lunch and explored more of the streets and shops. 

At around 4:30 we headed over to the Anne Frank house! 

It was the one thing I really wanted to do whilst in Amsterdam, so I was so excited! We had been told that the queue to get in was always ridiculously long (like 2 hours) so we came prepared to wait a while. However, we were super lucky and only had to wait roughly 45 minutes! It was great! I loved the Anne Frank house and museum. It was a really moving experience. I had read Anne's diary a few years ago and really enjoyed it, so it was an incredible thing to actually get to see and experience the hiding place that I had read about. It made her story come to life. I think Anne Frank was such an inspiring young girl. She really showed the world the power of words. We spent a really long time in the house and museum, there was so much to see and read about. I would definitely recommend going to see it if you ever get the opportunity. 

Today we decided that we needed pancakes. There are a bunch of coupons at our hostel for resturants and what not so we grabbed the ones for two pancake places and went in search of the best one. We weren't taken by the first place we went to, so we went to look for the other one to see if it was any better. It was so much better. Our waitress told us that they served over 100 pancakes! Needless to say it was incredibly hard to make a decision about what we wanted to get. We ordered our pancakes, and when they came out we could not believe our eyes! The waitress actually laughed at us we were gawking at these pancakes so much. They were absolutely massive! The biggest pancakes I have ever seen!! And they were super delicious. 

Sadly today is our last day in Amsterdam, we leave early tomorrow morning for Berlin. As I mentioned before, I have really loved Amsterdam and am so glad that we got the opportunity to experience it! 

Marchés Bastille & d' Aligre. Amsterdam.

Our last full day in Paris was a Sunday, so a lot of the big markets were open. We got up bright and early, and left the hostel at 8:40am ready to go to the Marché Bastille. Once we got to the place where the market was being held, our first order of business was to find a takeaway coffee. Let me tell you that Paris does not do take away coffee. Or if they do it's ridiculously expensive and pretty crap anyway. We ended up having to resort to Starbucks. Coffee in hand we began combing the markets, searching for hidden treasures. 

As always the markets blew me away. They were beautiful and colourful and full of life. There were so many food stalls, from seafood to baked goods to fresh produce. It all smelled so amazing! There were also tons of little souviner stalls and other gimmicky things. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great, so we did get a little rained on. However the rain did not deter the people of the market, and the vibe of the place was still just as awesome. That day (June 21) was world music day, so there were quite a few people playing instruments throughout the market, which added to the whole experience. I think I had a huge grin plastered on my face the entire time we were there. The markets make me so happy. I love the colours and the smells and the people and the sounds. 

I'm sorry for constantly going on and on about markets! I just love them so much! We spent about 2 hours weaving through these markets before moving into the next one.

The next market was the Marché d'Aligre. It was partly indoors, and partly on the streets. This market was mainly food, and flowers. There was a small flea market to one side of the food markets which we didn't really like. It was kind of just creepy people selling piles of junk. However the food markets were very impressive. By the time we were done looking around the weather really hadn't improved, so we headed back to the hostel. 

That night we were once again treated to an amazing Korean dinner. I'm not sure what it was called, but you had to take a piece of lettuce, some rice and a slice of pork and smear it with a sauce, fold it up and put the whole thing in your mouth. The Korean people staying at the hostel helped all of us who didn't know how to eat the meal, and found it really funny when we were trying to shove those whole lettuce leaf of food into our mouths. It was a really fun dinner of learning how to use chopsticks and how to properly eat Korean food. 

The next day we had to get up at 5:30am(!) to catch the metro to where the bus was picking us up to go to Amsterdam! Our means of transportation throughout Europe (country to country) is through a company called Busabout. With Busabout you can book many different travel options. For example you can book a certain amount of trips, or you can book a certain loop. We booked the North, West and South loop which means the bus basically takes us around the whole of Europe. We can get on and off the bus as many times as we want throughout our stay as long as we book our seat at least 24hrs in advance, and it comes to the stops every two days. It's a really convinient and fairly priced way to get around! Plus you get to meet a bunch of new people! 

So the bus left from our stop in Paris at 8am. Although it is not a tour bus, there is a guide on board to help you out with information on each stop. Our guide was really helpful! Throughout the trip we get a certain amount of stops to get off the coach and stretch our legs and pee and eat. Our first stop was at a place called Vimy Ridge. Some of you may know the name, but for those of you who don't, (I didn't, don't worry) Vimy Ridge is one of the places in France were WW1 was fought. It is an incredibly important place for Canadians, as it was the Canadian troops that helped take back Vimy Ridge. The terrain is completely destroyed. Whilst there is still trees and grass, it's like looking at the land of another planet. There are huge craters in the ground where bombs hit. It looks like waves of grass. 

There is no flat land. We were given the opportunity to walk through the trenches that were used during the war. 

There was also a visitors centre, so we could read about what went on there. It was a truly amazing and moving experience, and I am so grateful we got the opportunity to see it. The bus doesn't usually stop at such interesting sites, usually just gas stations. But they told us that since Vimy Ridge is on the way, they figured why not stop there. 

Our next stop was in Brugges, Belgium. This was for people who were getting off the bus there, and people who had been in Brugges and were now moving onto Amsterdam. Unfortunately we didn't get to stop there for too long, as we were running behind schedule. So we didn't get to see much of the town. 

I think it's so amazing that you can just drive through a whole country in one day. We just stopped in Belgium, like it was no big deal. Upon arriving in Amsterdam we had been in 3 countries in one day! It blows my mind! We got to Amsterdam at about 7pm. A bunch of people from the bus planned to meet up for dinner, a bit of a tour, and a sex show. Our hostel was about 30 minutes walk from where the bus dropped us off. A couple from the bus were staying at a hotel right near ours so we all walked together, which was nice. Once getting to the hostel and quickly getting changed, we met up with them again to go to dinner with the other busabout passengers. We ate at an Argentinian steakhouse, (no clue why there are so many Argentinian resturants in Amsterdam, but there were about 5 on this street alone) and it was really good! Harrison and I had ribs, and they were so delicious. A huge upgrade from soup! 

Once we were done with dinner, our guide from the bus took us on a quick tour of the red light district. It is a truly interesting place. There are these huge windows lining the streets, and behind them are half naked girls showing themselves off. We walked through an indoor semi circle type thing of girls in rooms, trying to flirt with boys and get them to come in. We walked past half a dozen sex shows and strip clubs, and the smell of pot in the streets is kind of overwhelming. After the tour we all went together to a place called Casso Rosso (I think) to see a sex show. The bus was selling discounted tickets, and the guide said that it was something you had to do in Amsterdam. So we decided to give it a go. It was interesting to say the least! It's set up in a theatre, with a bar and a stage (we got two free drinks with our tickets which was rad). Basically it's people on the stage having sex and girls dancing and performing and whatnot for a live audience. Some of the acts were really funny, and some were pretty cringe worthy. But it was an experience, something you can't do anywhere else in the world! 

Unfortunately today I woke up with a migraine, so I was pretty out of it for most of the day. The hostel we are staying at has pretty shocking wifi, so I probably won't be uploading photos until our next location. 

Montmartre

Our second day back in Paris, the weather was beautiful so we decided to go to Montmartre! We had heard a lot about it on the walking tour we did before, and it sounded like a place we would enjoy. We arrived at the metro, on a bustling street full of people, vendors and Cafés. We started heading towards the Sacre Coeur, which is a huge cathedral on a hill in the middle of Montmartre. We walked through a very busy street to get there filled with souviner shops, food stalls and all sorts of other shops. We walked into one of the chocolate shops on the street and were blown away to find these massive chocolate sculptures inside! There was chocolate Notre Dame and chocolate Eiffle Tower and so many more! It was amazing! So glad we went in there. 

We walked out and the Sacre Coeur was peeking through at the end of the street. When we got to the end of the street, we could finally see the cathedral in it's entirety. It was massive! And there were sooo many stairs to climb to get to the top. We began the trek. 

There were so many scam people there. I don't mind the guys on the road and at these tourist places that sell stuff and aren't pushy about it, I actually quite like looking at their stuff. It's the ones that won't leave you alone that really bug me. Especially these guys that will grab you by the arm and start braiding a bracelet on there, without asking. Then once they are done you're expected to pay for it! We watched one of these guys grab a little girl by the arm and pull her over to try and braid on a bracelet! Luckily her mum pulled her away, but the poor girl looked really scared. And there are these girls wandering around with 'petitions', that will stand right in front of you and follow you trying to get you to sign the things. I really feel like these people ruin some of the experience of seeing all these amazing things. 

Once we got to the top of the stairs, we were greeted with the most beautiful view of Paris! From the top of the hill you could see for miles and it was just wonderful! We went into the catherderal and it was really beautiful! There were so many people there though. And we were pretty shocked that there was a gift shop inside the church! I think that's pretty bad! But it was really beautiful, we walked around for a while looking at everything. It wasn't the best cathedral we have been into, but was still beautiful nonetheless. 

Once we were done with the cathedral we walked back down the stairs to look for something cold to drink, it was so hot!  We found a cafe and had an iced coffee. So far we weren't too impressed with Montmarte, as it seemed that it was only that one busy street and the cathedral. However after a quick look on the internet we decided to walk to artists square. We began the walk and were unhappy to see that it was back up another lot of steeper stairs! It was a rough climb. 

Once we made it into artists square, it all felt worth it. The atmosphere was amazing, there were so many people and so many artists selling their incredible art! 

There were painters sitting in the square set up with their canvases painting away! And artists who were drawing peoples portraits on the side of the road. I wish we could have had ours done! They were pretty expensive though, and we don't really have anywhere to carry them. They were so well done! 

We looked around the square for ages taking in all the art. I absolutely loved it, and was so glad that we had found it! Montmarte had definitely redeemed itself. 

From there we decided to try and walk to the Moulin Rouge building, as it wasn't that far away. We started getting further away from Montmarte, and further into an area that was really just scary. We never made it to Moulin Rouge, as we got lost and weren't comfortable in this area that we had ended up in. So we made our way back to the station and headed home. It had been a really long day, we only made it back around 6:30, so we were pretty exhausted! Dinner time came around and we were again served a delicious Korean meal! I think this one was even better than the first night! 

I can't believe how lucky we were to find this place. It's so nice! We are really enjoying it here. 

Today the weather wasn't great, and we weren't really feeling up to much so we had a lazy day and read and walked to the grocery store and just stayed in our neighbourhood. It was nice to relax. 😊

Limoges

Sadly it had come the time for us to leave  the little town of Gourdon. We were both pretty sad to be going, as we had really come to love the town in the short time we spent there. The next place we were off to was called Limoges. We had picked it because it was on the tran line, and we had time to spare before heading back to Paris, and our hosts had said that it was a nice town. We left at about 4pm, and arrived in a downpour! It was the hardest rain we have had since being here, and we had to walk through it, bags and all. So our first impression of Limoges wasn't the best. Thankfully the rain eased up long enough for us to go out and find something for dinner. The place we were staying at was literally just a room. There was no kitchen, not even a kettle or microwave that we could use. We were pretty worn out from travel and trekking through the rain to find the hostel, so we got pizza for dinner. It was cheap and easy. Our room was tiny, a bed, cupboard, small desk and a shower off to the side. But it had an awesome sky window! It was one of the first places that we had our own room (apart from staying with people) so that was nice too. 

Luckily, on our second day in Limoges the weather had cleared up, and the sun was shining once again! We headed out to the grocery store to buy a baguette and some ham and cheese for lunch, and then went to find the tourist office. The people there were super helpful, and gave us a map of the town with suggestions on what to do. The museums in the town were all closed that day, so we decided just to wander around and explore. We found a beautiful park to have lunch in. After eating we walked around the park, it was so much bigger than we had expected! And absolutely beautiful! It was so incredibly manicured, with beautiful hedges and flowers and fountains. 

We spent ages just wandering around and discovering new parts of the gardens. We walked along the river for a bit and started to head back. 

On our way back to the hostel, we came across a beautiful old cathedral! It was absolutely amazing! You were able to go inside, and it was breathtaking. 

It felt like we had stepped into the past. There were huge stained glass windows all along the sides of the buildings.

 

The ceilings were so high and the walls were covered in decorations. There was a beautiful, massive old organ on one of the levels. 

And they had beautiful choral music playing, which gave it a magical feel. It was so amazing, I'm so glad we stumbled across it! 

After the cathedral we walked more into the centre of town, or the shopping district on the map. It was really weird seeing these really new and modern shops placed in these old, historic buildings on cobbled streets. We spent a long time just wandering around looking at different shops and bakeries. We found a cute little cafe and shared an awesome Nutella muffin. 

We were lazy again that night, and ordered pizza for dinner. Can you believe I'm getting sick of pizza? 

On our third day in Limoges we decided to go to the Musee de La Resistance. It was a museum about the different resistance groups during WW2 in Limoges. It was really interesting! Luckily you could get an English audio guide, so we could actually understand what was written about everything. We managed to spend 2 hours in the museum without even realising it! Once we were done we went back to the park we had found the previous day and had a late lunch. 

Once we had eaten we went wandering again. We came across a really old section of the town with beautiful old buildings. We found a creperie too! And of course we had crepes. So good! 

For dinner that night, I refused to eat pizza. Yes, it was easy and yes, it was cheap, but two days of pizza is enough. Instead we went to the grocery store and got the ingredients for a tuna salad. We didn't have any plates or bowls at the hostel, so we got a container to use as a bowl. We had been eating our breakfast cereal out of mugs we stole from the shelf near reception. This place had nothing. But nonetheless, we got by and made a pretty delicious tuna salad. 

One thing (among many) I love about Europe is that it stays light outside for so long! It will be 10pm and only just starting to get dark. It's so beautiful. 

Today we left Limoges to travel back to Paris. Our train took just over 3 hours, and we arrived in Paris at 1:30. Our new hostel was about 40 minutes away from the station we ended up at, so we were on the metro for a while. When we got off at our final stop, we were greeted with more rain! The world just really seems to hate us walking to our hostels. We started the search for the hostel, and it seemed that as we followed the directions we were going further and further into an area that did not look too friendly. We got lost for a little while, but after a quick look on Google maps we seemed to have found the right way to go. We had hoped this would take us into a better area, but no we continued in the same direction. We found the hostel, and once again discovered that we were staying in another Korean lady's house! We keep stumbling upon these places by accident, but they have turned out to be our favourites, and this one is no different! Although it seems to be in a bad area, and is quite far out of Paris, the hospitality of the owner makes up for it. Not only do we get free breakfast, she also makes dinner for EVERYONE every night! It's really amazing! Tonight we had a massive Korean spread of all sorts of Korean foods. I don't even know what I was eating some of the time, but I know that it tasted awesome! 

I couldn't really get a good photo of the table, this is less than half! 

The hostel itself is nice too. Everything's clean and the rooms are nice. And the owner has a dog!! We are both really happy about the dog. It's so cute! 

There is also a grocery store nearby, but we will only be needing lunch so we don't have to worry about making dinners! I'm really glad I found this place, it has such a homely feeling to it! 

Gourdon

On our third day in Gourdon, we got up early and went to the local farmers markets. Sallie had to buy some food there so we tagged along. I really love going to markets. Especially food ones. There is just so much to see, and everything is so colourful. We really get ripped off back home, fruit and veg here is so much cheaper and so much nicer! Harrison and I tried some strange dried salami stuff that the Gourdon area is apparently well know for. I'm not too sure how I feel about it. It has a very strong taste.

Later in the day Sallie and Ian took us to a market in a place called Sarlat. The market was really amazing! It was absolutely huge and had all sorts of different stores. We were there for an hour and really only saw half of it. We walked around the markets and found an ice cream store and got some ice cream. Harrison tried violet flavoured ice cream, it was different. The French sell some weird things at their markets. Like duck livers and other strange meats that you just would never think of eating. The market was amongst the streets of the town, which is very similar to Gourdon. The town in itself was so beautiful, and the markets really made it come alive. You walked down the cobbled streets and passed beautiful old houses, turning into small alleyways and discovering a whole new part of the markets. The air is filled with all these amazing smells as people make and sell their food. There is music and people talking and vendors trying to sell you their things. It's so busy and full of life. It was really an amazing market, I loved it!

After the markets we went to this MASSIVE store (that I can't remember the name of) in search of something to replace our hard drive. The store sold everything from electronics, to food, to clothing. It was so huge. We managed to find a fairly cheap tablet with an SD card slot, so I will be able to upload pictures again! When we got home Sallie made an incredible lunch (as she does everyday, we are so lucky!). Apparently lunch here is a really big deal, they see it as their main meal of the day. In Gourdon the shops actually close from 12-2 so that the shop owners can go home for lunch. So our lunches are always amazing.

Today we had a late morning, which whilst travelling we get very few of. So it was really nice to lay in bed for a bit extra and not have to stress about being late for anything. Later in the afternoon we went to the caves that are just outside Gourdon - the Grottoes de Cougnac. You can go on tours of the caves so we had decided that would be a fun thing to do. Luckily there was lady on the tour who spoke both English and French, so she was able to translate what the guide was saying. The first cave we went into was a prehistoric cave that had cave paintings on the walls. It was possibly one of the most incredible things I have ever seen. The cave was so incredibly beautiful! I've never been into a cave where they actually let you walk around in the cave. I have been to the Jenolan Caves back home, but there you are kind of just restricted to the sidelines, on a path with a railing. You don't actually get to go into the cave properly. In this cave though, whilst there was a path, it wound through the middle of the cave and had no railing. Sometimes you had to duck to get through an entrance, or squeeze through a small crack. It was really cool! Once we were well into the cave, the guide showed us the cave paintings. They started off as just lines, finger prints and geometric shapes, and then progressed to paintings of mammoths and people and other animals. It was really amazing to see! Unfortunately in this cave you weren't allowed to take photos, so I can't show the paintings. But know that they were amazing. An unreal experience.

The next cave we went into was much bigger, and we were allowed to take photos! 

This one didn't have any cave paintings, but was just as beautiful. We started out in a really big area of the cave where the guide spoke about the stalactites and stalagmites and the history of the cave.

After that we were free to wander around. We went deeper into the cave, the space for us to walk getting smaller and smaller. After squeezing through the final gap we came out in another really big room of the cave. It was beautiful! The roof was covered thin stalactites and some of the walls were glittery, it was magical. 

We also saw a tiny bat! It was asleep, hanging off one of the stalactites. It was so cute!

We leave Gordon tomorrow which is kind of sad, I really love it here. It's such a beautiful little town.  

Paris and Gourdon

Our third day in Paris started pretty well. We had decided to walk around and find some of the famous markets that are all around the city. I was really excited, as I love markets. The first market we arrived at seemed to only have less than half of its stores open, which was disappointing. We looked around for a bit, but there wasn't all that much to see so we moved on. The next market we arrived at was just completely shut! I had checked on Google what days the markets were open, and it had said that they were open on Tuesdays. So I was (and still am) really confused and disappointed that they were closed. 

Our day had been a bit of a failure in the sense that we didn't really make it to any markets, but we had a good day nonetheless. Searching for the markets we were given the opportunity to explore more of Paris. I definitely think the best way to see a place is to just walk around it. You get to see so much you might not see by bus or car. We both loved walking around the streets, not really knowing where we were going, discovering new things. Near the end of the day we found a small crepe vendor on the side of the road and shared a crepe. I love crepes. I don't know what I am going to do without them when we leave! We decided to head home. We stopped in at the hostel to grab our books. We bought a bunch of cherries from the local fruit shop and headed to the park nearby to sit in the sun and read and eat cherries. It was a pretty great afternoon!

However, it started to go downhill from there. When we were walking back to the hostel at around 5:30pm, we noticed a big police van parked in the street of the hostel, with police wandering around the street. We thought this was a bit weird and wondered what had happened. When we got back to the hostel, no one was there. Not even the owner and after 5 she was always there. Even weirder her bedroom door was open, which it never was. We started to worry at this point. We thought something might have happened to her. Harrison wandered upstairs to grab his DS, only to discover it was no longer where he left it! By now we were both in a bit of a panic. Harrison's DS, my IPod and the hard drive were gone. We frantically searched the hostel, thinking maybe we had left them somewhere and just forgotten. No luck. We had no idea what to do! It was then that the owner returned back to the hostel in quite a panic. Three men had broken into the hostel, while she was inside. At first when she heard people she said she thought it was just one of the guests returning. However, she became suspicious when they were weirdly quiet. She came out of her room to see who it was, and was confronted by one of the theives coming out of the girls dorms. He threw what was in his hand at her and bolted up the stairs, where the other two were already. The three of them left through the upstairs window and escaped over the roof of the apartment. By this time the owner was hysterical and ran into the street screaming for the police. 

She had just finished talking to them when we arrived. Apparently the thieves had gotten into the whole apartment block. They took the stuff of ours I mentioned before, and a Korean boys notebook laptop. We were devastated. Although I had (luckily!) been backing the photos up, I hadn't done all of them. So we lost more than just electronics. I also won't be able to post camera photos until we find something to replace the hard drive. I will take a few photos on my phone every now and then. 

Fortunately there was a girl staying at the hostel who spoke French, and she came with us to the police station to file a report. We are so incredibly greatful she was there, as the police didn't speak any English. 3 hours later we were done at the police station. We headed back to the hostel and all sat together, with all the doors and windows locked. We were all pretty shaken up. We had dinner and wine together. We were sad about the things we had lost, but were thankful that no one got hurt. It could have been so much worse. 

The next day we were still feeling pretty down about the previous day, but decided to go to the Louvre. However our first stop was to a pier which we had seen the previous day. The gates of this pier are covered in love locks! We had had a lock engraved for us back home, and were looking for somewhere to put it as the original bridge had just been taken down. So we were pretty happy to find the pier. We locked our lock onto the gate and threw the key into the water! I know, we are so lame. 

When we arrived at the Louvre we were greeted with the longest queue I think I've ever seen to get into anything. We joined the end of the line and begun our wait. It was so extremely hot. 

An hour and a half later, we finally made it to the front and into the Louvre. Firstly, I'd like to say that the Louvre should definitely invest in an aircon. It was so uncomfortably warm in there! You can understand under the glass pyramid it would be warm because it's in the sun, but the rest of the galleries were just as hot! It made the day kind of unpleasant. And come on, it's not like they can't afford it.

Secondly, the Louvre is beautiful. The building is absolutely amazing! It's so huge, and so beautiful. Blew my mind. We spent most of the day there looking at all sorts of different things. We saw the Mona Lisa from a distance. There were so many people crowded around the painting, it was kind of ridiculous. Like being in an art style mosh pit. After a while once we had seen a lot, we were just too hot and decided to leave. We went down to the beautiful park by the Louvre and had another crepe.

Later that night we were due to catch a train to Gourdon. So we headed to the big train station that the train was leaving from. We had dinner at the station and sat around and read until our train was ready to leave. We left at 10:40pm. The seats reclined, so I managed to get some sleep. Since it was a night train they don't announce the stations, so poor Harrison stayed up the whole trip so we didn't miss our stop. He is truly amazing. We arrived at Cahors at 5am and had to wait an hour and 40 minutes. We didn't know that the night trains didn't have anything to buy food and drink wise on board so by the time we arrived in Cahors we were so thirsty! And nothing was open. It was a very long wait. Luckily a little shop opened up around 6 and we were able to buy a bottle of water. The train to Gourdon was only 30 minutes, and we arrived there at 7:10am. We are staying with Sallie and Ian, who are my grandmas friends. They live in the most gorgeous house. We arrived at their home, had breakfast and went to bed! We were exhausted (especially poor Harrison). 

After a bit of a nap we got up and were greeted by the most beautiful lunch spread! There were cheeses and ham and tomatoes and cherries and baguettes!

 It was amazing, and so delicious. After lunch we headed out to explore the town. It is such an incredibly beautiful town. It's an old medieval village, and all the buildings are still from that time. It's amazing and I absolutely love it here. It's so tiny and quaint!

 We wandered around exploring for a while and then headed back home. For dinner we were spoilt to a home cooked roast dinner! It was delicious and amazing to have proper home cooked food. 

Today Sallie and Ian took us around some of the other villages close by. The first one we went to was Domme. It was the same style of buildings as Gourdon and was beautiful. We walked up and down the little winding streets, looking at all the different small shops. We went to a view point where you could see for miles! You could see all the old buildings and the fields and rivers. It was so beautiful.

 We had lunch at a small pizzeria. It was so yum! I had the best homemade walnut tarte. Absolutely amazing! Next we went to Beynac. Part of the town is built into a cliff! It's really incredible. 

We wandered around the town and along the river. We saw a whole family of ducklings! It was adorable! After a while it started to rain so we had to go home. We've spent the rest of the day lazing around, reading and listening to the rain. I love it in Gourdon, I don't think I want to leave! 

Paris!

The bus trip to Paris was long and tiring. It took 9 and a bit hours and we arrived in Paris at 6am, on a Sunday. We were confused because on my clock it said we had arrived at 5am, which was an hour earlier than expected. Later in the day we remembered that there was a time difference between London and Paris. It was actually quite funny. Since we thought it was 5am, and the buses only stared at 7am, we caught a taxi to our hostel. We gave the taxi driver the address I had down and off we went. We arrived in a small backstreet, in a neighbourhood that did not look the greatest, infront of a block of apartments. Needless to say we were a bit confused, as there was no obvious signage for a hostel. Even the cab driver was hesitant to leave us. However after a quick investigation we found the name of the hostel on one of the apartments buzzers, and he felt comfortable enough to leave us. We were still really confused, as it seemed we were going into someone's home rather than a hostel. We rang the buzzer and were greeted with a fairly disgruntled Korean lady. We had woken her up at 6:30am. It was however, our hostel. It is very strange, but it seems this lady has turned her home into a B 'n' B style hostel with bunk beds in all the rooms. She lives in a little add on in the apartment courtyard. Very strange. There is a rule at the hostel that from 11am-5pm it is closed for cleaning, so you have to leave. And since check in wasn't until 11am we weren't able to actually check in yet.

So we left to explore and pass the time until then. We got on a train and went to the last stop. Which happened to be the stop for the Louvre! We had breakfast at a small cafe on the side of the road (Nutella and banana crepe, so good!). We wandered around the outside of the Louvre and took the mandatory tourist photos with the glass pyramids. 

We walked down the road and found a beautiful park that had reclining chairs set up around a fountain that you could sit on. We settled in to people watch and enjoy the sunshine. But I fell asleep. I was so exhausted, that I fell asleep siting up in a hard chair in the sun! And got sunburnt on the half of my face that was facing the sun. Harrison got even more sunburnt! Our skin is definitely not used to the sun after the UK!

Since our clocks were wrong, we showed up an hour after check in, and once again couldn't be checked in and were told to come back at 5. We went to find a grocery store to buy lunch, but soon found out that grocery stores in Paris are closed on Sunday! So we had to go to another cafe for lunch. We shared a sandwich kebab, and it was delicious! Since we were back in the neighbourhood that the hostel is in we decided to look around. It looked far more inviting with people about and cafés open. We found another park to sit in. And I fell asleep again. Not doing well!!  Harrison wouldn't let me sleep anymore, so we lay around in the sun and read our books. 

Since the hostel we are staying at is so small, we were given the chance to meet basically all of the other guests. There is only one table/common room, so we all have to eat dinner and breakfast together. I really enjoyed it! We met a guy from California, a girl and boy from South Korea and a girl from Puerto Rico. We sat around and shared snacks and drinks and spoke about our travels and our lives. It was really nice! Especially since the girls will be my roomies while we are staying here. It's nice to actually be kind of friends with the people you are sharing a room with, rather than just moving around the room in an awkward silence we actually talk to each other. So although the hostel is a bit weird, and isn't in the best area, I am really enjoying staying here. 

Yesterday, feeling much better after a good nights sleep, we went on (you probably guessed it) a walking tour! Sandemans, you have redeemed yourself. We absolutely loved it! Our guide was great and we got to see some pretty cool things, and learnt a lot as usual. We ended the tour near the park I had slept in the previous day! From there we decided to walk to the Arc De Triomphe. It's so huge, that it was incredibly misleading during our distance estimating. It took a lot longer to get there than expected. It was a really nice walk though! We went through the really fancy part of the city, with all the designer shops and fancy resturants. Once we made it to the Arch, we were pretty awestruck. It is absolutely massive! It is such an incredible sight to see.

 Sadly you had to pay to get to the top of it, so we didn't get to do that. But we did walk through/under it which was still pretty cool! It was so beautiful, I really loved it. 

Once we were finished gawking at the arch, we thought it would be cool to walk to the Eiffle Tower. Again, the walk was much longer than expected but was beautiful nonetheless. We walked through some of the more suburban, quiet parts of Paris which was nice to see. I love all the vendors on the side of the roads, selling fruit and flowers and paintings. There is just so much colour in Paris! We made it to the Eiffle Tower! 

Being in Paris, and seeing the Eiffle Tower has kind of made the realisation that we aren't in Australia really set in. In London it kind of just felt like we were back home, because everyone spoke English and it was pretty similar to Australia. But being in a country that doesn't speak English, and that is so incredibly different has made this trip feel real. It's really amazing. So yes, the Eiffle Tower. Let me say, it is prettier in photographs. Yes, it is an incredible piece of architecture but God, it's ugly. You also have to pay to go up the Eiffle Tower, and we have heard it's not worth it, so we didn't go to the top. We did sit around in the park to the side of it and watch all the people go by. It was something that, as tourists, we had to do. But as our new Korean friend said "It's just like looking at a picture in a book". I think that's a pretty good description. 

After a very long day of walking, we finally made our way home. 

London

The past couple of days we have been back in London, and hanging out with Harrison's sister, Rhylka. Our first day together on Tuesday, we started off in Camden where Harrison got his nose pierced! I think it really suits him 😊

 We headed into the city to go to Primark, as I needed some new jeans. The Primark on Oxford Street is absolutely massive! I was blown away. And everything is so cheap!! It was pretty amazing! I got my jeans and some other things we needed for a ridiculously good price. Once we were done with our little shopping spree we went back to Camden to have lunch at the markets. Harrison and I had sandwiches, because you know, backpackers budgets. Even if you aren't actually eating the market food I still think it's really cool to just sit amongst the stalls and take everything in. There's so much to see and smell, it's really amazing. When we were finished with lunch we started walking to a pub, where one of Rhylka's friends works. It was so windy, it made the walk quite unpleasant. It was a relief to finally get there. We settled in for a long night at the pub. I had the best burger I have ever eaten. It was a chickpea, feta and mint patty on a bun with guacamole. So yum! We met a bunch of Rhylka's friends and had a few drinks. It was a pretty good night! 

Day 2 with Rhylka, Harrison and I woke up with horrible colds! We felt really yuck. We had planned to go on a walking tour of London, with the Sandemans company I keep writing about. However 10 minutes into the tour we were absolutely hating it. Our guide was just really bad. He was trying to be funny and really wasn't, and just didn't tell us that much information. So we left the group to do our own thing. We went into the National Gallery for a bit, but weren't overly taken away by it. We left that and went in search of China town. I love walking around London. There is so much to discover, with all the little hidden alleys and small streets. We never actually made it to Chinatown, however we did accidentally stumble across Jamie Oliver's Italian resturant!

 It was a place Rhylka had wanted to eat at, so we had lunch there. It was amazing! I had gnocchi and it was so good. 

After lunch we tried to FaceTime Harrison and Rhylka's family, but had no luck, our wifi was too bad. We parted ways and Harrison and I headed back to the hostel (but first to the grocery store for cold and flu tablets) and lazed around there for the rest of the day. 

The next day we woke up in even worse condition than the previous day. Being sick overseas really sucks. All you want to do is curl up in a familiar, comfortable bed and sleep and drink tea and hug your mum. But instead you've got to wake up in a bunk bed in a room with 8 other people and just get on with your day, no matter how crap you feel. Rhylka met us at our hostel in the morning and we finally manged to FaceTime their family, which was really nice. We were kind of on the fence about going out for the day, but decided to head out anyway as we could always come back if we were feeling too awful. It was an absolutely beautiful day, so we decided to have a picnic on Primrose Hill at Regents Park. We stopped off at our faithful Lidl on the way there to get our picnic supplies and then headed off towards the hill. It was so hot. Like uncomfortably warm, but really nice to have some sunshine. We actually all got a bit burnt which is kind if funny. We sat on the hill in the sun and ate strawberries, cheeses, avocado, hommus and celery and drank wine. Life is tough.

 As the afternoon progressed and our cold and flu tablets started to fade, we decided it was time to go home. We all headed back to the underground, where we had to say our goodbyes to Rhylka, which was quite sad. However we had had a wonderful 3 days together! And we are both excited to see her again when we get home. 

Today we are just mooching around the hostel in an attempt to keep warm and fight off these colds. We are on a 9 hour bus trip tomorrow to Paris, so we really need to try our best to be better by then. 

Bath

The journey to Bath was exhausting. We were travelling for 13 hours in total, overnight, and had gotten very little sleep. Once we arrived in Bath it was absolutely pouring with rain. Great! We got out our rain jackets and went in search of the hostel. Luckily it was fairly close to the station, so we didn't have to be out in the rain for too long. Once we arrived at the hostel we really did not want to do anything. However, we managed to drag ourselves out of the hostel and have breakfast at a cute little cafe. With food in our bellies we wandered around Bath for a little bit, looking at shops and buildings. We were really just too tired to take it all in and went back to the hostel to just sit down and chill out. The hostel we were at (Bath Backpackers) was not the nicest place we have stayed at. In fact it was probably the worst, however I think that kind of shows how lucky we have been with hostels, because honestly it wasn't THAT bad. The rooms were tiny, and my bunk was amongst the roof beams. The kitchen was nice but people didn't really clean up. The wifi didn't work basically the whole time we were there. Our floor (the top floor) didn't have a bathroom and the showers were on the bottom floor. But all in all those were really the only bad things we had to say about it. 

The next day, feeling revived and refreshed after a good nights sleep, we went on a walking tour. This one was a different company to the one we have usually gone on the tours with, but it was still really good. We were so lucky with the weather that day. It was beautifully sunny, and so warm we left our jackets at the hostel! It was kind of like the weather was apologising for raining on us the whole of the previous day. The tour guide took us all around Bath, explaining the history of the buildings and the city itself. 

It is such an interesting city, I absolutely loved it there!! We spent the rest of the day wandering around and lazing around parks in the sun. 

On our last day in Bath we went to the Roman Bath museum. Wow! It was absolutely amazing! 

The museum was so interesting and the baths themselves were incredible. We spent almost 3 hours there without even noticing! At the entrance to the museum you get a free audio guide, which I think is such a clever idea. It really adds to the experience and you learn so much more than you would by just reading the information at each artefact. The baths were beautiful, I wish we could have actually swam in them!

 At the exit of the museum there was a water fountain that pumps water from the natural spring that fills the baths. This water has been flowing through the hills for 10,000 years. You are allowed to drink the water, they say that because of all the different minerals that it's really good for you. Firstly the water is hot, which is just gross to drink in itself, secondly the water tastes like something that has come out of a clogged up sewer. It was so feral! I don't care how good it is for you, I could never drink that. But hey! We can say that we've done it, and that's what counts. 

After the museum we had to wait around a bit for our train to London. Once on the train it only took an hour and a half to get to the city, then a quick trip to the station we needed. Except the train line we needed was half closed off, so the trip ended up taking far longer than it needed to. But we made it to our new hostel safe and sound. It is about 30 minutes out of the city, which is actually kind of nice. The hostel is really good! More like a hotel really, but with hostel prices. Tomorrow we are going into the city to see Harrison's sister, which we are both really excited about! We have 5 more days in the UK and then we are off to Paris! I can't believe it's been over a month since we left. It's crazy how fast time flies!