About halfway along we had to turn back. The wind had gotten worse, it had gotten colder, and it looked like the sky was going to burst at any moment. On the walk back to the hostel we stopped at an ice cream store and got some ice cream. We got cappuccino and brownie. They competed with the Italian gelato! It was delicious ice cream.
Before returning to the hostel we had stopped at the grocery store and bought groceries for dinner that night, as the hostel had a kitchen. However, when we walked in the front door, the lady who's family owns the hostel/guest house informed us, in very broken English, that we were infact not allowed to use the kitchen, as it was for family only. We were so annoyed! We had just bought all this food and it was going to have to go to waste. We lay around in our room for a bit, really not wanting to go out into the rain to find dinner. Before we headed out, we found the lady and used google translate to tell her that she could have the mince we had purchased, as we were leaving the next morning and couldn't keep it. I think she felt bad for us, but she used the translate app to say that we could use the kitchen, but fast. And that she never saw us in there. It was very nice of her! So we rushed into action, and hammered out the quickest pasta bolognase ever. We had to sit out the back to eat it so no one would see us. It was a strange experience, but we were really grateful that she let us cook.
The next morning, as we do every 3 days, we got up bright and early to catch the bus. Today we were travelling to a place in France called Tours. We were done with Spain! I was pretty sad to say goodbye to tapas and siestas. Our first stop of the morning was in a small town called Biarritz. The place we stopped had a beautiful view over the ocean, and a cute coffee shop where we got a delicious sandwich.
We arrived in Tours at about 5:00. Since Tours is fairly small, there weren't any hostels, so we had to splurge and get a hotel room. We had looked up our hotel before arriving in Tours, so we knew that it was quite far away from the drop off point. We were unsure about buses and public transport to the hotel at this time, so we had to catch a taxi. The taxi took us further and further out of the town centre, and eventually stopped at this run down looking hotel on the side of the highway. Needless to say we were a little nervous. However once inside it was much nicer. Our room was very tiny, just a bed, small desk, and a tiny bathroom. But it had a double bed, and it was our own room which we hadn't had for a long time. It was nice to be able to spread our stuff out, and not have to worry about anyone else.
Next to our hotel, there was a nice looking Chinese resturant. We decided to have dinner there, as we didn't have a kitchen to cook our own dinner. We walked in, and were the only customers in the whole resturant. We sat down, looked at the menu and ordered our food. We had ordered spring rolls, but rice paper rolls came out instead. We were a bit annoyed but didn't mind too much, as we both like rice paper rolls. We took a bite of the rolls, and almost had to spit them back out again. They were disgusting! I rolled mine up in a servitte and put it on my lap, and we opened Harrison's up and salvaged what we could from it. They were the worst rice paper rolls I've ever eaten. It was like they had been frozen and then thawed, which they probably had. Next came the meals, which were actually okay. We ate and got out of there as quickly as we could, dropping the wrapped up rice paper roll in the bin on the way out.
After talking to the hotel staff, we found out that there was a bus into the town centre. So we decided to go explore Tours the next day. After a 40 minute bus ride, we finally made it there. We went into the tourist info centre and grabbed a map, and made our way into the old town. On the way there we stopped at an adorable little cafe and got some lunch. There isn't too much to see in Tours. We had walked around the old town and seen most of the important sights within an hour.
We wandered in and out of little shops and strolled through the cobbled streets. We came across a candy and liquor store, which I found quite amusing. After walking around for a bit, we felt satisfied that we had seen all there was to see in Tours, so we stopped at a pub and got a drink.
We caught the bus back to our shabby little hotel, and walked to a grocery store to see what we could do for dinner, as we knew better than to go back to the Chinese resturant. We got some tuna, veggies and bread and had tuna sandwiches for dinner that night. They actually weren't that bad. Better than the food from the previous night.
The rain came down hard the next day, the day we had to leave. Our bus only arrived at 5pm, so we thankfully didn't have to get up too early, and were able to hide from the rain in the hotel for a while. As the time drew nearer, we trekked to the bus stop and made our way into town. There is large train station in Tours, that we hoped had lockers for us to store our bags while we waited. Unfortunately they did not. They were able to point us in the direction of a bike rental store that had luggage storage, so we went in search of that. The rain was coming down quite hard at this time, and it took us a little while of walking around in the rain to find the bike rental shop, but we finally found it and they were able to keep our bags for only €4! Our next mission was to find lunch. So back out into the rain we went to hopefully find somewhere indoors to eat. Ironically we stumbled across another Chinese takeout place, which was the only food place we had found with available indoor seating. The food was not much better than the previous place, but we did get proper spring rolls this time at least. After lunch we went walked around for a bit in the rain, and I got a new phone case as mine had broken during the trip.
Once we were done we sat in McDonalds until it was time for the bus to arrive.
The bus ride to Paris was only supposed to take four hours. However due to the ridiculously heavy rain, the traffic was atrocious. Luckily it cleared up near the end of the trip, so we only ended up getting in an hour late. Since we were driving passed the Eifle Tour at night, and on the hour (10pm), we got to see it light up and sparkle! It was an incredible thing to see! The sparkling made that ugly piece of metal into something beautiful and magical. I am really happy that we got to see it! We also drove passed the Moulin Rouge, which was cool to see at night.
We finally got to the drop off point at 10:30, and it had not stopped raining. We donned our rain jackets and trekked into the night, in search of a metro. We welcomed the dryness and warmth of the train. We were due to change trains, so we hopped off the first one, only to discover that there was track work on the line we needed. To get to the station we needed we would have to go back the way we had just come, and get on two more trains after that. I was tired, hungry and drenched so I put my foot down and basically demanded we get a taxi. It was almost 11:30 by this point and we had not eaten since lunch time, it was raining heavily and the train station we were in smelled like pee. I had had enough. We found a taxi and finally made it to our hostel, just before midnight.
The whole bus ride to Paris, I had been really itchy. I had hopes that it was just from sitting for so long, or just in my head. But when we got into our hostel room, and I stripped down, I was dismayed to find bites all over my arms, legs and back. After four months, we had finally gotten a taste of bedbugs. And not even from a hostel! From a hotel! I was so annoyed. Luckily Harrison didn't get them too bad, but I am covered. Even on my hands the little bastards! And I have not reacted to them well, the bites have swollen to three times their original size and are itchy as all hell. I got into the shower and tried to scrub away the itch, but nothing helped. By 12:30 we had settled in and finally been able to go make some dinner. However I was so exhausted, I felt too ill to eat so I just went to bed.
This morning, the first thing we did after breakfast was scout out the closest laundromat and wash all of our clothes on the hottest wash we could. Hopefully we managed to kill any bugs left on our clothes. Tonight we are making the awful over night bus ride to London, so we have just been preparing for that all day. I can't believe that our time in Europe is over. It feels like we just arrived in Paris to start our journey, and now we are leaving. It has been an incredible few months, we have experienced so many amazing things and met some equally amazing people. This trip has changed the way that I look at the world, life and myself. It has been a huge eye opener, and a true test of character. And if I am being truly honest, I am really proud of both Harrison and myself. We have faced and overcome some pretty bad things, like having our stuff stolen during our first week in Europe, sickness and hospital visits. We have made so many incredible memories. I am proud of the person that I have become, and the things that I have achieved. I am sad to be leaving Europe, and our backpacking days, but I am also so excited to be starting the next chapter of our adventure in South Africa!
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