Airports are RAD FUN!
Originally published at Luke's Overseas Exploits. You can comment here or there.
So… here I sit. In the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris - waiting for the time to tick over so I can depart for home. Well, technically I go to Singapore first, and have to sit around there for almost 7 hours. I did a little research online and found out that they do 2 hours tours for people in transit - but unfortunately I get to the airport 5min before the last tour starts - so it looks like I may have to take advantage of the free transit movie cinema.
Paris was nice - although would have been much nicer at the start of the trip instead of the end, when the impending finale is ever so close and all your attention is focused on awaking some magical power within to enable you to re-write all that is. This way my journey can continue without having to go back to work, and if I were to click the heels of my bright red sneakers together, I would be magically transported home to take a nap and use internet services that don’t eat your money like an upper class hooker.
What was I saying? Oh yeah! Paris was cool. The whole city is very open and it really is a nice city just to ‘be in’ and wander around. It is actually dirtier than I thought it would be - I think we can thanks magical movie techniques for this perception - but there is still a lot of beauty in the city. People here were much nicer than I expected too. Actually - that reminds me… at the end of this rant I am going to post a list of countries and hostels and rank them - mainly for my own future reference - but maybe I can make this in to a book and make millions of dollars with my travel advice?
The first day in Paris I went on a free walking tour - mainly because I really couldn’t be arsed thinking about where I wanted to go and how I was going to do it. It actually turned out to be really good - the loud Texan girl we had as our guide was very in to her French history and expressed everything in a very entertaining and lively manner. The biggest problem was that I forgot my camera - but this wasn’t so bad as I could take more of everything in and was able to return to most of the places the next day and take dickhead tourist photos as needed. Which I did. Lots of walking - since my hostel was a long way away from the city. Yeah, could have taken the metro, but that costs money and you miss things - like I stumbled across some small markets just outside of the city center - which I would never have found if I wasn’t walking. Same with the African French area - which I only realised I was in when there were all these Afro stores and Black Beauty Supply stores etc. Oh yeah, and suddenly I was surround by a ton of French speaking African people. Same with the Indian area - but that was a bit more obvious with the tacky clothing stores and bollywood movies everywhere.
So - enough of Paris - I feel like giving a bit of a round up of my favorite places and hostels.
• Montreal - Probably only because of everything that was happening in the city at the time I was there, but having spent a week here I enjoyed the entire time with some good company on most of the days and the brilliant atmosphere. Really - the city is not as good as Paris, but I really hit the city at a good time.
• Paris - Well - it is a great city. Surprisingly, people were a lot friendlier than I thought and those whole place had a good vibe. Mix that in with a good hostel and some friendly travelers (this is the only place I got drunk in) and it’s almost at the top of the list. Probably, if I had spent a little more time here it would have made the top. The only real bad thing in Paris is how bad the pedestrians are… they were terrible. Tourists and Parisians.
• Amsterdam - I really liked Amsterdam. It has a lot of youth, music and arts culture going on, and I thought it had a lot of character with the canals and all the bike riding. Unfortunately, it’s brought down bus the huge amounts of dickhead tourists there just to get stoned… but despite this, it still manages to be a great city.
• New York - Possibly should be a little higher on my list, and it definitely would have made it if I had some better company here and a lot more time. The whole city is alive and full of things to do. It’s not the most beautiful city in the world, but it’s a sea of modern culture and life.
• Quebec - Quebec was nice when it wasn’t raining. Didn’t stay here overnight, so it only scores high due to the fact it was a beautiful day-trip city.
• Philadelphia - I didn’t get to see much of Philly, but it scores huge points for the Rocky steps and I noticed it has a lot of small galleries down some of the smaller streets there. I think there are a lot of arts and medical students in Philly.
• Boston - Botson was a great city - I just was just a bit worn out when I got here, and really didn’t think it had that much more to offer than some of the other cities I had already been to. There are a lot of students in Boston too.
• London - London wasn’t bad - it was just full of the big old buildings, and really dropped down on my list to to the excitement factor not being overly high for me, and probably the company and the hostel I stayed in. Still a great city though.
• Toronto - Toronto was just a city, and didn’t feel overly special. You could probably say the same thing about Montreal when there’s nothing going on there. This was also brought down by the fact that Niagara Falls (which is an hour away from Toronto, but I’ll mix it in anyway) was such a tourist ridden hole. Beautiful waterfall though… shame about the amusement park right next to it.
• Ottawa - BORING! Was pretty enough in the center, like any capital city. Average and run down looking outside of the main area. Only beat Vancouver because there was a Blues festival there, and I got to see Snoop Dog smoke a big joint on stage.
• Vancouver - Vancouver was nice enough - but just not that exciting. None of the places I visited were bad, it’s just that Vancouver isn’t really what I would call a big thriving city - it has a smaller population than Adelaide. Also seemed to have the biggest homeless population out of all the cities I visited.
• Washington - I didn’t like Washington. It was all about this historical American wank in the center - where everything is green and beautiful, but all around this area the city seemed over run with homeless people and rap / hip hop culture influenced African Americans - which I have no problem with as long as they don’t yell all the time in order to make people around them feel intimidated of them. It just seemed like city center was this caramel filling, but it was all wrapped up in a giant turd. It’s fine if you spend all your time in the caramel center - you can live in complete ignorance of the turd around you - but it’s not the city for me.
Hmmm… Might write up that list of hostels later - can’t be arsed doing it right now.