Paris: The first "this is not my life" moment

FRIDAY JULY 28TH, 2006

We departed London at 8am this morning but I almost missed the coach because I had too much to drink the night before. Thank god Anna saw I was missing and pounded on my door until I woke up. Luckily I had packed the night before, so I was ready to go. We drove to a ferry that took us into Paris. It was a pretty cool ferry because it had a lounge and a cafateria and games. It was like a mini cruise ship. A bunch of us just sat around and played "catchphrase" for the 2 hour trip. We got off the ferry and drove into paris for the rest of the day. We spent the day just learning all sorts of new info about each other, the city etc.

We arrived into Paris and had dinner that night at a really cute retaurant in our hotel. We then took an amazing trip around the city on what is called an "Illuminations tour". It was so awesome to see the city at night and our tour manager was so knowledgeable. We stopped off at the Eiffel Tower and went up just in time to see the sunset from the top. It was truly breathtaking! I went all the way up to the top but I had to be down to meet the coach by 10:20 and it was already 10:15pm. I ran down the stairs ALL THE WAY down. I was so tired and sweaty by the time I got back on that bus, I was done.

But of course, I'm always up for partying so we went down to the bar downstairs and had some drinks with the gang. It was so much fun.

All we could talk about was the day that was to come. We all knew there would be so much to do and we knew the next night would be topped off with a show at the Moulin Rouge! It was gonna be great!!!

London (Day 2) "A drunken blur"

THURSDAY JULY 27th, 2006

So we got up at 8am for breakfast which was rough because I was so tired from the night before. Breakfast was really odd, to say the least. I soon learned that a breakfast consisting of lunchmeat, dry bread and bland corn flakes would be something I would see in every city. We had the morning to ourselves so I just wandered around the streets near our hotel. There wasn't a lot of sites to see near by but it was really cool to just lose myself in the local area. We came back to the hotel and boarded our coach for a guided tour around london. This was the first time we'd seen our coach which would later be our home away from home.

The coaches were actually really nice. We had air conditioning, a sound system, chairs that leaned back and a bathroom. I was so tired, I slept through the entire guided tour. I had already been to london and seen the palace and trafalgar square etc so I didn't mind getting some extra sleep.

We were dropped off in Trafalgar square and just wondered the main city. It was really cool to just walk around but took some getting used to having no motorized transportation. I was with Jodi, Anna, and Katlyn for the day and we wanted to go and do some shopping. We tried to find out way around and actually went the completely wrong direction at one point. Our tour manager gave us maps of london before we got off the coach so we were able to find our way back. London had no language barriers but the people just didn't want to be bothered by us.

We finally made it to Covent garden and just hung out there. Covent garden was like a mini central park, without the grass. There was a childs puppet show, a street performer, live music and even some dancing. It was SO cool! We got back to the hotel and changed for dinner.

Meeting downstairs at 6:30, we boarded the coach to head back into town for dinner. We went to a nice place called Porters in covent garden. We were given a choice of different british pies for dinner. I chose the steak and mushroom pie. It was pretty much just like chicken pot pie. The bread was a little dry but the meat was fantastic. Dinner also included 2 drinks and they had a beer there that 6.5% alcohol by volume so I ordered that. By the time dinner was done, so was I...lol

After dinner, Contiki was hosting a battle of the bands at a local aussie bar called the Walkabout. There, we found a drink special which we couldn't refuse: 6 shots of vodka for 5lbs. Now that translates into $10 which means each shot was only $1.67...AWESOME. The vodka was flavored and kind of gross but we were on our asses. I had so much fun and the bands were pretty awesome. By the time we left the bar we didn't want to take a taxi home because it was so expensive. So we hustled to the subway and tried to buy a ticket. None of the machines would take our credit cards and we had NO cash. So we begged the guy to let us through because we were "stranded tourists who needed to get home" (we laid it on real thick). He let us through and told us to pay when we got off (you need to have a ticket to exit). When we got to the other stop, we played the same "poor lost tourist card" and they let us off. IT WAS AWESOME because everyone else had paid like $30 for a cab and we got home for free.

This was the night we formed the "Suck it Crew". Basically it was Katlyn, Jodi, Anna and I doing this "suck it pose". We ended up deciding to make it a running gag for the rest of the trip and it ended up making us best friends. So what do we do now that we saved money and have a cool group name? We go the hotel bar and drink more. We ran into some other of our Contiki Travelers and they bought us a shot of Tequilla. That would be my downfall for the night. (read more in my next post)

Finally, I went to bed around 3am knowing that I needed to be up early to depart london the next morning. Now our trip would really begin....