Well Hello There,

I wish I could sit here and write a novel about my travels, which by the way has never been done by anybody, but my time is limited so I will get right to the point and update our shenanigans...

We missed our train from San Sabastian to Paris. Unfortunately our vernacular differences with the train person led to a misunderstanding the night before, and our train left from Hendaye, France, a town 20 minutes away, the time when we thought it left San Sabastian. So we laughed about it and walked back to my favourite hostel in Europe, Olga's Place and stayed another night. Olga's Place is a guesthouse run by Rafael and Olga. They don't speak English, but somehow you communicate through broken words and hand gestures, and they treated us like family every minute we were there. They cooked for us, let us use their cooking facilities, chatted with us, help us with directions, everything... I missed it already.

We left Spain the next day at 4:30, making damn sure we got on the right train and made our way to Paris, through a switch at Hendaye. The train was seven hours long and thoroughly uneventful, minus a heated discussion about music between the five of us, and filled with sleep. I actually shaved on the train and only cut myself once, which was a miracle. We also had our own car, the first time this had ever happened, and used it to full advantage by laying out, getting yelled at by having our shoes on the seats and being generally loud. A lovely time had by all. When we arrived in Paris, our hotel was on the other side of the city, so took the metro for an hour and checked in at 12AM. This place was WEIRD. It was called Metropole Lafayette and it had winding staircases akin to horror movies, a crazy cock-eyed check-in guy who hated Americans (Lance and Kalman are now from Windsor) and horrible rooms. I was in the attic; there was no working shower and there were holes, actual holes, in my mattress. The guys slept fine, and so did I after a while, but it was sketchy. The night was capped off with a quick visit to a local bar for a bottle of wine and some weird european foosball with a local drunk. Great times all together.

We purposely got up extremely early because this was our only day in Paris. Our train left for Amsterdam at 6 so we wanted to fit in as much sight-seeing at possible. We did great! We saw the Eiffel Tower, walked down the Champs D'Ellyses, saw the Notre Dame and partook in a bread festival and spent almost two hours in the Louvre. We saw the Mona Lisa, Venus De Mylo, Hammurabi's Code and the Inverse Pyramid, among others. Overwhelming place, no doubt. It would take months to see it all.

Paris is gorgeous. Kowski loves it to death and I can see why. Such a magical place with a feeling and aura all its own. The architecture rivals any other city and the people were wonderful, as long as we are not Americans. The metro system is also easy to use, unlike Barcelona and we did not get lost. We finished our sight-seeing, as well as ice-cream indulging I believe, and made our way to Gare Du Nord train station. We actually took the 5PM one because we wanted to get into Amsterdam at a decent time. The train stopped in Brussels for a minute and minus some loud, vulgar conversation that we are accumtomed to and fantastic it, the train was uneventful. We harked on about 80s cartoons, movies and sitcoms for two hours, recanting the theme song to Full House, among others and discussing and reminiscing about our past. Suddenly, it was 9:30PM and we were at Centraal Station in my favourite city in the world, and soon to be new home, the crazy Amsterdam.

We could not find a hostel for the hoping hell of us here. Kalman and I stayed at my friend Amanda's, while the other three stayed in Haarlem, a suburb of the city reached by train. They only got to book one night there, so this morning they lugged their bags around for a bit and ended up in another hostel, owned by the same chain (http://www.stayokay.nl) as the one in Haarlem and found a room. The new one is in the centre near the Red Light District, so it is more exciting and we can party tonite a bit.

Last nite was thoroughly uneventful. We split up and the guys went to the hostel in Haarlem, in which I heard they played pool and hung out. We went out with Grant and Amanda to a few bars and took a cab back to their flat in the eastern part of the city. We all slept, showered (which was much needed) and regrouped this afternoon. Today has been spent walking around and not much else; We passed by the Anne Frank Huis and then got lunch, which I am responsible for and finally ended up in the right hostel. We also went for pizza and falafels. Tonite is up in the air, but it is the last night where it will be the five of us, instead of the three of us, so it will be a party, no doubt.

On Monday I will head to school to introduce myself, then Fisch and I are off to Brugge, Belgium while Kowski is heading back to Paris for a day to go to Versailles, and then will meet us back in Belgium that night. The trains are great, so splitting up is possible; Also, I will be back in Paris in early July, so I don't need to go with Kowski. He, on the other hand, will not be.

Kalman and Lance leave Sunday night for the States. Ah well. Here are some lovely quotes to end off this installment, before I forget them.

"I am not going anywhere till I go somewhere." - Kalman

"If I lived at the beach, I would be at the beach everyday." - Lance

Also, Kalman is real good at impersonating Fisch. It is hilarious. And we haven't killed eachother. We actually still like eachother. What a surprise.

Sanity Music - My Ipod is dead and my adapter shorted. Bite me.