Post by Kim on Jul 5, 2003 9:42:25 GMT -5
hi everyone,
i haven´t been on the web in a while so this update is a bit lengthy since i´ve seen 3 cities since then! here goes...
the last night in london was definitely a night to remember - we saw giles peterson (well known BBC DJ) and questlove of the roots DJ in a club not far from our hostel. to make things even greater - the hostel has a 1 GBP discount at the club so we only paid 4 GBP each. the place was just like a neighborhood bar - very different from its glitzy hollywood counterparts in picaddilly. i saw questlove coming out of the bathroom and talked to him for a bit - he actually remembered who i was and said that if we were staying in paris longer, he would get us tickets for their show! too bad...we left paris a day early. but definitely one of the nights here that i will never ever forget. oh and giles was spinning great - same stuff i heard on KCRW in LA but better because it´s live. questlove just pulled out all the old school jams that had people jumping up and down.
anyway back to leaving london - after leaving london, we arrived in paris and it has been a multitude of feelings. paris is a wonderful city, but it is very difficult to adapt to the life there without knowing the language. i got by with a few terms and making gestures. most of the time i just asked, parlez vous anglais? and that seemed to be fine. they're also easier on you if you try at least a few terms - especially "merci" and "au revoir" and "bonjour". the sites are larger than life - TV and pictures don't do them justice. perhaps my favorite part of paris is the latin quarter. i felt very, very comfortable there..and maybe next time i do visit this is the arrondissement i will stay in. as we left the latin quarter there was a makeshift band at the corner playing jazz, beats and breaks.
our hostel aka ´friends hostel´ was in montmartre...let´s just say that i will never EVER stay their AGAIN. i should´ve taken the guideforeurope.com advice! but we live and learn right? the staff was friendly and i met some awesome people staying there, but that place was a total dump and they kept moving people in and out of rooms - i think it´s because they´re only allowed to have a certain number of beds but they overbook to make more money. the arrondissement - montmartre - is basically the ghetto. and i don´t mean it in the lightest sense of the word - we´re talking the tenderloin, meets the south bronx and LA´s skid row - hash dealers, people selling gold chains out of their jackets, etc. all rolled up into one with everybody speaking french. everytime i think of this place now i hear donny hathaway´s song ,¨the ghetto¨ in my head. the sad part is this is where most of the immigrants to france live - middle easterners, north africans, west africans etc. now that i think about it...it is probably where they filmed the movie (one of my favorites) ¨La Haine (Hate)¨. it was interesting to get a real up, close and personal view of how these people live and are treated. even if the place was pretty dodgy, i didn´t really feel unsafe. there was one instance on our first day there that someone tried to talk to me asking if i was married, etc. but i basically kept saying no and walked off and that was pretty much the only potentially dangerous thing i encountered. the one saving grace to montmartre is the basilique du sacre couer - one of the most beautiful city views i´ve ever seen. the last day in paris i got sick - largely due to dehydration and so i went left my friend at champs-elysees after taking pictures at the arc de triomphe and headed back to the hostel to sleep. i kick myself now because i missed the louvre and pierre la chez (sp?) where jim morrison, chopin, etc. are buried. after that dehydration experience - i´m downing at least 4 litres a day if not more. thanks to my trusty nalgene bottle.
after paris we headed off to lourdes - it is about 5 hours by train and is in the pyrennes. for those who don´t know - lourdes is the site where our lady of the immaculate conception (virgin mary) appeared to saint bernadette in the 1850s. and they built this church on the site of the grotto (la grotte) where the apparitions occured. it is quite majestic because of the pyrennes and then you see this church that is built into the rock with a large plaza and the grotto where the apparitions occurred on the side of it. we took time to pray, wash ourselves in the water of the grotto, take pictures, and participated in the procession of the holy rosary at 9:30 PM. there are thousands that participate in this procession every night - people from all over the world, including the sick (they´re actually wheeled about by hospital employees). and of course when they did the english translation - they mentioned filipinos and i felt like cheering hehe. the pension we stayed at in lourdes is 34 EUR per room a night...so 17 EUR per person for a room with 2 twins. not bad. i highly recommend hotel sainte-martin if anybody was to make a visit there - even if you´re not catholic...it is worth the trip to see this majestic place.
this morning we took the train into Irun and took the city train to San Sebastian, Spain. this city is absolutely gorgeous! such a treat from the montmartre district in paris. it is by the water so beach everywhere and lots of aussie surfers ´mucking´ about as they would say in australia (learned the term from a girl i met in paris who´s from melbourne). we found a good hostal for 36 EUR a night - so 18 EUR per person and very, very clean with a balcony overlooking the calle. it is in the Parte Vieja - the old part of the city and just a few meters from the beach. considering that the festival de san fermin in pamplona starts in a few days and everyone is booking rooms in san sebastian because it´s only 25 minutes away and they usually just spend the night at the park in pamplona- we got really lucky. the first place we looked into was 70 EUR per night and we decided to look some more and found hostal bahia. after we leave the internet cafe, we´ll probably get our bags from the lockers at the train station and go out and about...i´d like to get my first taste of the beach here in europe.
tomorrow we leave for madrid.
adios for now y hasta luego!
-yvette.
i haven´t been on the web in a while so this update is a bit lengthy since i´ve seen 3 cities since then! here goes...
the last night in london was definitely a night to remember - we saw giles peterson (well known BBC DJ) and questlove of the roots DJ in a club not far from our hostel. to make things even greater - the hostel has a 1 GBP discount at the club so we only paid 4 GBP each. the place was just like a neighborhood bar - very different from its glitzy hollywood counterparts in picaddilly. i saw questlove coming out of the bathroom and talked to him for a bit - he actually remembered who i was and said that if we were staying in paris longer, he would get us tickets for their show! too bad...we left paris a day early. but definitely one of the nights here that i will never ever forget. oh and giles was spinning great - same stuff i heard on KCRW in LA but better because it´s live. questlove just pulled out all the old school jams that had people jumping up and down.
anyway back to leaving london - after leaving london, we arrived in paris and it has been a multitude of feelings. paris is a wonderful city, but it is very difficult to adapt to the life there without knowing the language. i got by with a few terms and making gestures. most of the time i just asked, parlez vous anglais? and that seemed to be fine. they're also easier on you if you try at least a few terms - especially "merci" and "au revoir" and "bonjour". the sites are larger than life - TV and pictures don't do them justice. perhaps my favorite part of paris is the latin quarter. i felt very, very comfortable there..and maybe next time i do visit this is the arrondissement i will stay in. as we left the latin quarter there was a makeshift band at the corner playing jazz, beats and breaks.
our hostel aka ´friends hostel´ was in montmartre...let´s just say that i will never EVER stay their AGAIN. i should´ve taken the guideforeurope.com advice! but we live and learn right? the staff was friendly and i met some awesome people staying there, but that place was a total dump and they kept moving people in and out of rooms - i think it´s because they´re only allowed to have a certain number of beds but they overbook to make more money. the arrondissement - montmartre - is basically the ghetto. and i don´t mean it in the lightest sense of the word - we´re talking the tenderloin, meets the south bronx and LA´s skid row - hash dealers, people selling gold chains out of their jackets, etc. all rolled up into one with everybody speaking french. everytime i think of this place now i hear donny hathaway´s song ,¨the ghetto¨ in my head. the sad part is this is where most of the immigrants to france live - middle easterners, north africans, west africans etc. now that i think about it...it is probably where they filmed the movie (one of my favorites) ¨La Haine (Hate)¨. it was interesting to get a real up, close and personal view of how these people live and are treated. even if the place was pretty dodgy, i didn´t really feel unsafe. there was one instance on our first day there that someone tried to talk to me asking if i was married, etc. but i basically kept saying no and walked off and that was pretty much the only potentially dangerous thing i encountered. the one saving grace to montmartre is the basilique du sacre couer - one of the most beautiful city views i´ve ever seen. the last day in paris i got sick - largely due to dehydration and so i went left my friend at champs-elysees after taking pictures at the arc de triomphe and headed back to the hostel to sleep. i kick myself now because i missed the louvre and pierre la chez (sp?) where jim morrison, chopin, etc. are buried. after that dehydration experience - i´m downing at least 4 litres a day if not more. thanks to my trusty nalgene bottle.
after paris we headed off to lourdes - it is about 5 hours by train and is in the pyrennes. for those who don´t know - lourdes is the site where our lady of the immaculate conception (virgin mary) appeared to saint bernadette in the 1850s. and they built this church on the site of the grotto (la grotte) where the apparitions occured. it is quite majestic because of the pyrennes and then you see this church that is built into the rock with a large plaza and the grotto where the apparitions occurred on the side of it. we took time to pray, wash ourselves in the water of the grotto, take pictures, and participated in the procession of the holy rosary at 9:30 PM. there are thousands that participate in this procession every night - people from all over the world, including the sick (they´re actually wheeled about by hospital employees). and of course when they did the english translation - they mentioned filipinos and i felt like cheering hehe. the pension we stayed at in lourdes is 34 EUR per room a night...so 17 EUR per person for a room with 2 twins. not bad. i highly recommend hotel sainte-martin if anybody was to make a visit there - even if you´re not catholic...it is worth the trip to see this majestic place.
this morning we took the train into Irun and took the city train to San Sebastian, Spain. this city is absolutely gorgeous! such a treat from the montmartre district in paris. it is by the water so beach everywhere and lots of aussie surfers ´mucking´ about as they would say in australia (learned the term from a girl i met in paris who´s from melbourne). we found a good hostal for 36 EUR a night - so 18 EUR per person and very, very clean with a balcony overlooking the calle. it is in the Parte Vieja - the old part of the city and just a few meters from the beach. considering that the festival de san fermin in pamplona starts in a few days and everyone is booking rooms in san sebastian because it´s only 25 minutes away and they usually just spend the night at the park in pamplona- we got really lucky. the first place we looked into was 70 EUR per night and we decided to look some more and found hostal bahia. after we leave the internet cafe, we´ll probably get our bags from the lockers at the train station and go out and about...i´d like to get my first taste of the beach here in europe.
tomorrow we leave for madrid.
adios for now y hasta luego!
-yvette.