Hello From Paris!

Hello my friends!

After a gruelling run through Italy and back up through France, I have finally arrived in the beautiful city of Paris. Its been a pretty tough on the body, being on the run and almost perpetually on the go. Since I last updated in Venice, I have been to Rome, Florence, Nice, Monaco, Lyon and now Paris. Tonight's quiet night for me, the tour's finished and headed back to London (me and Tony are staying another night in Paris before flying out to Budapest tomorrow night.

I'm not even sure how to describe the last 16 days. I feel as if I've just finished a marathon, and right now I'm just basking in the ability to set my own schedule again. I enjoyed meeting people from all over and getting to know what I hope are friends for the future. I have already set out an open invitation to anyone who is 'around Canada' to drop by and stay at my house...hehe

I'm not sure I can do another Contiki tour again though, as much as I've enjoyed this one. Perhaps I am getting old...at the age of 25, I was probably easily the 4th or 5th oldest person on this 48-person tour. I have also realized that I can no longer stand long bus rides, as I cannot pass out with the ease with which I once did. All in all though, I feel as if I held my own, I was one of the last people to get sick with the Contiki virus (the virus which you get from riding around in a mobile air-tight vacuum on wheels for 16 days with 50 other people)

Unfortunately this I have yet to find an internet cafe that will allow me to upload pictures, so descriptive words will have to do. Jen suggested that I write some poetry and try to be a little more descriptive with my words...unfortunqately poetry is beyond my ability in the next 12 minutes...especially with the crappy keyboards where Q's are A's, W's are Z's and I still haven't found the quotation marks!

but I will leave you with the first descriptive words that enter my head for each city:

Amsterdam: Red Light District, millions of bikes, friendliest strangers in all of Europe

St. Goar: Nice little town, Grman lumbarjacks, nothing's open at 5pm on Saturday, why are we even here???

Lucerne: Cleanest city by far, chocolates and swiss army knives, can be seen in 1 day

Mt Pilatus: 7000 ft up, mountains as far as your eyes can see, God's creation is magnificent

Innsbruck: Very beautiful city, Swaroski crystals, wish I had another day here

Venice: A little over-rated, seems a little touristy, gandola rides aren't as magical when you know that you are floating over the city's sewaqge system, chinese people run a lot of the Italian restaurants

Rome: WISH I COULD SPEND A MONTH HERE, lots of history, lots of old architecture and remains of ruins, its so much fun getting lost b/c you'll always bump into a historical something, pickpockets galore, beginning of the great gelato feast

Florence: more relaxed than Rome, also not enough time to do everything kitty suggested, leather and glass blowing, Gelato levels in the blood reaching near critical

Nice: by far the most relaxing part of the trip, sat by the shoreline lost in my own thoughts for hours, I will definitely be back if I need another vacation

Monaco: SUPPOSEDLY hot casinos and hot cars, but pretty dead on a monday night

Lyon: short stay because of long traffic, first snowfall of the year, first snowfall EVER for some of the Aussies, it was magical for 5 minutes...then it was just cold

Paris: Too many things to describe about Paris, won't even try, wish I had a woman with me here instead of tony! haha

Aiight, that's it for now folks...my time's run out and I'm flying off to Budapest tomorrow....to the land of hot natural springs and famous baths....I lost my swimming trunks somewhere along the way here, so I'll have to figure something out!

peas and much love, I miss you guys

G