TheMetetron's European Trip Report

[TheMetetron]

So I leave tomorrow for Paris and the start of my month-long trip to Europe. Instead of actually packing and getting things in order, I have decided instead to screw around and create threads like this on 2+2. Clearly the correct choice.

I'm going to outline the basic plan for the month today and I doubt things will stray too much from it. I promise pictures and updates at least once per city. If not, there is unfortunately not much you can do about it, but you can at least hate me more or something. Onward...

<u>Cast of Characters</u>

TheMetetron - 23-year-old professional poker player living in Argentina who despite being reasonably well traveled and having lived in 3 different countries (with 3 more planned in the next 18 months) has never spent any considerable time in any of the places to be visited. I do plan to live in Spain next summer, so I will have a in-the-near-future chance to go back to places I want to revisit rather easily. Money not so much of an object, but I'm a cheap-ass at heart so you're bound to see me do some really illogical things to save $5.

TheMetetron's brother - 25-year-old grant writer and general registrar of voter's badass from the San Francisco Bay Area. Makes approximately $40-60k per year and has never left the country before; in fact, he just recently got his passport which is over-flowing with American patriotism (seriously, have you seen the new passports?). Despite not making a comparative ton of money, he has managed to secure a month of paid vacation from his job. This is in addition to taking two weeks off paid earlier in the year and taking two weeks off paid later in the year to come visit Argentina. Not a bad gig, I must say. Has gotten a bit maniacal about the whole trip with spreadsheets and other such ridiculous things. Understandable since I know he doesn't know when he will get the chance to return and wants to see all he can. Keep this in mind as it is important. Incredibly brilliant person who is incredibly well studied and well cultured. I'd kill for his mind in a heart beat. He will probably be explaining all sort of things to me during the month which I'm really looking forward to.

<u>The Plan</u>

This is the rough plan. It's actually pretty solid and not very rough at all, but changes will be allowed where they make sense. We've also left a bit of leeway, but not much as you'll see. We will be visiting:

Paris, France; London, United Kingdom; Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Barcelona, Spain; Madrid, Spain; Rome, Italy; and Berlin, Germany

Wed 7/18 - TheMetetron leaves Buenos Aires after hopefully securing his articles at a friend's house for the duration of the trip. Really hoping Iberia isn't as bad as I hear. Flight is overnight.

Thu 7/19 - Stopover in Madrid during the morning hours and then continuing on to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport for a 6pm arrival. Subway/RER to a friend's house in the Paris suburb of Bolougne. Hoping that the French aren't as rude as I hear. Also, desperately hoping English is going to get me there without dying. Crashing early.

Fri 7/20 - With my brother not arriving for 2 more days, I am taking this day (and the next) as my personal side trip to Disneyland Paris. Yes, you all think that is gay and a horrible waste of time. I still don't care... Disneyland has some special place for me growing up there and I've always wanted to see the parks outside of the USA. Therefore, I will be doing so. Taking the RER out there and back each day.

Sat 7/21 - A repeat of the day before. More relaxing at Disneyland Paris while watching some fireworks and riding some rides.

Sun 7/22 My brother arrives at 6pm at CDG after a stopover in Munich (sucker). Since he is bringing me a laptop and 20" monitor from the United States I have to go pick him up and carry this [censored]. Seems pretty retarded since I am paying him $100 to do this for me anyway. I'll spend the morning strolling around Paris doing nothing really in particular. Maybe I'll check out a museum or the big cemetary over there. Once we get back to Bolougne it is going to be another early night as tomorrow is packed.

Mon 7/23 - We are planning to be out the door by 6:30 which on second thought seems like some sort of suicide mission, but whatever. Not my idea. Morning stroll through Place de la Concorde and Jardin des Tuileries before finally arriving at the Musée du Louvre in time for it's 9am opening. We are staying there from 9am to 5pm and will probably be eating lunch in the museum itself to save time. Not going to try to see everything but instead will be trying to hit the big things then focus on what interests us most. Still bound to miss a ton which is a shame. After that, we are taking a short Metro trip to the start of Avenue des Champs-Élysées and going to walk down it grabbing dinner at some cafe along the way. At the end, check out the Arc de Triomphe and then take another Metro trip to Le Tour Eiffel and take the elevator to the top. This is going to be an incredibly long day and we won't get back to Bolougne until nearly midnight.

Tue 7/24 - Since we are having such a long day on Monday, the idea with Tuesday is to do it all over again. Brilliant! Out of the door by 8:30 to grab the metro to Jardin du Luxembourg for another morning stroll (see a pattern?) and then off to the Panthéon for its 10am opening. Around noon head over to Quarter Latin and grab lunch before taking in the Cathedrale de Notre-Dame, Sainte-Chapelle, and La Conciergerie all by 6pm. Afterwards we are walking to Saint-Germain-des-Prés to look around and grab dinner at Café de Flore. Depending on tiredness, we are either returning home or heading back to the Quarter Latin for drinks for a bit.

Wed 7/25 - The last full day in Paris. No morning stroll today but instead a 9:30am visit to Musée d'Orsay until lunch time. By 1:30pm we want to be at the Centre Georges Pompidou and then at the Musée national Picasso by 4:30pm depending on amount of things we want to see at each place. We are going to stay in Le Marais for dinner and a visit to the Place des Vosges to look at the outside of Victor Hugo's house and some other random [censored] which is supposedly cool. Finally a trip to Place de la Bastille afterwards for some drinking/clubbing then returning to Bolougne on what will likely be the night bus.

Thu 7/26 - Today should be a good one to sleep in. We don't have to get to the Metro station until almost 11am for our 2pm flight. We get to London Luton a short time later and are taking EasyBus to Victoria Station then the tube to our hostel, The Generator, near Russell Square. We have no plans for that night except to get settled. We are also planning to take advantage of the one day earlier release date of the Simpson's Movie in the UK and catch it at a theater somewhere nearby.

Fri 7/27 - Today we are walking over to the British Museum in time for its 10am opening. Around lunch time we are taking the tube to Leicester Square for lunch and then taking in The National Gallery. After it closes, we are going to go to The Comedy Store for dinner and pre-show drinks. We have tickets for the 8pm show which will last a few hours and then it is back to our hostel.

Sat 7/28 - Early morning stroll (it's back!) by Buckingham Palace and through St. James Park before arriving at Westminster Abbey in time for its 9:30am opening. Afterwards, walk by the Palace of Westminster while snapping some photographs and hearing Big Ben. Then it is on the tube for a trip to Whitechapel and my brother's home brewed Jack the Ripper how-screwed-up-do-you-have-to-be-to-want-to-go-on-this tour. Should be an interesting experience to say the least. Then it is back on the tube to St. Paul's Cathedral to look at the cathedral, crypt, and towers. Then we are going back to the hostel to refuel, grab some dinner, take a shower, and get ready for the evening. Then it is a ride on the London Eye and a trip to a nearby pub for some pre-party drinks. We are heading to The Ministry of Sound that night and it is a dry club so it is either drink beforehand or find other drugs there. Probably going to be a long night.

Sun 7/29 - The Tower of London opens at 10am and then it is off to the Tate Modern. Then a walk over to the Globe Theatre for Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost at 6:30pm where we can hopefully nab some tickets (we took too long to order them before so we have to wait to get there). Light day and after that it is back to the hostel because Monday we have an early flight.


I have some other things I need to do after wasting an hour on this. I'll be sure to finish it up later when I get extremely bored and don't want to actually get ready for the trip.

[Cancuk]

This is pretty ridiculous that everything is so planned, IMO. I know that your brother has never left the country, so I guess he's never experianced jet lag? Your first three or four days are going to be retardedly tiring and after about 5pm potentially unenjoyable all together.... while Paris has a lot of great sites, and some that you would never want to miss (Louvre, in particular), the best thing to do in Paris in my opionin is to go sit on a terrace in a brasserie in a great distract, get a bottle of Bordeaux or Sancerre, order some delicious hors d'ovuer and watch the city walk by... that's just my .02... but i would definitley think about cutting a couple things out of your itinerary and take time to just walk around, stopping when you want, etc.

[TheMetetron]

Cancuk,

I tend to agree with you and everyone else who has said this 100x already. Not my choice, however, and I can see his side of things with only 3-4 days in each city. I've done things both ways before and one isn't inherently better, but this is what he wants. Not really a chance in hell it gets changed now.

Edit: Also, it should be noted that neither of us are against realizing the day of something that we no longer want to do it and just do nothing for a day or do something completely different. But barring anything weird happening, this is the rough plan (which isn't necessarily a bad idea for a vacation with a fixed timetable).

Edit2: Anyway, that isn't the point of this thread, we've had this discussion before. We will all see how it works out over the next month.

[SharpObject]

Hey Metetron,

This seems like a good/albeit very busy plan. I'm traveling through Europe now, so it gave me some good idea of things to do/see when I get to Paris.

Hope you have a blast
Pics required.

[MicroBob]

definitely seems like too much but evidently you discussed this already (maybe in the ElD forum thread which I haven't read).

Just skimming over your plan right now. Will read in more detai later. Get the general point though: Europe, lots of cities, lots of different stuff.

Regarding the French and their rudeness:
I'm convinced that the reputation is very much exaggerated by obnoxious Billy and Edna from Alabama being loud and inappropriate and also making zero effort to understand such things as slower wait-service outside of the U.S.
Also perhaps misinterpreting the French national pride.

But the Brits tend to view the French as pretty snobby too so maybe there's way more to it then a bunch of blue-state yahoo's being annoyed at the 'frenchness' of all 'dem weirdos over there.

My hunch is that Americans who can blend him behaviorally should be fine.
Note how they treat each other before making a judgement about whether they are specifically being rude to you because of your American-ness.

Will be interested to hear your observations on this when you check it out.

I went to Paris on a spring-break trip when I was 16.
Thought everyone was prefectly wonderful. That was 20 yrs ago though but their rep was pretty much the same (except without the whole 'Freedom Fries' type tension of not wanting to jump into the Iraq mess with us).

[TheMetetron]

Popped an Adderall so it is probably going to be non-stop until I leave in about 20 hours. No other way I could really get all the stuff I need to done since I've been sick and pretty useless for the past week and a half.

I'm incredibly upset at the Euro going upward against the dollar right before I leave, but not much I can do to the control that. Bought 500 Euros today and I know I ended up paying an almost $20 premium for them but it ended up costing me $2190 Argentine or about US$710 (Xe.com spot rate is US$690 for 500 EUR). A 1.38 USD to 1 EUR true rate is the highest it has been in a while.

Bob,

It is definitely a lot, but I don't think it will be too much the more I'm looking at it. The cities after London include more free time and Amsterdam has almost nothing of actual value planned for 4 days. We have the down time but there is also a lot of up-time with a lot of things going on.

I'm not so concerned that the French will be rude as I find people are rarely rude in any country I've visited (except perhaps parts of the USA) but I am slightly concerned about the language barrier. I've learned to say, "excuse me, do you speak english?" in french as well as some VERY basic phrases so I am hopeful the effort I am showing will get people to actually speak English to me. We shall see.

[NewTeaBag]

Enjoy. I lived in London for 5 years, so happy to help out with any other questions Regarding things to do/see there. Your list of places to go in London is quite extensive and I think some things could get dropped in order to dedicate more time to others. When I wake up later I'll try t go into more detail WRT those specifics.

[NewTeaBag]

Also. WRT Paris and rude Frenchies, don't believe everything you hear.
THe 1st time I visited Paris (13yrs ago), I thought it was horrible. Th last 3 times I went there it was wonderful. It's all about expectations and the way you carry yourself and interact with others. SInce you live in BA, I assume you have at least basic Spanish ling skills. I don't speak a lick of French and found difficulty communicating until I discovered loads of Parisians speak decent Spanish. Those I conversed with opened up quite nicely when we started talking in Spanish.

PS I didn't notice the Aviation CLub on your list of things to see. Meh. Sure it's a casino, BUT, it's a small "this is how it should be done" type casino right on the Champ de elllllllllll and it's worth at least a short visit. The most gentlemenly live poker game I have ever played were sessions in their poker room. Didn't hear Badbeat moaning or excessive gloating. Also, they have an amazing restaurant.

[TheMetetron]

Where is the Aviation club? I'll definitely stop by if I can.

I'd imagine more Parisians speak English than speak Spanish, but if English and my horrible French fail, I'll try giving Spanish a go. I speak it well enough to converse about anything I could possibly need to while on vacation.

[NewTeaBag]

[ QUOTE ]
Where is the Aviation club? I'll definitely stop by if I can.

I'd imagine more Parisians speak English than speak Spanish, but if English and my horrible French fail, I'll try giving Spanish a go. I speak it well enough to converse about anything I could possibly need to while on vacation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bold bit is possibly true, BUT, they don't like speaking English. SO you can get around the potential annoyance of them via espanol.

Just google Aviaion club (they have a website with a map/location) but its easy to find as its right on the Champ de elseyys? right down from the Arc de Triumphe.