As step one of many web updating steps, we have added pictues to the blog entries for our Euro trip.
I believe they say (you know, them...those people) a picture is worth a thousand words...well these giant scary Dutch words were worth a picture.

Hope you have enjoyed the journey. You will be interested to know we are already planning the next few trips.

Jeremy & Amanda

Around the world ... Europe ... Western Europe in 80 days

• Days spent travelling: 80


• Countries visited: 10


• Times international borders were crossed: 26


• Number of photos taken: 1611


• Number of kilometres driven: 8344 km


• Scariest roads overall: France


• Times we got really, really lost: 1


• Best road signage: Germany


• Total gas purchased ($CDN): $1021


• Most expensive gas ($CDN): $2.16/litre (France)


• Least expensive gas ($CDN): $1.71/litre (Spain)


• Highest sustained speed: 155 kph (Germany)


• Speeding tickets: 0?


• Number of bottles of wine drunk: ~30


• Total number of colds: 7


• Total number of books read: 8


• Friendliest people: Germans


• Angriest people: French


• Most disgusting toilets: France


• Most indecipherable language: Dutch/Flemish


• Most expensive country: Switzerland


• Least expensive country: Spain


• Best desserts: France


• Best food overall: Germany


• Weight gained: 1 kilo (each)


• Weight gained in one week since returning home: 2 kilos (each)


• Hottest day (Avignon, Provence): 40^o


• Number of 1.5 litre bottles of water drunk: 58


• Coldest day (Fussen, Bavaria): 4^o


• Number of scarves bought: 2


• Consecutive days without a cloud in the sky: 21


• Number of days' plans changed due to rain: 1

(Please sing the following in a high piitched nasal voice)

Take me back
To the paradise homey
Where the bed is clean
And the cat is fuzzy
Oh please, won't you please take me home!
Ya-ah-ah-ah

I think we are ready...

Our last few days and nights in Paris were quite nice and relaxing, giving us a good feel for the city. We walked an awful lot more within the core. A tour of the D'Orsay museum (19th century art) was interesting, but really did not compare to the Louvre. We ate and hung out a couple of times with our new friend Ben, the New Yawker who we had met in Bacharach, Germany.

More importantly, there was more time for relaxing than usual. We had a very leisurely hot chocolate and quiche at the famous Cafe des Deux Magots in St.-Germain-des-Pres, a place dubbed 'the cafe of ideas'. Basically it is a people-watching mecca, where everyone but everyone has hung out at one time or another - people like Hemingway, Picasso, Sartre, Camus, and Oscar Wilde. The ambience is great, and so is the food. It was the best quiche and hot chocolate we have ever had. Like ever.

We had a morning flight to Amsterdam, and had to get out to the airport. Unfortunately, the rail line went through the neighbourhood where the riots started and had been going on the whole week we were in Paris. There had been attacks, disruptions and sometimes full cancellations of the trains on this route, and each day when we took the metro a screen told us what the situation was - trains getting through at 60%, 30% ... 0%, and we were a little nervous about our prospects. However, the morning of, we had no problems. It seems like it was a good time for us to get out of Paris, though! We were actually in Place de la Republique and the Marais the night before we left, the area in the core of the city where cars were burned the very next night.

We arrived in Amsterdam in bright, sunny weather. We are staying in a room being let by a guy who works for ING. It is in a classic, narrow canal-side five story house being shared by a group of twenty-somethings. The room is great, with huge windows and a small balcony overlooking the beautuful, picturesque Leidsegracht canal. We are a 10-15 min walk in each direction to all the major sights, museums, galleries and neighbourhoods of Amsterdam.

So far we've walked a lot, checked out neighbourhoods, markets, neat little artisan shops and boutiques, and eaten good ethnic food, including amazing Indonesian food twice. We also went to the Van Gogh museum, which was great, and discovered that the famed Rijksmuseum is closed for renovation. They are allowing visitors to see the 'greatest hits', which they've grouped into one room, but are still charging full admission! So we are deciding to pass, and visit the Amsterdam History Museum instead.

Tomorrow is our last full day (of 80 days, but who's checking?), and so must pack and figure out how to shoehorn three months worth of fragile little knick-knackeries we've bought along the way into two softsided backpacks.

We also have to start remembering the various details of our old lives. We can safely say that this is proving to be pretty difficult. As we keep saying these days, we've been gone for so long "we live here now". So if, as G.K. Chesterton said, "The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.", we have to ask you, what language do you speak? What do you eat for breakfast, and what time do you eat it? Do you stop for pedestrians, or try to run them over? Do you litter or leave little dog treats for people's feet? Do you treasure public spaces or vandalize them? Do you make room for people passing you on the sidewalk? Do you lock your doors?

Would you open your doors to welcome a couple of weary travellers?

We hope so, coz we're comin' home!!!

One week to go today! Yikes! Our past few days in Paris have been wonderful, and the weather sublime! It rained two days ago but no matter, it has been quite a run over the past few
weeks, it was 25 and muggy on Oct 31. Yesterday it was back to a balmy 22 and sun.

Both places we've stayed have been in the 5th arrondissement. The first b&b was good with an 8th floor balcony view of Paris, Notre Dame and the Eiffel tower, and a fantastic breakfast to boot. Our second place is quite a gem! We are beside a 4 star hotel at 300 euro a night, 50 feet from the Seine at Notre Dame, and 21 steps (we counted) to our view of Notre Dame cathedral. It's quite a spot. We are on a street named after an 12th century physician (Maitre Albert), Dante started his Divine Comedy while staying on this street, oh yeah, and Francois Mitterand lived in our courtyard.

Our time has been busy with hoofing it around the city and seeing the sights. Not nearly enough time relaxing but that has been planned in for our last few days here.

Last night we climbed the Eiffel Tower for a great view of Paris on an other wonderful, warm night. Night time is the time to go, as the crowds had left and the lightshow of Paris and the tower itself are fantastic. While we were up it, it started to sparkle giving us quite a show.

We visited some famous graves (Oscar Wilde, Moliere, Jim Morrison, etc) in a really creapy cemetery called Pere Lachaise. Don't know what the story is, but tombs were in tatters, crypts were broken, with open graves, leaning tombstones, basically the stuff nightmares are made of!

Eating has of course been good. We have taken advantage of all the different choices to have sushi, korean, mexican, italian and some nice french bistro meals. Our breakfasts consist of bodum coffee made Amanda-style (strong), fresh butter croissants and chocolate brioches.

By far our most memorable day was spent at the Louvre. We expected a great museum but were still blown away. We obviously saw the biggies, Venus de Milo, Winged Victory and the Mona Lisa, but most of our energy was spent on Roman, Greek and Etruscan sculpture and Egyptian tomb artifacts, and barely any in the painting sections. We had figured on three hours, and were there for over six. Every piece was unique and amazing, and even though we had visited many Roman museums while in Italy and in other places, these pieces still blew us away, we kept saying "I have never seen anything like this".

But the fun didn't stop there. The Louvre has floor vents throughout to try to cool the building down as tens of thousands of people a day create quite a bit of body heat. These vents pump air at quite a rate (think airplane engine exhaust) and are placed right in the middle of the hallway floors. Remember the balmy weather we mentioned? Well Amanda was walking towards the Venus de Milo (quite a busy spot), when the summer skirt she had pulled out of her bag to celebrate the great weather...decided to go northward right up over her head from a vent blast. One second it was fine, the next it was covering her ears, and just as quickly it was back down again. No harm done, except a half hour laughing fit on our part, a tiny "ooooh" from a startled old Frenchman behind us, and an unexpected performance art piece for the throngs of camera-toting Japanese tourists. The next four hours were spent by Amanda clutching the sides of her skirt firmly to her knees and eyeing each new !
vent with weary suspicion, gingerly checking each before scurrying across it.

In other news, apparently the answer is "Yes, Paris is burning". There have been eight straight nights of riots in the Parisian suburbs. But we are in a media black hole - no TV, no radio, and since the French don't really "do" news, we have been having trouble finding out what is happening. Lots and lots of cops around though, and there has been some disruption in the train routes to the airport (hmmmm...)

Paris goes well but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel so the home world starts to seep in a bit now. A few more days of soaking in Paris, then off to Amsterdam.