Paris - the City of Love!

Woow.. what a great weekend that is just over (oke, now that I will publish the post, "just" is probably the wrong word" ;)) - let me start my summary by telling the probably most funny story:

Today (29.3) in the morning on the way back home from Amsterdam to Groningen, I took the Metro to Amsterdam Zuid. As I am well-raised I of course bought a ticket (€ 2,30) for only 5 metro-stations. When I arrived at Amsterdam Zuid, I could not get out of the train station, as the barriers did not open somehow.. there I also realized that my ticket stated: 28th of March ? So I got a little paniced, went up to the platform again, looked for another automat (wanted to buy one more ticket, to get somehow out of the station) but there was no automat (of course.. because if you would enter the platform at this station, you would have bought it already before, outstide the barriers, so no need for a automat).. so I was then desperately asking a guy with this yellow neon-coats, to realize that they do not working for the metro, but that he is just a cleaning guy. Okay, now I was really desperate (I had only 10 more minutes, until my train to Groningen would leave), as I was prisoned in the Amsterdamer Metro-Station. Next try was pressing the "I-wanna-talk-with-the-information-desk"-button directly in front of the barriers.. after a minute of loud noise finally a guy responded.. I explained in englisch to him my situation.. and he responed: "okay you can go!" - aha.. where should I go when the barrieres are still closed? haha, I tried the card again.. no change: red light.. soo.. enough of this stupid games.. I just waited until the next person went in, and just ran through the barriere and escaped xD - nice :)

Okey, but now chronologically: Friday, after work, I went to Amsterdam, watched the disappointing loss against Belgium and then went to a "kill all Hippsters"-Party, that did not cost much entry but a lot of money for the cab go there and going home afterwards... Coming home, we had some pasta and approx. 30 minutes of sleep before we left again for the Eurolines-bus heading to Paris.

Going out in Amsterdam

I really felt multiculturally as I as an Half-Iranian-Half-Austrian sit in a bus from Netherlands via Belgium to France, together with a Romanian girl, a Bulgarian girl and a guy from South Africa. That's a nice lifestyle especially if the people are so cool, as my companions :)

Iran/Austria - Bulgaria - Romania - Sout Africa

 

2 days in Paris were definetly too short.. the consequence was that our sightseeing-programm was really bloody( lol - only 2 people will understand this joke ;))-sharp planned and exhausting in order to do everything during the weekend. But we did awesome and saw: Eifel Tower, Sacre-coer, Montmartre, Notre Dame, Seine, Jardin du Luxembourg, Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, Louvre and some other places I already forgot.. :) On the otherside it was so exhausting that we did not manage to go out in Paris (unless you count a pizzeria)..

Some facts about Paris/France:
- dont drive a car in paris at abt. 5-7 o'clock in the afternoon - too many other ppl have the some idea
- french people can not speak englisch, because at school every subject gets multiplied by a coefficient: important courses like Maths/French are multiplied by x15, where as englisch is x2.. therefore ppl can never repeat the year because of a bad mark in englisch, and so nobody cares about that..
- there are a lot of stairs in Paris
- the city is quite dirty
- a lot of immigrants life there
- I realize that concerning getting around, I have already fallen in love with Groningen, because ppl waste so much time with metro's and trains.. fietsing is in!
- it is not a city I must necessarily visit again.. kinda like Rome..
- the highlight was definetely being on top of the Arc de Triomphe (this is free like the Louvre for people <25), where you have an amazing view over Paris!!

Anyway, besides Paris I also got a roundtrip through Brussels with the bus, where I almost took a picture of the Atomium - unfortunately the bus was too fast :/

Monday, just before midnight we got back to Amsterdam, perfectly in time to go to the regularly monday-drinking-hot-spot for exchange students - so that I went out two times this weekend in Amsterdam but not even once in Paris ;).. yeah after some hours of sleep, you already know the story about my metro-ticket on Tuesday morning :D, I came back to Groningen Tue. at noon and directly biked to my office, to work half a day.

Okay, last but not least thanks a lot to Raluca and Diana, for hosting me 2 nights in Amsterdam - and to Julia for hosting us in her appartment-building in Paris as well as for showing us around :)

Dadj

BTW: I learned that there is a differnence between "smashed potatoes" and "mashed potatoes" as well as between "chimneys" and "kidneys" ;)