Tour de France

I've suddenly come to the harsh realization that some people are very dumb. A woman came up to some Fat Tire employees and asked "what was going on?" while the Tour de France was riding into town. I understand not knowing that the tour was coming through Paris that day, but then she proceeded to ask "what's the Tour de France?"

So (not to insult anyone's intelligence or anything) but the Tour de France is a really big bike race! And it ends in Paris every year on the last Sunday of the month... in fact it ends in the Place de la Concorde - they make 8 loops from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place and then its over. Yay!

I was lazy and didn't go to the Place to watch it end, but it did ride down the quai right next to my apartment, so I got a video.

Carlos Sastre won (he's Spanish). Sad for all the Australians rooting for Cadel Evans (I wanted him to win too!)

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Versailles

So Liz and I finally got out on our bike tour of Versailles.

I just want to hit the high points in pictures:

This is just a cool pic of flowers with the Grand Trianon in the background.

Liz and I and the Grand Canal. This was Louis XIV swimming pool (and our picnic spot.)
The amazingness that was our picnic. Lets just say that Liz and I bought enough food to feed a small army... 4 baguettes, 4 types of cheese, rasberries, avocado, humus, fresh apricots, some weird yogurt dip, pain au chocolat, wine, cherries... omg... my days of PB&J picnics are over. Glorious feast.

After all that, the chateau was kinda a let down. I remembered it being a lot cooler the first time (but maybe that's because we didn't get to see the gardens.) So... instead, this is a view of the gardens from the chateau.

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Bastille Day

So for some reason, most countries have some sort of holiday in July that celebrates their independence. The US has the 4th of July - we signed a piece of paper declaring our independence... awesome. Canada has July 1st - I don't think that Canadians even know what that really means. And France has Bastille Day - July 14th. Out of these 3... Bastille Day wins.

Disclaimer: my tour guide-ness is about to kick in, but I feel like you need some background of the awesomeness that is Bastille Day. (If you don't care... here's a pic of the blue Eiffel Tower... this is as good as my camera gets without a tripod.)

The French Revolution was way cooler than the American Revolution. More blood, guts, and glory. Not to mention France had not 1, not 2, but THREE revolutions within the span of 40 years... fabulous. Since 1789 France has had 5 republics, 2 monarchies, a democratic monarchy, 2 empires, a facist regime, and an anarchist government and all (except the one we're in right now) have ended in bloodshed. Fabulous.

But back to the first one - so causes of the French Revolution:

1) High taxes: the average French person was being taxed 80% of their wages at the end of the 18th century. The richest 3% of the population (the nobles and clergy) weren't being taxed at all. Marie Antoinette was creating 2 foot high hairdo's complete with models of ships, and everyone else barely has enough to get by.

2) France sent a bunch of solidiers to help in another little revolution. It was pretty successful from what I hear - you may have heard of it. The American Revolution. Kind of a big deal. What were we fighting for? Lower taxes. Freedom of speech, religion, press. All these things were completely foreign in France. So the solidiers come back with all these radical ideas! And why did France send soldiers over in the first place? (It looks pretty bad that one monarchy would try to help a bunch of colonist overthrow another monarchy.) Oh... because its the BRITISH! That explains everything! Let's throw a bunch of money that we don't have into a war that we don't need to be in all because we're fighting the BRITISH! Stupid.

3) The winter of 1788 and 1789 was the worst winter France had seen in 90 years. Killed all the crops. And why was it a bad winter? Because of a volcanic eruption in Iceland. (I'm actually totally serious.) If this hadn't happened, the French Revolution may never have happened. The bread shortage was pretty much the last straw and this is where we get that awesome quote, "If they have not bread, let them eat cake!"

So Bastille Day... what is it? Well... basically this was a mob uprising. Before this, there were a lot of "on paper victories" for the French... kinda like our Declaration of Independance. So think of Bastille Day like our Boston Tea Party... but WAY BETTER!

The Bastille was this legendary prison/torture chamber. The press (they always manage to blow things out of proportion) had been hyping it up that if you were speaking out against the government, that you were being held at the Bastille. So the people march over to this place, kill about 100 guards, take out their pocket knives, saw off the warden's head, parade it around town on a spike. How many prisoners do they release? Oh wait... 7. Ya. That's it. 7.

If're you're like me... you're probably a little confused about why they celebrate this every year.

But celebrate they do... over 600,000 people were in the Champs de Mars. We got there at 4pm to stake out our spot. Only in France would they play a medley of Beatles music, and then suddenly switch to opera. It was amazing. So we hang out there till 10:30 (awesome fireworks), and then went back to Julien's to keep the party going. The pics below basically sum up the night.

But the best part is... Liz got here today! (So this explains why my posting has suddenly ceased... I'm going to catch everyone up on what's been going on... I promise.)

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Solidays

So... just in case you're planning on coming to Paris in the next year or so, you need to know that all stores in France (unlike America) are only allowed to have 2 sales a year.

America has grand opening sales, and closing sales, and semi-anual sales, and just-because-its-Friday sales - but France is highly regulated, they have just recently accepted some of the basic principals of capitalism (such as competition) and the government strictly monitors this.

So on June 21st the sales began... and when they say SALES they're not kidding!!!

Its like being in a giant candy store and being told that for everypiece of candy you buy, you get to eat one for free.

I literally went shopping all day yesterday, and I have not had that much fun in a long time. I basically parked my bike at the top of the Blvd St. Germain and shopped my way to the Cluny Museum, a little ways up and down Blvd St. Michel, and then shopped my way back to my bike. (The tricky part was riding home with all my stuff.)

So... if you were thinking about coming to France, now is your chance - come before the sales are over because the next one won't be till Christmas.

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Euro Cup

So every 4 years, Europe has its own equivalent to the World Cup soccer tournament called the Euro Cup. Its supposedly a pretty big deal. Well, right when it started, Mike announced that we were going to have a little Fat Tire pool - kinda like March Madness where you pick your brackets etc. 10 euros to enter. The winner takes all.

Now, most of you... no wait... ALL of you know that I don't care about sports. Sitting through a sporting event (in my mind) is equivalent to some kind of torture. If I go at all, its for the atmosphere and the fact that I get to talk to people - which usually makes at least half of the guys mad because I'm distracting them from watching the game. But whatever.

So I decide to enter the pool, just because I don't want to be that one person who's not in it. Of course I have no idea what I'm doing, so right before our first picks are due I had given a tour to some Kiwis, so I asked them for advice. They said that Spain and Portugal were pretty good this year. Ok - that's more than I know, so I picked Spain and Portugal. The rest of my picks were pretty random - Switzerland (because I want to go there), Russia (because they seem kinda mean), Germany (no idea), Croatia (because I want to go sailing there). The weird thing was - I picked almost all the same ones that everyone else did! (How that happened, I'll never know.)

Then the trash talking starts, Franz semi-mocks me (naturally), and John Phillips MERCILESSLY mocks Eliza (another guide) for her picks... she did things like "Swiss and Turkey" because it makes a good sandwich.

Somehow I make it through the first round... and guess what... I'm beating Franz! I wasn't perfect, but because I knew nothing, I picked teams that no one thought would win and they did! YEAH!

Now we had to pick our final bracket. Again, I just keep thinking, "Spain and Portugal. Spain and Portugal." I want to say that Portugal had already lost so it was just, "Spain." (Honestly - I didn't watch one game... and I couldn't tell you who I picked for the most part.)

A few games into it, John Phillips is losing with Eliza (trash talking always comes back and bites you), and its down to Murray, Franz, David Phillips, and.... ME!!!! Murray loses in the semis, and its down to me, Franz, and David. If Germany wins, Franz and David tie... if Spain wins, I WIN!!

Poor Franz had lost to a six year old in the March Madness pool this year - the little boy who lives upstairs from us named Calvin won 80 euros and spent it all on Pokemon cards. So I feel like Franz really had to make up for this humiliating loss. But his new battle cry was, 2nd is only 2nd... unless its to Kassie.

Now... if you follow the Euro Cup, you know how this story ends....

SPAIN WINS!!!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... the girl who knows nothing beat all the boys!!! I didn't even get to watch the game, I was on tour - but I had my tour chanting, GO SPAIN!" in front of Franz before we left, and people texted me the score throughout the game... now I know why sports are so much fun!!! :-P

So now I'm 100 euros richer - but for me, its not about the money, its about the HUGE BRAGGING RIGHTS!!! YEEEAAAAHHH!!!

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Everyday Is A New Adventure...

...But some days are more adventurous than others.

Yesterday was one of those days. So just to explain this... Interlaken is known for its EXTREME outdoor sports. Paragliding. Skydiving. White Water Rafting. Zorbing (if you don't know what this is... its AWESOME... you roll down a mountain in a bubble!). I decided to go canyoning. I had heard about it through friends here, and they said it was awesome... so I just decided to go for it. Basically - you're jumping off waterfalls into rapids (that is me in the pic by the way).Pretty awesome right? But you know it wouldn't be a story about me unless I hurt myself somehow. So after all that extreme jumping off clifts and all that stuff you're probably wondering... so what did you do? Fall off a boulder into a pile of sharp rocks? Jump off the wrong waterfall into man eating sharks? Nope. I twisted my ankle tripping off a curb on my way back to the hostel. Very anti-climactic. (My story is that I sprained my ankle doing something extreme... like playing with bunnies. Renee has started calling me "The Walking Accident.")

So to continue with my crazy day, I made a new friend on the train the night before - Andrew the Aussie. We had agreed to meet to go biking or hiking or something like that, so I met up with him and (being the smart person that I am) decided hiking would be a GREAT idea! I mean... you can't go to Switzerland and not go hiking... hurt ankle or no hurt ankle. So there was some little town up in the mountains that he really wanted to go see - whatever, I'm game. So we walk about 20 minutes to the train station (get lost... the signs in Switzerland suck), catch the train to Lauterbrunnen, and then from there this girl in Interlaken had told us that we could either catch a bus or do like a 30 minute hike up to Murren. Sounds pretty easy so far. So being the cheap person that I am, we decide that we're going to do the 30 minute walk to Murren. There's a sign that says "Murren 30 mins/2 Std." Now I'm not really sure what "Std" means, but 30 mins is definately a lie. We were at 795 meters above sea level and trying to get to 1,634 meters above sea level, and my genius mind thinks that this is not very far. Again... WRONG!We start hiking... up the side of a mountain. I started out happy, but about an hour into it Andrew the Aussie just says, "I hate this mountain." Yup... I'm going to go ahead and blame him - it was his idea, I just went along with it. He's the one who wanted to go see the stupid town on the top of the mountain. In fact... we didn't even make it to the town he wanted to see. It took over 2 hours to make it to 1,400 meters and by that point in time I had tripped (naturally) and scraped up my knee, my legs burned, and we still weren't there. But we had some awesome views, drank REAL Swiss mountain water, and saw Swiss cows with little bells on the side of the mountain.You know how sometimes you can go to a place and still feel like you haven't really been there... I have DEFINATELY been to Switzerland.

After that... we ended up actually taking the train up to Murren (where we were trying to hike to). It was a pretty quaint little town and there was pretty much no one there. After that I crashed... unfortuantely, the people in my room didn't. Hostels are nuts. There may have only been 12 beds in the room - but there were at least 14 people in the room. I think the high point of the night was when this one guy gets up and starts doing jumping jacks to prove a point that everyone was being too loud. Out of control.The last thing I learned this weekend (besides dispelling all my stereotypes about Aussies and kangeroos) was that girls don't ever travel alone. I mean - we all know that girls have to go in packs even to the bathroom, but I thought maybe a few would be cool and travel by themselves in Europe. I think that's even more wrong - so the fact that I was in Interlaken by myself was kinda a novelty and makes me kinda hard core. And the fact that I can't help but hurt myself in some way makes me stupid.

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The Antithesis of Paris

So I am literally in a valley at the bottom of a mountain.

There are mountains and trees on every side of me. Not only that but there's not really any cars either. The buildings look like something out of the "German" portion of Disneyland (there's probably a connection there but the reasoning escapes me... and I'm sure the locals would love the fact that my familiarity with their culture and customs comes from Disney).

There is no road dust, no noise, no dirty people, no bums... just silence.

Occasionally you can hear the bells on the cows, or the crowing of a rooster. In fact, if you walk about 100 meters down the road you'll probably run into a farm of some sort in the middle of a fairly large community.

Everything is GREEN... and if its not green thats because there are flowers everywhere. So many houses have little flower and vegetable gardens in their back yards. No smog, no grey and black and tan clothes... just green.

And when you least expect it, you can round the corner and see a waterfall.

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