I forgot to mention that during our picnic at the Eiffel tower, we saw a guy propose to his girlfriend. An cliche and obvious as it is to pop the question there, it was still very sweet and the people around the couple could not help but smile.
On our last full day in Paris we woke up early and tried to catch a train at the zoo of a transport station called la defense. It is a huge station that has busses, metros, trams and some other forms of delivering people that I do not know about. After weaving through hundreds of straight visioned people in black suits we finally found the train to Versailles. We bought two tickets and took the half hour direct train to the small town. When we got there it was a ten minute walk to the actual palace with a stop at the store to buy chocolate chip cookies for breakfast. The building is enormous and consists of dozens of sections. It was very overwhelming at first and it took us twenty minutes just to find the line up. Once we got to the front of the line we realized it was the wrong one, so Tyson held our place while I stood in the ticket line up, bought the expensive entrance tickets and snuck back into the cue to get into the palace. Once inside, we had to wait in another cue to get our audio guide sets. It was a very busy day at the palace and there were cues to do anything and get into any room but it was okay. We walked from one fancy hall to the next and heard stories about the elaborate lives of the royal family. The exorborant wealth of the kings was astonishing. They had a room for everything and every room was decorated in the best of the best from head to toe. There were self portraits of the kings and queens everywhere as well as a hall fitted with full length mirrors along the whole room so that the king could look at himself. An entourage of one hundred people would perform a ceremony every morning to wake the king up from his slumber and a similar one at night when he wanted to sleep. There were ceremonies during meal time when everyone watched them eat and other such nonesense. The palace went on and on until the richness of it became common. We walked through the apartments of the different royal family members and staff as well as the very famous gardens. There are fountains and lakes in the back that people could rent canoes for and enjoy.
After exploring the royal palace and going through the shock of learning about the lives of the people who lived inside, we walked through a market and shopped a bit. I bought a shirt and a headband. We stopped at the bank to refill our emptying wallets and of course we stopped at the shop to refill our emptying stomachs. While I was in the shop, Tyson snuck back to the shop to buy me a couple of things that he thought I would like. It was a sweet surprise! We finally caught the train back to our host's place around eight pm. We had planned to go back out to the city with our host but our laziness got the better of us and we stayed in. We caught up on laundry, did some computor work and watched the movie Valentine's Day. We also got treated with an authentic French dinner that had a tasty corn and lettuce salad with chicken, and rice with mushroom cream sauce. We ate and hung out and finally went to bed much later than we had planned.
In the morning we got up early to catch our train to Amsterdam. It was a very expensive train so we were worried about missing it. Unfortunately we took too long eating our butter and nutella sandwhiches and our laundry was not dry yet so we left one hour later than planned. Our laundry got locked into our host's machine so Tyson spent the better part of a half hour convincing the thing to give us back our stuff. He finally won the argument but it was late so we rushed out of the house after saying good bye to our host. French people air kiss on either side of the face to in greeting and farewell. This is true of many countries we have visited including Argentina, Turkey and Italy. In Oman they had a funny culture of greeting where guys would rub noses like an Eskimo kiss. Some places people hug and some they just smile but it is interesting to learn the various ways.
We entered the rat race metro station again and caught our last tube to town. We stopped at a clothing store on the way and were actually early for our train. We had some left over metro tickets because we had bought a package of them so Tyson sold them at a huge loss but in his words it was better than a poke in the eye. We sat on the train for three hours to reach our next country of the Netherlands. The train was very comfortable with wifi, electric plugs and colorful seats. Tyson slept, I read and it all went well. Once in Amsterdam we got off the train at the central station and wandered around a bit nearby. We had to meet our couchsurfing host in a nearby city called Haarlem (Harlem, New York is named after this place) so we bought train tickets for eight euros one person one way for the twelve minute ride. It was painful but at least we had a place to stay. We met our host at his work and luckily he drove us to his place so we did not have to catch a bus. We hung out at his place for a few hours getting to know our host and eating take out Chinese food. Later that night we went for a walk through the park. Everyone has been very friendly with us, saying hi and welcome often. Our host collects stuff to sell for charity so his apartment is full of brand new things that he buys from auctions. It is interesting to find different treasures in his things. We stayed up late and had to wake up early in the morning to hit up the big city. We shared breakfast with our host who served us toast with chocolate flakes and sprinkles on it which is apparently very typical of the Dutch.
Normally, our host takes his scooter into town but that day he offered us a ride to the train station. We happily took the offer but we thought he had meant he would drive us to the train station in Haarlem but he drove us all the way to the Amsterdam central station which is nearly an hour away. It was incredibly kind and unexpected.
"If we are not happy and joyous in this season for what season shall we wait"
On our last full day in Paris we woke up early and tried to catch a train at the zoo of a transport station called la defense. It is a huge station that has busses, metros, trams and some other forms of delivering people that I do not know about. After weaving through hundreds of straight visioned people in black suits we finally found the train to Versailles. We bought two tickets and took the half hour direct train to the small town. When we got there it was a ten minute walk to the actual palace with a stop at the store to buy chocolate chip cookies for breakfast. The building is enormous and consists of dozens of sections. It was very overwhelming at first and it took us twenty minutes just to find the line up. Once we got to the front of the line we realized it was the wrong one, so Tyson held our place while I stood in the ticket line up, bought the expensive entrance tickets and snuck back into the cue to get into the palace. Once inside, we had to wait in another cue to get our audio guide sets. It was a very busy day at the palace and there were cues to do anything and get into any room but it was okay. We walked from one fancy hall to the next and heard stories about the elaborate lives of the royal family. The exorborant wealth of the kings was astonishing. They had a room for everything and every room was decorated in the best of the best from head to toe. There were self portraits of the kings and queens everywhere as well as a hall fitted with full length mirrors along the whole room so that the king could look at himself. An entourage of one hundred people would perform a ceremony every morning to wake the king up from his slumber and a similar one at night when he wanted to sleep. There were ceremonies during meal time when everyone watched them eat and other such nonesense. The palace went on and on until the richness of it became common. We walked through the apartments of the different royal family members and staff as well as the very famous gardens. There are fountains and lakes in the back that people could rent canoes for and enjoy.
After exploring the royal palace and going through the shock of learning about the lives of the people who lived inside, we walked through a market and shopped a bit. I bought a shirt and a headband. We stopped at the bank to refill our emptying wallets and of course we stopped at the shop to refill our emptying stomachs. While I was in the shop, Tyson snuck back to the shop to buy me a couple of things that he thought I would like. It was a sweet surprise! We finally caught the train back to our host's place around eight pm. We had planned to go back out to the city with our host but our laziness got the better of us and we stayed in. We caught up on laundry, did some computor work and watched the movie Valentine's Day. We also got treated with an authentic French dinner that had a tasty corn and lettuce salad with chicken, and rice with mushroom cream sauce. We ate and hung out and finally went to bed much later than we had planned.
In the morning we got up early to catch our train to Amsterdam. It was a very expensive train so we were worried about missing it. Unfortunately we took too long eating our butter and nutella sandwhiches and our laundry was not dry yet so we left one hour later than planned. Our laundry got locked into our host's machine so Tyson spent the better part of a half hour convincing the thing to give us back our stuff. He finally won the argument but it was late so we rushed out of the house after saying good bye to our host. French people air kiss on either side of the face to in greeting and farewell. This is true of many countries we have visited including Argentina, Turkey and Italy. In Oman they had a funny culture of greeting where guys would rub noses like an Eskimo kiss. Some places people hug and some they just smile but it is interesting to learn the various ways.
We entered the rat race metro station again and caught our last tube to town. We stopped at a clothing store on the way and were actually early for our train. We had some left over metro tickets because we had bought a package of them so Tyson sold them at a huge loss but in his words it was better than a poke in the eye. We sat on the train for three hours to reach our next country of the Netherlands. The train was very comfortable with wifi, electric plugs and colorful seats. Tyson slept, I read and it all went well. Once in Amsterdam we got off the train at the central station and wandered around a bit nearby. We had to meet our couchsurfing host in a nearby city called Haarlem (Harlem, New York is named after this place) so we bought train tickets for eight euros one person one way for the twelve minute ride. It was painful but at least we had a place to stay. We met our host at his work and luckily he drove us to his place so we did not have to catch a bus. We hung out at his place for a few hours getting to know our host and eating take out Chinese food. Later that night we went for a walk through the park. Everyone has been very friendly with us, saying hi and welcome often. Our host collects stuff to sell for charity so his apartment is full of brand new things that he buys from auctions. It is interesting to find different treasures in his things. We stayed up late and had to wake up early in the morning to hit up the big city. We shared breakfast with our host who served us toast with chocolate flakes and sprinkles on it which is apparently very typical of the Dutch.
Normally, our host takes his scooter into town but that day he offered us a ride to the train station. We happily took the offer but we thought he had meant he would drive us to the train station in Haarlem but he drove us all the way to the Amsterdam central station which is nearly an hour away. It was incredibly kind and unexpected.
"If we are not happy and joyous in this season for what season shall we wait"
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