I am embarrassed to admit that my parents made me write in this travel journal (NOT a diary) when we went to France, to "remember my experiences" and whatever. However, when I was looking through it for other ideas of things to review and write about on the blog, I noticed a lot of strange/funny stories and experiences. So here we go: Some strange things I wrote in my travel journal during our 2013 and 2014 trips to France.
This will include cities, cats, motorcycles, and sometimes gophers. I hope you enjoy! Note: I was 10 and 11 years old when I wrote this, so don't juge me spelling/grammar.
Something I wrote on a napkin in a restaurant in 2012 after our experience at the medival fortress of Carcassonne in the south of France:
"We are invaders from another country, breaking in to the walled medieval city of Carcassonne. We were unable to continue with our horses (car) so we abandoned it (parked it) and set off on foot. The defenders tried to stop us with a black Mazda (security patrol) but to no avail. We break into a treasure keep (souvenir shop) and emerge from it with 2 Coke cans. Success on our first mission! We manage to break into the inner wall... well, the defenders let us in after we pay 8 euro. From there, we get past another Mazda and are in the inner keep! We manage to escape from the fortress alive with six postcards and two books. Spoils of war! We return to the parking lot, triumphant on our raid."
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| The walled city of Carcassonne, also known as the fortress we're invading. |
We took care of a cat while in the south of France (her name was Minette). However, we certainly got some unwanted company.
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| This is Minette, our feral, furry feline in France. |
July 5: We think Minette has a friend! There's a feral cat that has been coming into our yard. She's really cute and we named her Gris because she's greyish coloured. Unfortunately, she's really thin so we've been letting her eat a little of Minette's food.
July 6: Not so sure if Minette's friend is cute. Gris is not leaving much food for Minette, and she visits several times a day. We don't want to chase her out, though, she and Minette seem like good friends.
July 8: Okay, first of all, Minette's so-called "friend" is a "he", not a "she" (don't ask how we found this out). They got into a big fight and Stefan got it on video which is pretty stupid because who stands in the middle of a feral cat fight in a foreign country? I guess Gris was trying to take over Minette's territory. So Gris got chased off our property with a broom and if we see him coming back he's gonna get a good whack.
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| She's a HE? Here's Gris the cat in Servian. |
July 9: Turns out Stefan got bitten by Minette. Not surprised. We will be seeing a doctor later today. So much for a day of sightseeing thanks to a 10-year old kid trying to hug a feral cat.
July 10: Saw THREE cats in our yard that looked just like Minette. Could not figure out which was which so we tried to get them out but they did not move. Finally Stefan stuck his head out the window of the house and started yelling "MOO" at the top of his lungs. The cats left. Go figure.
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| A photo of the Eiffel Tower from below (duh). |
List of things you should remember when you should go to the Eiffel Tower:
1) Don't fall down the stairs. Failure to comply could lead to injuries, crying, and a major inconvenience to the next few thousand people going up.
2) Don't fall off the tower.
3) If you didn't pay attention to #2, then unravel your parachute and float gently to the ground.
4) If you don't have a parachute or you didn't read #3, try to land on your feet.
Note: This probably won't happen.
5) If you don't land on your feet (which I'm not surprised about), please understand that a refund is not included, and neither are funeral expenses.
Well, this should clear everything up!
When we ate dinner in the plaza in Servian (the town we stayed in):
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| The plaza we ate dinner in (La Panouille is on the left). |
Tonight, we are going to La Panouille for dinner. I ordered the usual chorizo, and my brother ordered a ham one- I forgot what it is in French. We were starting to get really annoyed by all the motorcyclists that drove around in the plaza without their mufflers. At one end of the square plaza was the street, along the sides were buildings and at the end was a railing to warn people of the big drop. (The town of Servian was built on a hill, and this plaza at the top basically overlooked the entire city.) There were some steep steps going down from the plaza that could take you to the bottom of the hill, but from my experience they are just like a ladder. I know it's a bad joke, but when the stupid, loud motorcycles got close to the edge, I said "just keep going" and my brother and dad and I all started laughing. Later, when they stopped tearing around the plaza and finally left, I said "excuse me, wrong way" and we laughed even harder. It's been a great day in the south of France.
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| It's a long drop off the railing! |
An excerpt from my travel diary on our 2012 trip to France. We were hungry and wanted food, so we decided to stop at the bottom of a hill (there was a town at the top). But how did we get up?
I SAID I wouldn’t write this. I know I will hate myself for it years later because I will never want to admit I ever did this. Okay, fine. Entertain the reader. I will tell you IF you don’t laugh... So we were super hungry and lost so we parked at the bottom of the hill on which a random french town was built and hopped out. Doesn't sound sketchy at all, does it? Did we walk to the top? No! We saw one of those tourist trains for “transportation”. It was RIDICULOUS! Red and white on the outside, crappy seats on the inside. The only thing that could by worse is... Thomas the tank engine. It’s that bad. But I want to complain about how lame the train was and what a waste our 1.8 euro was. It was fun to duck every time we passed someone to save ourselves from a life of embarrassment from the residents of Rennes le Chateau. You may think that I’m just complaining because it looked dumb. I’ll give you some good reasons to walk instead!
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Taking a picture of the train was too
embarrassing, so here's a photo of a gopher
(what we named the train). |
1) So slow it could’ve been pulled by a cat! Or worse... a gopher.
2) If you walk you are not ‘inconvenienced’. That is, you don’t have to duck every time you pass someone.
3) It’s FASTER to walk! (sorta)
4) So who designed and painted this again? What kind of investment WAS this?
5) A TGV train might have been a LITTLE more popular...
See? 5 good, logical reasons not to ride this train (affectionately named THE GOPHER by my brother). I hope this saves you a lot of money if you ever go here. Just ask my dad. He didn’t take a picture of the train because a) why would you want to? and b) he didn’t want to admit that he’d ridden it. Well, I guess 2 pages is enough to warn you.. I hope you don’t ride this stupid train if you ever find yourself at the town Rennes le Chateau.
Well, I hope you enjoyed these travel stories... I know they're dumb but maybe they made you laugh. I know this doesn't qualify as travel advice, although hopefully it gives you some insight into the culture of another country (even if aforementioned "insight" is given through experiences with feral cats that bite my brother).
Don't forget to
tell me which was your favourite story/experience in the comments section! Also, I'm not sure whether to give more travel advice and reviews of specific places, or stories and personal experiences. Let me know what you think; I'll be posting again in a couple weeks :)
PS: New video about how to and not to pack your suitcase will be coming out soon!
Best of Blog: This is basically a new feature on my blog that will help you find a post that interests you, based on what you want to learn about or where you may be going. For example, if you want to know about the best gardens to visit in Paris, you'll be directed to the "Luxembourg and Tuileries Gardens" blog post. I hope this makes it easier to navigate between posts that you'd like to read. Click HERE to read this page. 