Most embarrassing moment award of our Europe trip goes to ...

So by now, we are all back home. Rui is back in San Luis Obispo, Poon is back in Irvine, and I am now again sitting in my room back in Redondo Beach. As each of us start to readjust to our normal lives, I am sure that there will be lots of embarrassing stories told, both on this blog and in real life. With that being said, I thought I'd start out by telling you the most embarrassing one first.

Our entire trip lasted about 15 and a half days and throughout the trip, we each had ample opportunity to try and win the coveted "Most Embarrassing Moment" award. We each made a good effort to win the award while we traveled throughout Europe. We all had our fair share of public humility and so it was unclear about who would win. By the sheer number of entries, it was looking like Rui must have had a winner in there somewhere. However, it wasn't until we were back in the US, with only 6 hours left to go, that one of us decided to end all debate on the matter with a crème de la crème entry.

With just one more airplane ride to go, Poon decided that it was time to stop playing games and win the award once and for all. How could Poon just stay idle and let Rui be the victor? Poon decided to devise a plan so brilliant that even he was surprised when his plan finally materialized.

While we were waiting at the gate to board the plane, Poon decided it was time to unleash his master plan. A Hispanic mother of three was standing behind Poon. She tapped Poon on the shoulder and quietly said "You have paper on your back." Now Poon, being the entertainer that he is, decided that he wanted a larger crowd to witness his plan unfold and so "pretended" that he did not understand the lady. She again said "You have paper on your back" in a louder tone, which quickly brought Rui's and my attention to the unfolding situation at hand. Poon again "pretended" to not understand. She then said for a third time, while pointing at Poon's back, "You have paper on your back".

By this time, half of the people waiting to board the plane were aware there was something going on and so were all staring in Poon's direction. I finally understood what she was saying and so I told Poon to turn around so I could investigate the matter. Poon still "pretended" to not know what was happening and so I was forced to turn him around myself, so that I, and everyone else, could see his back. As I finished turning Poon around, we all finally understood what the lady had meant. About 3 feet of bright white toilet paper was coming from Poon's waist and dragging on the floor. The last sheet or two were crumpled together, evidence that they had gotten wet when the toilet was flushed.

It was at this moment that laughter erupted throughout our gate. It started from 4 very beautiful girls behind us, flowed through the crowd of men, women, and children, and then finally reached an elderly couple. Poon, still unaware of the situation, stood there puzzled. While Rui laughed uncontrollably, I informed Poon of the situation. Poon's puzzled face quickly turned a shade of red I did not think was humanly possible. Poon quickly took care of the toilet paper situation but by then it was too late. Like everyone else, I also erupted with laughter. As minutes passed, the laughter died down, but as soon as one of us heard a chuckle, the laughter was once again in full force.

It was at this time that they started to actually board the plane. They boarded our plane by zones, starting with First class, and then in increasing numerical order (starting with 1 and ending with 9). As fate would have it, we were zone 9, and so we stood there while others laughed and boarded the plane. First the hispanic mother and her children boarded, then the elderly couple, some men and women, and finally the 4 very beautiful girls. Each one of them left us with a smirk on their face knowing that they now had a story to share with their family and friends throughout the world.

The End.

-Ed

I put that paper there on PURPOSE!

-Poon

Heading Home

It's now 7:17am in the morning here in Madrid. We are heading home today. Our flight leaves at 1pm. I'm sad to know that our europe trip is over and that in a couple of days, we will be back doing the same thing that we did before we went on the trip. It will be nice, though, to have clean clothes again. Now only a metro ride and about a 15 hour plane trip till we get back to California.

-Ed


MADRID

Madrid was a nice city. We didn't have much planned. We stayed a block away from the famous "Gran Via" and "Puerta del Sol". We headed to the palacio real, crystal house and walked around a park. I bought stuffed bull for Kirby. Ate kahbab at a restaurant .... Where Ed fell in love with the cashier there. The next day we took 3 different metro trains to the airport. There were hookers all over hotel and we were propositioned by many.

Madrid airport was huge and security was very tight. Ed and I made it through security very easy... Rui on the other hand was hasseled. At the checkin line security hasseled him they demanded to see all the receipts from everywhere he had been through out Europe. Something we did not have... eventually they let him through. Apparently I appear to be a local as the security guard came up to me and said "traveling with Japanese friends eh"... "I responded oh there chinese".... his reply " There all the same"... "I busted up laughing".

Inside the airport gate... We suddenly hear over the loudspeaker "RUI XU please come to the gate immediately".... Rui gets taken by security and is led off.... 20 minutes later he is returned to us apparently he was forced to go through all the security checkpoints again... because he's from China. This concluded our time in Europe.

BARCELONA
It was not easy getting to Barcelona....

We had to book a plane from Milan rather than from Vencie. So we took the train from Venice to Milan. At Milan we had to take a bus shuttle to the airport... since Ryan Air doesn't fly out of Milan's main airport it flys out of orio airport. At the airport we checked painlessly. We boarded our plane which looked like the "low class" section in the movie Soul Plane. The entire plane was filled with soccer hooligans from Germany... apparently there was some big match.... They were chanting soccer chants the whole time at the top of there lungs. The flight attendents threatened to call the police if they didn't quiet down, and the pilot came out asking the same thing. This only encouraged the soccer hooligans to shout louder. The pilot himself appeared to be drunk and flew like it as well. I've never been in a plane that took off so steaply and landed shaking the wings back and forth. We made it safely to Girona airport.

Girona airport is about an hour a way from Barcelona. This was one of Rui's planned cities. So instead of taking the Barcelona Bus which takes us directly to Barcelona (1 hour ride).... Rui decided that we should take the Barelona Bus to the city of Girona then take a local train and then Barcelona metro... this took about 3 hours. We arrived at our hotel... where Ed tried to speak spanish... he has the worst spanish I have ever heard... EVER!

We went in search of a restaurant and found a nice place... which is where we realized Barcelona is cheap. 10 euros for a 4 course meal including alcohol. I had a very good lager.

We managed to see everything that barcelona had to offer... at the moment I don't remember the names... but any major attraction in Barcelona Ed and I at least saw it. Rui was lazy one night and went to sleep/picked up a hooker...

Venice

They say that Venice is one of the most Romantic cities in the world. Seeing as how we traveled there as a group of 3 males, I didn't find it all that romantic. The sights of the city, though, were amazing. We rode the Vaporetto (water bus) throughout Venice. Cars and motorcycles aren't allowed in Venice, so all the taxis and buses are all waterborne. We also went to an island right off of the main area of Venice called Murano. Murano is famous for it's glass artwork. We went to a glass making factory and saw a Master glass worker make a horse from a glob of molten glass in less than a minute. It was quite impressive. If it hadn't been for our hotel, I would have said that my experience with Venice was wonderful. Before we went to sleep we knew there were mosquitoes in the room, one would expect this being so close to the water. It wasn't until we woke up the next morning that we realized that there were also bed bugs. I, myself, was bitten about 15 times just on my face. All night long, I woke up swatting at what I thought were mosquitoes on my face. The bed bugs and mosquitoes made for a much worse experience than the mouse that was in our room at Amsterdam.

-Ed

Venice was a beautiful city. We started the day by checking in at our hotel, which was hidden away from the main streets of Venice in an alley way very close to the hotel. It appeared quite clean, we learned later that the place was anything but that.

Per the recommendation of the hotel front desk we headed to a restaurant that was a little further down the alley towards the main street. It was a very reasonable deal something like 12 euros for a 4 course meal. It was way too much food and we were forced to leave a lot of leftovers.

After this we took the Vaporetto to San Marco's Square/Bassilica via the Vaporetto. It was a 20 minute trip. Having traveled to Rome's Pantheon, Florence's Duermo, Paris' Pantheon, and the Cathedral of Notre Dame just days before, San Marco's Square and Bassilica seemed unimpressive.

Having nothing really on our schedule for the day we decided to take the Vaporetto to a neighboring island called Murano. Murano is where the world famous Venetian glass comes is made. The Vaporetto ride was very long. In fact all 3 of us fell asleep... luckily we woke up about 5 minutes before our stop or we would of missed it. We got off the boat and head to a glass making demonstration. It was amazing how quickly the glass maker was able to make a horse figuerine. Following this 10 minute demonstration we headed to the gift shop where Rui and Ed purchased items. Then we walked around the island of Murano looking into the various glass shops where I purchased a glass dog.

Next we decided we wanted to head to the grand canal, but not wanting to take another 1.5 hour long Vaporetto ride we decided to get off at the first Vaporetto stop on the main island and walk across the island. After a 10 minute ride we got off on the main island. I was tasked with navigating us to the Grand Canal.... this is not an easy task in Venice, many of the streets are not labeled, or end in dead ends into a canal. I pretended i knew where I was going and just started heading south. We made it to our destination... also having accidentally toured the entire city of Venice along the way. We started to get exhausted at this time and headed back to the hotel. That night Rui and I were tasked with buying bottled water. We searched the area around our hotel for a supermarket which is much cheaper than a bakery to buy water from. We searched for a half an hour and could not find a super market finally we bought water at a bakery. Later that night we went searching for dinner and ended up purchasing sandwiches from a small shop. These sandwiches were terrible.

The next day morning we boarded a train and began a day long journey to Spain.

Transportation was very expensive. 15 euros for a day pass on the vaporetto. Vaporettos are very slow. Around the main island its much quicker to walk then to take the Vaporetto. Food was cheap compared to paris, but expensive relative to the rest of Italy.

-Poon

Florence

The museums in Florence were not as impressive as the others that we have previously seen. They were quite small and with the exception of the Statue of David, everything that we saw did not seem to be quite as impressive as the Museums in Paris. However, the Uffizi museum was pretty cool because it housed works from all of the Ninja Turtles. The town of Florence is actually quite small. I liked the small town feel of Florence but on pretty much every street, there was dog poo. I felt like I was constantly in a mine field. If they could just get rid of all the feces in the street, Florence would be that much cooler. The food in Florence and (everywhere else we ate in Italy) was amazing. By far, the food we ate in Italy was the best we had on our entire trip.

-Ed

Rome

While in Rome, we did all the usually tourist stuff. We went to the Vatican, saw the Sistine Chapel, saw the Colosseum, saw the Pantheon, saw the Trevi Fountain, and ate Gelato (The first of 5 straight days eating Gelato). Some chick also tried to pickpocket me on the metro. I laughed at her though because I had nothing in my pockets. We also found a very cool family run Italian restaurant that had "Chef Benny" as the cook. The house wine was actually the best tasting wine that any of us had ever had. Plus, they had the grandfather (Pepe) chilling at the front door greeting everyone. He was very cheerful and was the one who grabbed us off the street to go inside and eat. We ended up going there for dinner both nights in Rome because the service was so good.

-Ed


Rome was another great city. It felt like we couldn't walk more than a couple blocks without seeing a famous fountain or building. The city is also relatively small so walking through the city is an option.... in fact one night we were forced to since the Metro closes at midnight.

We started the first day by visiting the vatican. we went to the very top of the basillica which was not an easy task. Then we toured the city and went to the spanish steps. We ate at a authentic restaurant, where I had the best white wine ever. I ordered a 750ml bottle of the house wine... unfortunately though Ed is allergic to wine so he had half a glass... and well Rui is a weakling I had to drink most of the bottle of wine by myself. After dinner we went to the Trevi Fountain and bought several wooden clocks from a clock shop near the Trevi Fountain and ate Gelato.

The second day we were forced to go back to the Vatican as yesterday the sistine chapel was closed and I demanded that we return to see it. The line was very long to get in. The sistine chapel was amazing when you first look at the ceiling it appears as though theres complex pillars built in, but then you look closer and realize that everything there is painted, but amazingly it all looks 3 dimensional. After the sistine chapel we headed ot the colisum. We used the trick of going to Palentine Hill to buy tickets and thus we were able to completely bypass the line to the colisium. We walked through the colisium then headed to the forum. We made the mistake of eating lunch at a tourist restaurant. The food was absolutely terrible and expensive.

After the colisium we walked to the pantheon and continued walking through the city. Ed hijacked us and made us walk back to the Vatican... he claimed there was a spot he had to take a picture at which was the exact symmetrical point. He said there was a circle there. We arrive at the vatican square and well theres like 10 circle things on the ground. We never did figure out the "symmetrical point". Later that night we decided to eat at the same restaurant for dinner again. We each ordered a pizza, which was not quite as good as the pasta. We walked the city again and got gelato at the same spot a very popular place with the locals. As we tried to board the metro we find that its closed so were forced to do a 2 mile walk back to the hotel.

The next day we boarded a 2.5 hour train to Florence.

-Poon

Paris (Update 4/11/08)

So it's been a while since we have had internet access. We are now currently in Florence, Italy. It's our last day here and I already feel like we have done everything. I don't think there is much else to do which is why we came back to our hotel to search the internet on things to do in Florence. But while I have some time, I figure I'll write a little about Paris.

First off, Paris is so far probably the best city that I've been to. The metros are very easy to use and the city has lots to see and do. The women all dress very well and I love them all. Whoever invented knee high boots should get a nobel prize or something of similar value. Now that I'm in Italy, I've noticed the food here is better than in Paris and from what I've seen, cheaper as well. Not to say French food isn't great. I may not have been eating the right things, as I can not read French and just ordered random items from the menu.

DAY ONE

On our first day in Paris, we visited a lot of sights. We first stopped by the Moulin Rouge. We chose to stop by in the day time because Poon said that area was shady at night and we could get jumped. After getting off the metro and standing in front of the Moulin Rouge, the area looked fairly safe and the Moulin Rouge looked quite unimpressive. It is definitely something you want to see at night while it is lit up.

We then walked down the Champ Elysees and grabbed a bite to eat at some pannini place. Luckily we stopped and ate because while we were inside the restaurant, it started to rain heavily. We watched the masses of people try to flee the storm as we happily drank our espressos. On a side note, Poon doesn't drink espressos with sugar, he drinks sugar with a hint of espresso. I can't believe how much sugar he can fit in such a tiny cup.

The Luxembourg Gardens were next on our list. The gardens are very tranquil and a pretty cool place to just hang out. I remember feeling pretty stressfree as we walked through and took pictures. There weren't many flowers blooming yet. I guess we just took our vacation a little to early. If I lived in Paris, I think I would visit the Gardens a lot.

The last place we went to was the Eiffel Tower. During the daytime, the Eiffel Tower is quite unimpressive looking. It's pretty much the same shade of brown all over and just looks plain. However, during the night, with all of it's lights on, it is very beautiful. Like us and every other tourist in Paris, going up the Eiffel Tower is on the to do list. This left us waiting in lines for about 3 hours trying to go up and down the tower. Waiting in line for 3 hours is bad enough, but we were stuck between two high school groups; one from Canada and one from the USA. They ended up singing each others National Anthems, trying to see who could be the louder group and we were stuck in the middle of it all. No wonder europeans have such a bad stereotype of Americans. I just tried to act like the typical Asian tourist, taking photos, so that I would not be mistaken for one of them. Rui just stood there and everyone already knew he was straight from China. Once we got to the top though, the view was quite nice. Pretty much all of Paris is lit up and you can see everything.

I think I'm going to nap now. I'm sure Poon will add more later.

-Ed

DAY TWO (added 4/11/08)

On our second day, we visited the Arc de Triomphe, Musee d'Orsay, and Notre Dame. Apparently, elevators weren't invented when the Arc de Triomphe and Notre Dame were built and so we had to walk to the top of both using "stairs". There weren't even escalators, can you believe it?

The Arc de Triomphe has a pretty good view of the city. We went there early in the morning and so there weren't too many people there. The Arc de Triomphe is surrounded by a large roundabout and on the day that we went, apparently Red Bull thought it would be a good idea to have some 50+ very attractive women drive some 50+ Red Bull Mini Coopers around in a circle. I enjoyed the sight but as one would think, this caused a huge traffic jam and the French police were soon at the scene. We left the Arc de Triomphe while watching the police give tickets to each Red Bull mini. After all the commotion that Red Bull caused, we didn't even get a free Red Bull. Damn them.

We then went to the Musee d'Orsay. Now art isn't something that I'm particularly knowledgeable about and so all I can say is that I saw some Monet's, Manet's, and Renoir's, being that those are probably the only three artists I knew there. Some of it was impressive, others were not. I pretty much define impressive by whether I can create the same thing or not. 20 foot tall landscapes... impressive, a statue made of stale bread... not impressive.

Our last sight was Notre Dame. Notre Dame was either the most or second most impressive cathedral we saw. There is so much to see, inside and out. The detail of every aspect of the cathedral is quite impressive. We even got to see the stairs leading up to where Quasimoto rescued Esmerelda.

DAY THREE (added 4/11/08)

For our last day in Paris, we decided to visit the Musee du Louvre. From what we have read, it takes about a week to see everything in the Louvre. We saw everything in about 5 hours. Maybe I don't appreciate art as much as I should, but when you see thousands of paintings, it's hard to know which ones to focus on. The Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and the Egyptian Mummies were the highlight of the museum. Every exhibit was pretty much packed except for one which we stumbled upon, the history of African Art. When we walked into it, it was completely bare of anyone, including the museum staff that usually watches guard to make sure we don't touch anything. I guess African Art isn't very desirable to see. We thought it was pretty cool though.

So after walking straight for about 7 hours we finally got on an overnight train that took us to Rome. We shared a coachette that had room for 6 people. When we entered the coachette, we noticed that there were only two beds and 6 seats. We wondered for a long time why there weren't 6 beds, being an overnight train and all. It wasn't until we woke up, an hour into the train ride, that an Italian couple showed us how to convert the 6 seats into 4 more beds. As we were being mesmerized by such an amazing act of ingenuity, the wife started to laugh at us because we didn't know there were more beds. They continued to laugh at us some more throughout the night as "other" things continued to happen.

-Ed


Paris

Day 1

The train from Amsterdam to Paris was suppose to be high speed. It turns out high speed trains in europe are not really very high speed at all. It was about a 4 hour train ride to paris. We had a little bit of trouble finding our hotel, but it wasn't too bad. Arriving at our hotel we began to realize that English is not commonly known in the city. The receptionist at the hotel did not speak English.

We took the metro to the Moulin Rouge.... This was not impressive at all. It looked like a run down vegas casino. After about 5 minutes we took the metro to the Arc de Triumphe which was very impressive. Walked down the Champ Elysees and stopped for lunch. We ate sandwiches at a local cafe... and surprisingly enough I had my first espresso. It was quite bitter, but then I figured out the perfect ratio for every one spoonful of espresso you need two spoonfuls of sugar.

After lunch we continued down the Champs Elysees then tooko the metro to Luxembourg Gardins. Ed seemed to be very impressed by it... but to me it looked like any other park with statues. I was impressed by the large palace and the pantheon located nearby. We went to a random cathedral which turned out to be beautiful and then we headed to the Eiffel Tower.

We saw the Eiffel Tower and decided to come back at night. We went ate at a local cafe. I figured out the best way to order food on a french menu was to twirl my finger around until it landed randomly on something affordable.

After dinner we went back to Eiffel Tower. Getting to the first level of the Eiffel Tower was very easy, but getting to the top is another matter. We waited in a two hour line to take the elevator to the top and then we waited for another 1.5 hours to go back down from the top of the Eiffel Tower. It is a very cold wait. This concluded our first day in Paris.


Day 2

Our stupid alarm clock (my cell phone) didn't go off... We woke up several hours late.
We headed to the Musee de Orsay... supposedly one of the world's finest museums. Really none of us know anything about art so... I can't say whether I agree with that or not. I will say that the museum is very poorly laid out since its a former train station, and was very difficult to navigate.

Following the Musee de Orsay we ate at a cafe behind the museum. The food was just Ok. I was very impressed at how dogs are allowed everywhere in france. A huge german shepard walks up to my table then goes to his right ful place behind the bar. This is a rather upscale cafe.

We went to the cathedral de Notre Dame. It was spectacular. I don't even know how to describe it... I think it was among my favorite things we saw in Europe. After touring the inside of the cathedral we decide to line up to go to the top. While we were in line Rui runs across the street and returns with a Crepe in his hand. A ham crepe of all things. He hands it to me then runs back across the street grabs another one then hands it back to Ed.. this repeated. It took Rui about 20 minutes to get 3 crepes for us... After the 2 hour line we finally get to enter the towers. We walk a couple stories and it ends in a gift shop. We are all pissed! Did we just wait 2 hours to go the gift shop. After about ten minutes of waiting in the gift shop we are informed that they are opening the area to continue up the towers. It is not an easy walk going through those towers. If you've ever seen a movie with stairs leading to dungeons thats what we walked through... about 15 stories of that.

After the cathedral we returned to our hotel and searched for an authentic French restaurant.... This was not an easy task... We walked for about an hour until we spotted Chez Papas. We ended up ordering 4 dishes that were basically stews. Food was not great, wine was even worst.

Day 3

The only thing on our itinerary for the day was the Louvre. We woke up late again thanks to my stupid cell phone alarm. We had museum passes so we never had to wait in line at any attraction. Ran through the museum, accidentally saw the Venus de milo... then ran the Mona Lisa. We wandered around for hours saw the egyptian mummy my only request. Then we decided to leave for lunch... but we couldn't find the exit.

Ed saw an exit and started trying to push through it only to be yelled at my a black women... I assume he was trying to take the emergency exit, but really we have no idea what she was saying.

After lunch Rui was too tired and he left to go sit on the bench for a couple hours, while Ed and I wandered some more. It turns out that the Louvre is part of an indoor mall so we stopped in the Virgin Records. We listened to French pop. I bought some french chocolate at the candy store next door and bought eclairs in a bakery, then we headed back into the Louvre where I fell a sleep on a bench.

Later that night we boarded our overnight train to Rome. For some reason apparently Ed doesn't know what a toilet looks like... I had to go to the bathroom so I asked Ed where it was as he had just returned. He points in a direction I head there ... but theres only a women's bathroom and a wash room. I come back and ask him again, he points me at the same direction. So I go back there and I really have to go so I just go pee in the women's bathroom. It turns out that Ed was very confused because he actually went into the wash room, which has no toilet at all and peed in the sink thinking that was a toilet... I don't know how he managed to get confused since it clearly looked like a normal sink.


-Poon