Travel
Disneyland
Monday, June 6th, 2011 at 19:14 | categories: Travel
Even though I’ve been back in Finland for a day now, I still have a couple of things that need to be written. After visiting Paris for a few days, we headed out to Disneyland some 30km from the city. I’d found a good deal for the tickets on eBay saving around 25e per ticket, altho spending that much at the park is no problem.
The park’s theme is, well, Disney stuff, but some of it is pretty creepy. One of the boat rides goes through a fantasy land where all kinds of puppet people sing a happy tune. If they had dimmed the lighting and introduced some slightly out of tune harmonies, I would’ve been properly scared.
Some of the bigger rollercoasters were pretty cool though, some were going 360 in all sorts of ways. If you don’t feel like waiting, you can get a Fastpass ticket which gives you a time slot when you can get ahead of the line, which is pretty convenient.
While the majority of people were families with small kids, there were a lot of couples in their 20’s and 30’s. Actually, the people without kids seemed to be enjoying the most as all the kids seemed to be crying and their parents looked like they wanted to murder them.
On a side note, it’s funny but even after being in summery conditions for quite a while now, it only feels like proper summer once I came to Finland. And yes, it’s actually warm here, believe it or not!
A stunt show
Magical, but not revolutionary
Paris, je.. crois que vous etês ok
Friday, June 3rd, 2011 at 21:06 | categories: Travel
It’s taken ages to write this one, but here goes. On Wednesday last week I headed up to Paris and met my gf there. We had booked an apartment through ahparis.com, and everything went smoothly. The place was located pretty perfectly as it took around 7 minutes to walk to the Notre Dame and the Louvre.
The weather was great the first day after which the temperatures plummeted well under the 20C mark. Even with the not so nice weather we wandered around the city and noticed that if you don’t feel the urge to wait hours in lines to go and see the Mona Lisa or get on top of the Eiffel tower, it’s possible to see a lot in three days. I got to see pretty much everything I wanted apart from the Arc de Triomphe–but one can always just Google that. Instead, I got to experience random schlager singers in the metro and supposedly mute people trying to rip off tourists. Actually, maybe the local police was Jesus, because after a brief encounter with the officer one of the mute ones miraculously started talking!
All in all I did like Paris a lot, but with all the hype around it you still feel a bit disappointed. I think three days isn’t enough, and that the city has more to offer than a couple of famous buildings if only you knew where to look.
Art shops by the Seine
The tower
A metro stop
Me by the Sacré-Coeur
Seine by night
The gf, vol. 2
The Notre Dame (to photography people, not a HDR pic, just looks like one!)
Turtles and a dude in Jardin des Plantes (animals in a plant garden?)
Picard Surgeles has a cool concept: a supermarket that sells only frozen food
Diggin’ the pubbin’
Sunday, May 15th, 2011 at 10:34 | categories: Travel
While I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time in the Riviera, there’s something about the British culture that seems to fit my mindset. I visited my hometown friend in Bristol just after the trip to Oslo, having been home (well, my French home) for about 15 hours in between. A direct EasyJet flight from Nice to Bristol during the off-season shouldn’t set you back more than 40 euros. At the moment the prices seem to be almost tripled, though, probably due to the Cannes film festival.
Bristol is a city with a population of around 433,000 characterized by loads of old churches and concrete houses built in the 60’s after the damages of WWII. Even the newer ugly houses often have a British pub-kinda vibe to them, as some of the facades are covered with a wooden surface painted black or dark green. There’s also a floating harbor with a few pub boats, one of which had an open mic session on Friday where we performed some Finnish music.
In addition to Bristol I got to see a place by the sea called Weston-super-Mare, which for some reason looked a bit like Coney Island with old looking ice-cream parlors and random gambling machines. The views were nice, but the totally brown water was a bit less compelling than the clear turquoise Mediterranean counterpart. We also visited Bath, which is an old spa city founded by the Romans back in AD 43 and even got to taste the hot spring water. It was warm and tasted funny.
River Avon (Avon means river in Welsh, so River River)
Bristol Cathedral and a dude
In Weston-super-Mare
Fish & Chips
The Finnish company
Hey, let's cross the bridge! Splash. Hey, let's not cross the bridge!
The Royal Crescent in Bath
Musical performance
In Norway
Tuesday, May 10th, 2011 at 9:01 | categories: Travel
After the trip to Italy it only made sense to fly to Oslo, Norway. Since the flights in Europe are so affordable nowadays and I seem to have time to spare at the moment, it’s nice to go around and see places. Of course having a girlfriend in Oslo made this particular decision a little bit easier.
I thought it would be cold and miserable in the land of fjords, and at first that’s how it was. After a couple of days it changed totally and the temperatures were well over 20C. I found my thick sweaters a tad too much.
It’s funny how one starts to see the differences the other way too, not only what’s strange in France compared to the Nordic countries. For example, there’s a lot more public benches to sit on in the Riviera. Although for a sporty person like I am that doesn’t really matter.
A castle in Oslo
Cinque Terre
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011 at 23:00 | categories: Travel
During the time my parents were in Antibes most people I got to know returned to their homes, and the following weekend pretty much every one else did the same. However, the American dude is still here for a month and so we felt we needed to come up with things to do. He had heard good things about a place called Cinque Terre and without thinking about it too much we decided to go.
The following morning we hopped on a train in Juan-les-Pins and 6 hours later got into Riomaggiore, one of the Cinque Terre’s towns. We had to change the train in Ventimiglia and Genova.
Map
While every single person you see on the streets seems to be an American tourist in the area, the scenery really makes the place worth a visit. As the name implies, Cinque Terre consists of five little towns built close to each other. Tourists travel between the towns either by train, boat or by hiking pathways that have in my estimation about a gazillion stairs. As one hiker we bumped into put it, it’s ridonculous.
Since we didn’t really plan the trip at all, finding accommodation proved to be challenging at first since all the hostels and hotels were fully booked way in advance. We were already planning on sleeping under the stars when we realized there were lots of rooms for rent in all towns. We slept the first night in Manarola and the second in Corniglia.
The experience would’ve probably been better off-season, but even with all the tourists Cinque Terre was definitely worth the visit.
Riomaggiore
They tried and they failed
Manarola
Yes mother, I was athletic
Eddy was trying to keep up with my pace. Turns out he could. Easily.
Vernazza
A philosophic moment
