Europa Trip part 2..London, Andorra, Marsailles, Toulouse..

ENGLAND
By Shasank Chavan

NOTE: THIS BLOG WAS POSTED BY MY FRIEND , SHASANK CHAVAN

We arrived in London on Friday morning. We spent our first two nights at Holiday Inn in Kensington. We hooked up with Rajal's friend Reene and her London friends Sumeena, BBC chick, and the DJ twins - very nice people - and went dancing at a local disco. The next day we went sightseeing, stopping off at the Tower of London, Westminister Abbey, Picadilly Circus and Leicester Square, etc. At night, we all went to a pre-party at Sumeena's house - the DJ twins were gonna spin at a club later on that night. Vikram and I hit up some pubs before the party. Pubs close at 11 in London, so we went to some late-night bars afterwards. It took us forever to find the club - we got off at the right underground station, but we ended up taking the wrong road to the club. Some Indian brothers working at a nearby hotel helped us find Club Wild on the Internet. The Indian party was really fun - we all had a great time. After the party, Vikram and I, both in a terrible drunken state, hopped around from one bus to the other that night, trying to find our way back to the hotel. The next morning we ate at Dino's, caught the train to Gatwick, and got on a flight to Toulouse, France.

Andorra

By Shasank Chavan

We arrived in Toulouse Sunday afternoon around 4pm. While retrieving our bags, the airport security decided to shut down the freak'n airport - I got lucky and found my bags at the last possible moment. Left stranded outside, we had no money (no Euros - only US dollars and British pounds) and no bus reservation to Andorra. We soon learned that all the buses to Andorra were booked! When the airport opened, Vikram went in search for a money exchange office, while Rajal and I tried to find some possible means of getting our butts to Andorra that night. We were told that there was 1, and only 1, other bus/van that travelled to Andorra from the airport - the locals often used it. We met the nutty french/spanish bus driver, established our itinerary, paid the man, and voila! - we were off! On the bus with us were 3 ladies from Andorra named Pilar, Carmen, and a woman we respectfully refer to as the Minister of Education. They were sooo nice to us - they hooked us up with a discounted room at the Hotel Flora in Andorra La Vella (the country's capital). We had a wonderful time gab'n away with these ladies. When we arrived at our hotel late that night, we said goodbye to our companions, put our bags in the room, and wandered off in search for food. We found a restaurant called Papanico's and ate some really delicious tapas. We woke up early Monday morning, packed our ski gears, and caught a bus to a ski resort in Arcalis. The weather was superb up in the mountains. Rolling hills, luscious greenery, picturesque creeks and narrow rivers. The snow level was low, but we had fun skiing in the slush. Vikram and Rajal struggled to manage the rope lifts that dragged you up the mountain. I fell enough times on the blacks to create my own trail. In the center of this beautiful, peaceful country is a huge, state-of-the-art spa resort called Caldea. They got like 10 different Greek baths and freak'n butternut-squash flavored pools and stuff like that. Really fancy. We were gonna go, but we decided to eat instead. Andorra is a beautiful country. It's very small - about 30 miles wide - and has only 65000 residents. The atmosphere is calm, quiet, and serene. We were there for only a day and a half, but it was absolutely amazing. And to be able to say that we ski'd on the Pyrenees mountains - you just can't beat that!

Toulouse, France

By Shasank Chavan

We left Andorra early Tuesday morning and made our way back to the Toulouse Airport. Rajal and I bid Vikram goodbye (his vacation ended here), and we caught a bus heading towards downtown Toulouse. We stayed in Toulouse for 3 days and nights. We spent most of Tuesday eating various french mediterranean dishes, visiting old romanesque churches like the basilica Saint Sernin, and strolling across Place du Capitole and other large squares. At night we met some really cool girls at a french viet. restaurant - they told us which pubs to go to at night. A few of them were located near the river Garonne - we went to them, drank a little, walked along the river and across the bridge, and then went home. A huge open market is held every Wednesday in the Place du Capitole. We went there and did a little shopping. We wanted to rent scooters that day and drive around the city. All the places that we went to, however, had no more bikes to rent. We ended up going into a library, out of curiosity, and met this wonderful librarian - an older woman, standing all but 4 feet tall, but cute as a button! We wanted to know if there were any jazz clubs in Toulouse. She told us of a festival going on in the city called the Festival of Laugh, where there would be music and drinks and lots of entertainment. Rajal and I went and had a great time hang'n with the locals. At night we went to a disco/bar called Texas Cafe, where we met Marie Anne and her older over-protective sister. We had a lot of fun talking to them for most of the night. Turns out that the over-protective sister owned the bar! She started hook'n us up with drinks left and right. We exchanged email addresses afterwards and took off. We left for Marseilles Thursday morning and came back to Toulouse Friday evening. We ate dinner at Bistro Romaine in the Place du Capitole, and then went back to the Texas Cafe. We met the two sisters again that night - they gave us restaurant t-shirts for us to remember them by. When the club closed at 2, Rajal and I joined this Algerian chick and her friends and headed off to Club Purple! The Algerians got us into some V.I.P section on the dance floor. Craziness. The whole night was just high energy. We finally left the club at 4am. Things got more crazy when we realized that our freak'n plane back to London was scheduled to leave at 7am! Rajal and I packed our bags when we got back to the hotel, and were just about to leave, when we realized that we didn't have enough Euros left over for the Taxi ride to the airport! Uggh! We somehow found a taxi driver who would take US dollars, however, and we were off. It took us the rest of Saturday to de-tox from the night before. You just had to be there :)

Marseilles, France

By Shasank Chavan

Rajal and I thought it would be fun to take a day-trip to Marseilles. We caught an early morning train out of Toulouse and arrived in Marseilles around 4pm. As usual, we had no plans, no itineray, no nothing. The tourist office at the train station hooked us up with a cheap room at Hotel Alexander located in the center of the city. We spent the day walking around Rue de Rome. Rajal bought some crazy, off-the-wall shirt from Brice, while I stayed within character and bought a classy, beige, European-esque sweater. We had falafals for dinner at this Egyptian hole-in-the-wall restaurant. The owners were really cool - we talked with them about the war and stuff and anti-american sentiment. Their advice was - "Don't tell anyone you're American". For entertainment, we went to a few bars - one featuring live jazz and the other featuring live rock-and-roll. The jazz bar was phenomenal. Really cool atmosphere, nice people, and excellent music - boy can that kid play the piano. The rock-and-roll bar was hilarious. French dudes sing'n American classic rock tunes - very interesting. We left just as things were getting rowdy. The Vieu Port (New Port) is a really happening place to be - lots of bars, shops and restaurants, all enclosed within a fair amount of history. Rajal and I decided to wake up early the next morning and sight-see. The tourist office gave us a self-explantory sight-seeing book to help us visit various parts of the old city. With Rajal as my trusty tourguide, we set off on a two hour journey, paying homage to Napolean's old fort and home, among other things. We then took a bus up to the top of a hillside to see the famous basilica Notre Dame de la Garde. The view from up there is gorgeous. We had lunch at an Indian restaurant called Ganesha. The owner there told us that there were only 25 Indian families in Marseilles. The Indian food was so delicious, I think I would have to put it up there in the top 5 - it was sooo good! After lunch, we hopped on a train and took off back to Toulouse.