Traveling is the great true love of my life

Still, despite all this, traveling is the great true love of my life. I have always felt, ever since I was sixteen years old and first went to Russia with my saved-up babysitting money, that to travel is worth any cost or sacrifice. I am loyal and constant in my love for travel, as I have not always been loyal and constant in my other loves. I feel about travel the way a happy new mother feels about her impossible, colicky, restless newborn baby - I just don't care what it puts me through. Because I adore it. Because it's mine. Because it looks exactly like me. It can barf all over me if it wants to - I just don't care.

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Bisou, bisou.

Photograph found here.

BEDA #23 - Weather Stories

Off the top of my head, I only have one good weather story which you can read here in detail.

Long story short, last December I was meant to travel to Amsterdam by plane but the whole of Europe was being attacked by snow. We had to stop in Paris which wasn't so bad at all, we caught the TGV to Rotterdam and from there we drove four hours in the snow when it should have only taken us two hours to get to my grandma's house. It took me 24 hours to get from Lisbon to Holland.

Sorry, I don't really feel like blogging these last few days.

Tomorrow's theme: Favorite Childhood Books

Bisou, bisou *

* Photograph found here.

BEDA #14 - Travel

Even the word makes me all giddy with happiness inside. I love traveling, it's most definitely one of my top favorite things to do and I grab a chance to do it whenever I find one. I think it's so important to get to know the planet you live in, the people who live on it and see and explore what you had no idea existed.

It's a beautiful thing to do. First of all, packing! Ah, it's fantastic. If you're like me, you make lists in order to keep track of everything you want to bring with you (essentials: a camera and lots of memory sticks with big capacity and never forget to pack your charger; a book and/or an mp3 for the journey if you're going by plane; so much more stuff, but these are my basic ones) and place them all neatly inside your luggage.

Next: airports! If I'm going by plane I get all excited, I love airports and airplanes and everything that goes with it. The little boutiques, the ridiculously overpriced food, the bargains you can find if you have a good eye, watching flight attendants make their way to the gates... it's a wonderful thing. I would definitely go to airports just to watch, I'm so fascinated by them. I would be the female Viktor Navorski, only without a civil war back home (yet) or a denied visa. I actually wouldn't mind being a flight attendant even though most of the time you can't really explore the city you're landing in. Speaking so many languages, wearing a nice uniform, flight discounts! What isn't exciting about that?!

Next: road trips! Ah, I love them. Luckily, I've been on quite a few in my life. I've always gone with my parents and we've been as far as... I'd say Germany, by car. The great thing about road trips is that you can just stop whenever you want, take pictures, have a picnic, stay where you want to stay. RVs are even better. I remember my trip to Canada back in July 2006, it was the best trip of my life so far. We went out there by plane after stopping in Heathrow and we stayed with my aunt and uncle, who live there in Calgary, for two days and then we rented an RV and in the following two weeks we explored Alberta and British Columbia (and Vancouver Island!) as much as we could. Those moments are priceless.

Next: hotels! If you're staying in one, it's amazing. I love hotels. I wanted to become a hotel manager a few years ago, but yes, Maths ruined that dream for me. I always take stuff with me, especially little notebooks, sweets, sometimes shampoos, pens, pencils, it's all so awesome!

I'm so passionate about traveling. I've been to most European countries and, like I said, to Canada.  I love Paris and New York (one of my biggest dreams is to go to NY). The following countries are the top 10 I want to visit really badly: USA, England (the UK in general, really), Italy (going there this summer!), Greece, Kenya, India, China, Australia, The Bahamas, Cuba. And Turkey.

One of my other big passions are meeting new people, especially people from around the world. I have lots  of amazing friends on the Internet scattered around the world. I would love to have a typical american road trip through every single state (t-shirts from every state would be obligatory) with the lovely people I've met, especially Kim and Ashley because I'm always talking about traveling with them and because I love them so much. Hopefully I'll make it to Florida in 2011!

I could go on and on about traveling and I wouldn't stop. A part of me wishes that I could travel all my life. Just go, just travel, just go places, just travel the world, explore the wonderful place I live in, turn my life into a never-ending spiritual trip so I could find myself. Buying only food and Moleskine notebooks and a few stationary (and maybe a GPS would help?) so I could document everything. The least I can wish for is to earn enough money to travel. If I don't, I'm sure I'll become a very, very sad person, because traveling is a part of me. Getting to know this world is a part of me.

Until tomorrow!

Bisou, bisou *
* Photos 1 and 2.

Day 27: Versailles, Eiffel Tower, the Seine and Notre Dame

It was the first big day. We left the hostel bright and early (naturally, I didn't forget my beret) and after the flustered teacher told us the way, we went inside the "surface subway" (which to me is a train, but whatever) and off we went.

It was horrible weather. Rather, the weather was awful the whole time we were there. There was rain, wind, clouds... The sun? It stayed back in Lisbon. We arrived in ice cold Versailles and that wonder smacks us in the face. I'd never been there before (I should mention that the last time I was in Paris, before the trip I'm reporting now, was in 1998) and I thought it was breathtakingly stunning. And naturally, the prestigious gardens, there are no words that will do them justice.

After a quick lunch we headed back into town and, finally, I fulfilled my lifelong wish of climbing the Eiffel Tower. I didn't know you had to stop on the second floor, wait, and only then climb until the last one. That transaction took about an hour and a half (or more). Cold, mizzle, wind and everyone was so far up on one of the most beautiful monuments in the world. Yes, I was very lucky. After inumerous ahhhs and ooos and this is gorgeous, after the obligatory photographs of every angle of Paris, after a small tantrum (I was going to write bitch fit) caused by not wanting to leave, we left. This time towards the Seine.

Ah, how it's beautiful. I was sorry that we didn't make the whole route, but it was enough. The passage between the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame on those funny bateaux mouches was another dream come true. It's not every day that you're on a boat in the middle of the Seine, that you pass by the Louvre, by the Alexandre III bridge, by the typical parisian buildings that give me the oh-my-god-I-want-to-live-her-so-much-and-see-this-for-the-rest-of-my-life feeling, and stopping in Notre Dame.

It's incredible, I see so many photographs taken in 1998 in various locations that I also visited last year and I don't remember it. Yes, I was six, but I thought I'd remember a bit more of it. I only remember the little episode where one blister found its way to my feet and we couldn't do anything but getting inside a taxi and wander around the streets of Paris looking for a shoe shop (and I came out of one with slippers, even when I was six I already had a great style, you see? I wonder, where are those memorable slippers?).

The inside of Notre Dame disappointed me. The interior can't compete with the exterior, it's impossible, but it doesn't stop being admirable.

Paris, tu me manques beaucoup.

Bisou, bisou *

* Every photograph taken by me.

Day 26: La Bastille et La Défense

I thought about it all day. I remember counting down the days two or three months before the trip. And now here we are, one year later. Every hour I kept saying, a year ago, we were there! A year ago, we were landing! A year ago we were already at the airport! A year ago we were already taking photos in La Défense! I could tell my friends were a bit annoyed by this, but I knew they missed it as well.

A year ago, I woke up at 6am, I was at the airport by 7:30am and at 9am I was already on the plane (between these last two we managed to take a photo with a famous football player. A year later, today, we managed to meet an even famous football player from the same team, the world is funny). When we arrived, I could smell that humid and Parisian scent filling up my lungs. As soon as we arrived we immediately went to our hostel rooms in Maurice Ravel (one of the worst experiences of this trip, I'll explain why as I post blogs), two or three people in each room. I changed and there we went, off to the métro de Paris, directly to la Bastille.

We hopped to McDonald's, hopped to Starbucks and then we took another subway to la Défense. I had never been there and, honestly, I didn't even know what it was or what existed there. I was dazzled with the modern buildings, they were so aesthetically beautiful. The fact that Paris is so symmetrical, every monument being so close to the other, almost in a straight line, it's a quality that pleases me even more. We can see the l'Arc du Triomphe from la Défense, isn't that amazing?

Can't you see me so happy radiant?

Paris, tu me manques beaucoup.

Bisou, bisou *

* All photgraphs were taken by me.