Best. Fireworks. EVER.

Here we go:

Roma

Pompeii

Firenze (i.e. Florence)

Pisa

Cinque Terre (I can do this… Riomaggiore, Manorola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterroso)

Nice

Monaco/Monte Carlo

Venezia (i.e. Venice, via Padova)

Innsbruck

Salzburg

Munchen (i.e. Munich)

Paris

Versailles

Amsterdam

London

So these are all the places I went on my trip. I tried to put them up there with their actual names, weird English variations in i.e. parentheses. I cannot for the life of me figure out why we say “Florence” when its “Firenze”.

Right, so I’m back in Montreal, where there’s a whirlwind of things to do, send me good wishes to get it all done. I’m moving today, but my new roommate is very kind and is helping me so it should be fine.

To the post title. When I started formulating this post in my mind, which must have been 2 weeks ago now, it had the title “Worse. Parade. Ever.” On July 14^th, which was Meghan’s birthday (a traveling companion, for those out of the know), but it was also Bastille day and we were in Paris, the best place to celebrate France as a country. The day started very early with us walking downtown to the parade, which we though started at 8:30 but really started at 10:30, and so we were standing in a huge crowd of people until noon. Long time. The problem with the parade was that you’d normally expect marching, but there was this ridiculous “inspecting of the troops” which takes for frickin ever and parts of the “parade” didn’t happen where we were standing, although some things did. And all the marching, once we finally got to it (we weren’t sure if the French got the whole point of marching in a parade, but they do, just much delayed) it was fine, all the different sorts of troops and stuff. The coolest thing was that the aircrafts flew over and the first 3 planes spat out red blue and white cloud and made a French flag in the sky. Also, at the end some paratroopers dropped out of the sky.

Ooh, more importantly, I fell in love at the parade. There was this gendarme who was incredible GORGEOUS, and packing heat. I kept staring at him, I wish I had the nerve to take a picture of him, or whistle at him, or something, but you don’t want to be too daring around a bunch of guys with guns. But seriously, in love.

Anyway, back to the fireworks, we watched the fireworks from the bottom of the Eiffel Tower, and they were the best I have ever seen. Last year I saw the Canada Day fireworks in Ottawa, which are most likely the best for Canada, but in Paris it was way better. It was really long, and the fireworks were set to music, I can’t even describe why they were so amazing. But getting on the metro after that was so insane, people were getting squished and trampled, and I got molested by this guy behind me, but we made it home safely so that’s all that matters.

Many more things to tell, but I have to finish packing my crap now. I’ll get to the pictures soon, I hope.