ESL Blogs

It has been a while since I write anything. Reading my friends' blogs made me wonder how do people keeps on having an idea what to write. Simple thing such an adventure in the kitchen (Mickey's Adventure in the Kitchen) and old tree (Mickey's Sentimental Old Tree) can be turned into interesting blogs. An orange (Viviana's Orange in the Brain - short poem)and an ice cream (Adlet's Ice Cream Tragedy) can be turned into poems. I like writing my travelling experiences. It was easier, putting my experiences into words.

In 2011, my friends and I decided to travel to Europe. We had been planning and planning and planning for this travel, but time and money were not on our sides. We decided to travel semi-back pack. It was a big decision. Three single ladies trying to semi-back pack. What do I meant by semi-back pack? Well, we did not intent to go to places without confirmed accommodations, that was one thing, and another one was that it was just for 10 days.  But we intended to travel to a few cities, Dublin, London and Paris. We know where we wanted to go, but we did not sure how to reach between these cities.

Our first stop was Dublin, Ireland. We chose it because we had a friend staying there for a long time and it had been years since we saw her. Dublin was small for a city. It still oozed a country charms.

While in Dublin, we decided to take a day-tour to Belfast, North Ireland. We bought our tour ticket and were so excited to visit the Giant Causeway Coast. It was a unique rock formation of which seemed to be interlocking with each other.

From the Giant Causeway Coast we went to the City of Belfast. When we entered the City Centre, the city was very quiet. Most of offices and businesses were closed. We were very surprised and felt something was amiss. Then we were told by the Tour Guide that due to unforeseen circumstances, we had to leave the City Centre a bit early. It seemed that was the day of the end of Marching Season. He was afraid that our bus would be caught in the middle of the conflict. Even though we left the City of Belfast earlier than expected, we still enjoyed our tour to the Northern Ireland.

To go to London, we decided to take a ferry from Dublin and then take a train from Hollyhead in Wales to London. Even though the journey took us nearly half a day and cost us more than a flight ticket, we enjoyed the journey and scenery. The country sides of Wales and England were beautiful.

In London, we went to nearly all the famous places, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Oxford Street, The London Bridge (even though in reality it is not a London Bridge), Eye of London and other places. Too many to name them in here. But we were disappointed not to be able to watch the Changing of Guards at the Buckingham Palace. The infamous rain of England decided to open up on that day. We were quite surprised when we were in Oxford Street that it seemed English was the second language spoken among the people in there.

From London we took the train to Paris. The journey was smooth and we did not even realised that we had been through the English Tunnel.  In Paris, we went shopping crazy. We went to the famous Champs-Élysées and went from one famous boutiques to another, though truthfully it was more of window shopping rather than shopping itself. Most of items there were too expensive and beyond our limited budget.

A funny thing happened when we were there. I was looking for a Longchamp Boutique, but after walking back and forth and from one boutique to another, we still cannot find it. Finally we decided to ask one sales personal in of the boutique the location of the Longchamp Boutique. With our limited French words, well, we only know how to say "s'il vous plaît" and "merci", and his limited English, we managed to get the location of "The Longchamp". 

It seemed it will be a long walk from Champs-Élysées, but since the weather was nice, we decided to walk and enjoy Paris. During our walk, I had to use the Public Toilet. OHMY. I was being confronted with an awkward situation. I saw men and women were in the same queue to use the toilet. It seemed in Paris, the "equality" concept also meant that men and women had to use the same public toilets even in the shopping complexes. No segregation. All of us were debating whether we were comfortable with the situation. But nature won. Though, I never felt so in a rush to finish my business before in my whole life.

We managed to enjoy the view of Louvre Museum, though we did not enter it. After quiet sometimes and tiring walk, we finally found "The Longchamp". We were surprised and speechless. "The Longchamp" that we thought as "The Longchamp Boutique" was in fact "The Longchamp Cafe". At that time we were too tired to appreciate the irony and funny side of the whole situation. But nowadays, when we got together and talked about our European trip, we were always laughing about that incident.

On our second day in Paris, we took the boat excursion of River Siene. It was raining, but we ignored the rain and enjoyed the boat ride. The view from the Siene River was really awesome with. I was looking left and right and trying so hard to catch all the historical buildings. Then, for the final visit, we visited the most famous steel structure in the world, the Eiffel Tower. I was not too sure why it was so famous before, but once I was on that tower, WOW, the 360 degree view was breathtaking. 

When it was time to leave Paris and meant the end of our vacations, I wish I can extend it longer. I promised myself that in the near future I will visit these cities again.