RoAd TrIp- Day 1

hey guys.. going to give day by day account of our trip... will end up being too long otherwise!

well the adventure began right after work on wednesday, where i managed to escape unseen with my bag, and hailed a cab to the airport. (mmmm note to self, getting a taxi to the airport in peak hour is not all that smart...) took about 30mins to get there after the cabbie decided to take me a short cut, along the wrong side of the road! then told me he was allowed to as it was taxi rules! not to sure about that... but i did managed to get there in one piece! he had some interesting stories... seems they can get arrested if the have someone who refuses to pay, and they take them to the police station, they get charged with kidnapping... not sure after all the stories if i'd actually want to be a taxi driver...

arrived at the airport and got totally confused trying to find where i had to check in... after lineing up in front of one counter, i got to the front to find that i was meant to be in a whole other building...had a bit of trouble locating the easyjet check in counter, and after having an amusing conversation with the checkin guy,and totally not understanding a word he was saying... (ie i said yes i was carying parcels for other people, and no i hadn't packed my ownbags! hahahahA... not the best answers they want to hear when flying!)checked in my backpack... somehow managed to take just a normal sized everyday backpack... go ali!

and headed into the actual airport...

out of all the airports i've been to, glasgow ranks up there as one that is less strict... no one was there checking bags etc

pretty much just walked on through, which i found strange for an international airport and all.. and had someone glance at my boarding pass as i went past... interesting..

flew down to london-stansted around 7pm... and arrived at 9pm... at the last minute i'd decided against sleeping at the airport and booked a hotel.. glad i did as there was nothing at stansted airport... and everything was already closed at 9pm for the night, and there was nothing in the check in area except a few uncomfortable looking seats...

met up with some germans, and a uk chick, and headed out to the short stay car park, where we were picked up by a shuttle bus and taken to the hotel for the night..must have been around 10 when we got there...

seemed the hotel we were meant to be in was overbooked, so they took us to their sister hotel right in town (and twice the price... though we got it for the original price!)

not a bad hotel... nice comfy bed, fantastic shower, with lots of goodies to steal!

somehow managed to get a few hrs sleep, before getting up bright and early thanks to a wake up call we'd arranged... and were picked up at 430am outside the hotel by the shuttle to take us all back to the airport...

arrived to a sea of people... strange to see at 5am! managed to find my checkin line without a problem this time! way more organised here and did get laughed at for my pronounciation of eindhoven....

lol

checked in my bag, and headed through to the waiting area and shops..

it makes me laugh people watching people going through the baggage check area...

there are those that really have no idea what's going on... like the lady directly in front of me... she was totally out of it...first she was asked to weigh her bag (which was a large suitcase....) and then it was put through the xray machine... and there must have been something in it, as it was put through again... the lady had alredy gone through the metal detectors, but in seeing her bag, being put through,decided to follow it, where ever it went... hahahaha.. and they were like... miss,miss,miss,

eventually they gave up and just gave her the bag back!

worked my way through the airport, they were doing alot of renovations, and alot of places were closed (that and it being extremely early)couldn't read my watch and ended up at the gate a whole hour before i was meant to be there, and had to stay there as i wasn't allowed back through towards the shops.....

but just sat and listened to my ipod and people watched...

there's so many different people out there in the world... it was fun trying to guess where people were going...

eventually got called and boarded the plane to eindhoven... the flight was relatively quick, only taking about 90mins, and 30mins of that was just waiting to take off. managed to score a window seat, weren't that many people on the flight either...the view was amazing... nothing like flying high above a country and being able to look down on the world... it was like playing with google earth... yet in real time, and the day was so lear you could see so far in any direction....

arrived at 930am (they're an hour ahead!) and got a message from Katie saying the were stuck in trafic and running late..so i had a look around the airport...

the airport was really cool, they had this area where you could sit and watch the planes take off and land, with just a glass window separating you from the plane... sat out there and enjoyed the sunshine!

met up with katie and alex around 10 where we set off in search off fuel and food, eventually found a supermarket, where we stocked up on food for the adventure, and cheap heineken beer!

nothing like seeing hundreds of bikes all lined up outside the train station... yep i'm in another country!

after stocking up we headed out of edinhoven towards Belgium, where we stopped in Brussells...i'd been told by D at work that there was a statue of a little boy peeing that was semi famous, and after looking that up in the guide book and finding it actually existed... it was the second thing listed as things to do in brussells, and it was described as "magically disapointing", avoid at all costs.... hahaha so of course we had to go visit!

it was actually called mannequin pis.. and was in fact rather dissappointing,

though funny! and i have to say it was an entertaining part of the trip....

disapointing in the fact that he was dressed, and had a camera round his neck, along with a newspaper under his arm..(which we found out later was normal, a they change his clothes often and he has about 300 outfits....)

we took our token pictures before checking out the shops...

bought my token keyring to remember the moment! ( i totally love my keyring!) hahahahaha

found this place selling awesome looking belgium waffles... mmm don't they look delicious...

and eventually found ourselves looking in the chocolate shops...

mmmmm yum..

tried this delicious cinnamon flavoured one... mmmm yum

headed back towards the car and stopped off at a pub to sample some belgium beer, i think it was called jupiter(the beer that is), it came reccomended by the bar tender, and was really good

back in the car and heading out of brussells and onward to France...

arrived in Paris around 6pm, and managed to find our classy hotel for the night!

and after mutalating the car on the way in and having and interesting game of charades with the guy on reception... managed to check in..

after dropping off our stuff, we headed out to explore a bit, ended up having chinese for dinner over in the mall across from the hotel...which was good... made better by the funny waiter, who felt the need to imitate the various dishes on offer!

headed back and decided to venture into the city to see paris at night...

got to love the sat nav... had we not had it in the car, i doubt we would have done as many things as we did... (everyone should have one they're awesome when they actually behave!)

our main aim was to see the eiffel tower all lit up at night, took a fair while for it actually to get dark, set off about 930pm into town and managed to navigate our way right to the bottom of the eiffel tower, with alot of help from the sat nav!

stopped right at the bottome of it and got out to take some pictures, before being approached by two scary looking guys holding huge guns, one look at them had us jumping back into the car and moving on a little, found a parking spot in amongst the coaches.

timed it perfectly as we got there just on the hour, every hour the tower flashes fo about 10mins.... and it just looks amazing flashing all over the place...

i think i could go visit the eiffel tower many times and still be amazed by it... it looks so surreal at night..

from there we headed up and along looking at all the nicey lit up buildings,

before i suggested a trip tothe arc de triomphe,now if any of you have ever been to Paris, then you'd know this is the notorious round-a-bout, where by anything goes, on the 10 lane round-a-bout...and all insurance companies refuse to insure you if th accident takes place here!

happy to say alex managed to successfully get round!!!!

yay

anyways after scaring poor katie on the round-a-bout! we headed back to the hotel...

had a few beers and called it a night...