A Trip of Four Countries - Germany, Switzerland, France
and England by: Barbara de Briere
Europe, as much as I loved it. Going
between 3 different languages in 9 days was confusing. By the time we
got to England I believed I would be able to freely speak English. Not
the case. England is as big a melting pot as NY, and even the English
were a bit slow with my ‘accent’. So, I was quite relieved when I took
my final taxi ride (with my foreign driver) to Heathrow airport to come
home. I am lucky that I made it home safely though. He drove 80 mph in a
40 the whole way, while he tailgated anyone who got in his way. I
actually cried from fear. He had to have been from New York.
But, let me start from the beginning — happier times. (This kind of
sentence usually precedes a long story, so if you have a life to live,
I’d hit delete right now)
I
had a 4-hour layover in Cincinnati (Did you know that the Cincinnati
airport is actually in Kentucky?), so plenty of time to Shop at the duty
free store and spend all of my trip money. When I arrived in Frankfurt
Germany,
our tour guide was waiting for me with a sign and asked me if I was
Barbara the Movie Star. (Tim - my cousins, little embellishment but I
went with it. Who was harmed?) We took off for Heidelberg Germany where we went
to the castle, and then we were forced to shop for about four hours before
dinner. All any of us wanted to do was sleep. I had a great cup of
coffee in a cute café though and watched the locals relax and enjoy the
company of friends. In LA, when you see people in cafés relaxing with
friends you can be sure that they’re either NOT relaxed (we are all
actors, and all in a mad rush) or they’re tourists.
So, after 48-hours of no sleep, we slept. My roommate was very cool, so
most of the evenings we stayed up and chatted too late, even that first
night.
The next day I went for a run in the morning, mainly because it’s a
great way to see the city. It’s the perfect pace and nobody thinks
you’re a tourist. What tourists are up at 6:00am? People were waking up,
church bells were sounding and I was the only one who got to ‘go into
the city’ and get a feel for the town - (Our hotel was right off the
motorway — not very scenic)
By 8:00 we were off
for Switzerland. We stopped off at a cool castle on the Rhine River for
an hour. I was the only one who went to the Castle because it was about
1/2 away. I ran to and from the castle order to make it back in time.
It was a long drive to
Switzerland so when we finally made it to our hotel, it was dark. We
stayed close to a huge Abbey/ Monastery, so I ran over and checked that
out before dinner. Astounding. The churches are the coolest thin9s the
Europeans have going for them, in my opinion. After dinner, we put the
kids in their rooms and then some of the adults gathered downstairs in
the hotel lounge for some ~adult time’ and had beer or wine. The Swiss
have the best wine, but I can’t find it for sale anywhere in the US or
on the web, so I’m guessing they just slapped their labels on some
French stuff.
It was snowing the next
morning, but I tried to jog anyway. I didn’t know when I’d get to see it
snow in Switzerland again, much less jog in it. I kept slipping on the
icy ground
so I decided to just walk after 10 minutes of nearly falling. I didn’t want to bust my head open in a
foreign land. The next day we went into Lucerne for a tour of the city.
Lucerne was one of my favorite places on the tour.
We stopped for lunch at
a nice little out-of-the-way Swiss restaurant for some Indian &
Italian food. I then shopped for all of 10 minutes for a watch. I
ended up getting a Swiss Military watch instead of a Swiss Army watch,
which I guess is like a Folex instead of a Rolex. Woops. It’s still made
by some Swiss guy, just in a back alley somewhere - that’s all. Next,
some of us had decided to go on a tour up Mount Pilates (Pontius Pilate
died here) where we would sled down some of the mountain on a garbage
bag. Again, I didn’t know when I’d get to sled down the Alps on a
garbage bag next, so I went. I tried to slide just on my rear — no bag,
just to see if it’d work. It didn’t really. I just kind of tumbled and
got snow in my socks.
We left the next day
for France. Long drive again. The streets were so narrow near where we
stayed in Paris that the bus couldn’t drive us to our hotel. So all 41
of us had to hike it up the cobblestone mountain dodging the crazy
French drivers, while pulling behind us our wheeled suitcases (Bless the
wheeled-suitcase inventor) with the extra 25 lbs of souvenirs that we
had accumulated by now. We stayed in the Sacre Coeur area by the
Montmartre, or Painters Square.
Next morning, I went
for a jog. This was by far the best excursion of the trip. I got to see the Parisians waking
up and opening shops up. People were out walking their pets and driving
through the narrow streets. Not the tourists though. The Sacre Coeur (A
gothic style church that overlooks Paris) was open, so I went in and
checked it out. I think I was one of the few people in our group that
saw it only because I did my own ‘running’ site seeing tours.
The rest of the day we
spent in or around the Eiffel tower/ Louvre area. At the end of the day,
I bought an Eiffel tower key chain from one of those knick-knack pimps,
and told myself, ‘If this is the last Eiffel tower I ever see, I will
die a happy tourist.’ We did the guided ‘Paris bus tour’ for 3 hours. We
shopped near Printemps for another few hours. (Not far from the
tower) The
nicest part was our walk to the Louvre along the Seine River to meet the
rest of the group, because there were no tourists. We went into the
Louvre for 2 hours and took some nice pictures with various naked marble
guys and other famous works of art. Then we took th~ Metro to where we
were meeting for dinner, after which we hopped on a boat and cruised the
Seine River in the rain. (Even on water you can’t get away from that
tower) Then we went to the Eiffel tower to go up the thing. Raining
still. I was so miserable & cold when I got back to the hotel, but It
was worth it because I didn’t know when I’d get to see the Eiffel Tower
550 times in one day again.
The next morning we
took off for London. Too exhausted to run. We encountered a traffic jam
getting out of Paris. I actually fell asleep and woke up and we were
still in Paris, and there was that damn Eiffel tower again. It took us
1% hours to get out of Paris. So, we couldn’t stop for 3 or so hours to
eat lunch or pee or we’d miss our Hovercraft over the Channel.
I liked the Hover
Craft, but a few kids got sick. Tim (my cousin & organizer of this
European vacation) kind of made one of them vomit by talking about
eating sautéed pigs eyes or something. It’s like a speedboat — really
bouncy. We landed in Dover facing the White Cliffs of Dover. Got on
another bus and headed to Canterbury where we stopped for lunch and a
quickie tour of the famous church built in about 560AD.
When we got to London
(Beautiful countryside by the way), Tim took over the ‘tour guide role’
and told us about the locals walking by and pointed out all of the
different color cranes Londoners use for construction. We learned a lot
from him. So, the Bus, driver took over then. Not really his job, but I
think he wanted us to have more memories of his country than it’s
construction machinery. After 5-6 days, 1 started to feel comfortable
being a chaperon to a bunch of 8th grade boys and when We got to our
hotel I was throwing out luggage and barking orders with the best of
them.
London wasn’t as cool
to look at as I thought it’d be. Much of London is rather modern. Bombs
destroyed most of the city during WW II. The old churches are still
standing however. In old London, (the financial district) the church
(where Lady Di was married) was the only thing in that area that was
left after the war. Londoners consider it a miracle and their most
cherished monument.
So everyone got to hit
the Doc Martin warehouse, and I got to go to Clarks Shoe store (My
favorite shoes). I got some smart English ties and accessories.
We walked so much in
London - so much. Just hours of walking. At least 6 hours. We saw the
Changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace as well as where Prince
Charles & his Grand mummy live. I did~ go running in London, and got one
of the boys to join me. It was suppose to be a group of kids but we were
all out late the night before trying to find a Hard Rock Café.
It took the 21 of us an hour to walk to the Hard Rock, and it was 11pm, so
we thought we’d try out the London underground (the Tube). We still got
back at 12:30 am.
Because of the American Airlines flight attendant strike, 36 people had
to stay an extra day in London, and 19 of those one more day. (Bummer)
They got to stay in a 5 star hotel, and sleep. It probably didn’t even
rain on them. (It rained almost all but I day I was there, but it
doesn’t rain in LA, so I loved it — I have been sick all week though.) I
didn’t get to stay though. But, I got to fly British Airways! Super
nice. They should do all ground, water and air travel. World domination
even — I’d follow them!
Lastly, the French tour guide told me that Americans invent
their French nobility. This when I asked him how I could trace back my
French name to its’ noble roots. So there you go, 500 years of family
history dismissed by Pierre, the tour guide.
