Les Champs Elysees

Finally got to sleep in until 9 this morning, but the smelly old french guy from Martinique was mumbling and came in from breakfast all loud and grumpy and ruined everything. Had a good start to the day, I am a pro metro rider now, Parisians have it good! It is very easy to get wherever you want in the city under 20 mins, and they are always on time. I arrived 10 minutes later at the Arc De Triomphe with a beautiful view as soon as you walk up the steps from the tube. I had brunch right on Les Champs Elysees with a nice view of the flagship Louis Vuitton Store (aka mecca) and spent over an hour just looking at all the cool stuff they have there, that you can't find at any other store. It. Was. Amazing. Also along the Boulevard they have all the fancy Auto Dealerships where you can check out all the nice cars so I had an excellent afternoon. I hopped into Nike Paris, which is HUGE, it has a full ID department where you can customize your shoes on the spot, as well as a doctor who can do x-rays and show you where you might be having problems and what Nike shoe is right for you. It was pretty cool. I also saw the limited edition Anaconda and Crocodile air force ones that they had on display. One of a 100, handmade in Italy from scratch and 1800 Euros for a pair, if there were any left to buy, this pair was behind glass. It was beautiful, I don't think I need to go see the Mona Lisa anymore, my trip has been fulfilled. Until next time, Bon Soir!

Dinner and a light show!

Last night was by far my favorite night back in the city. I took a nice shower, put on fresh clothes and went out to this cafe right down the street, "Le Toucan". Its really good, I ate there the first night back in town and they serve up a mean "penne du jambon" basil, roasted ham, huge chunks of Parmesan and light on the sauce. Perfecto. and they have wireless so I was able to check in for my flight to Florence. I'm sure I will have much better pasta as soon as I land, since Fabio's girlfriend is taking me out to dinner to this tiny rustic Italian place that Fabio said I would call "ghetto" but that the food was excellent. We shall see! In the mean time, my pasta was good, I had a carafe of this french house red that was only 4 Euros, and some ice cream for dessert. After relaxing and reading a couple chapters of "The Count of Monte Cristo" on my iTouch, I went to a local wine store and got the owners favorite Cab Sav under 10 Euros and proceeded to go to the Eiffel tower for the light show at midnight. I ended up sitting beside these two french guys and their girlfriends and they invited me to join them, we split two bottles of wine and talked American movies until 11:59. I'll post a video but sorry, in order to fit the tower in the shot its sideways, so do a couple neck stretches and enjoy!! ok well I just tried to upload a video of the light show but it is too big and the hostels internet is really slooow so I will just put up a couple pictures for now of the Champ Du Mars at night. Ciao for now!

Back in Paris, Finally.

Ok so the past 24 hours in Paris have been completely ridiculous. Up until 4 hours ago I hadnt eaten anything since I left Romania. First off... the worst flight Dylan has taken. From Bucharest to Paris there was severe turbulence and the monstrosity of a man sitting next to me had HIS hands covering his face and curled tight into the seat table. It was nuts and with the turbulence we landed 45 minutes late. After kissing the ground and another fruitless attempt to find a waterfountain I eventually made it to 9 Rue de Blomet, my new address for the next 5 days. All excited and ready to drop my bag off and get some water/food.. I head to an ATM to get some money because my hostel doesnt take cards, just cold hard Euros. Of Course. I get to an ATM and insert my card. "Désolé, votre carte ne fonctionne pas". Yeah. My card doesnt work. Hmm. So I go into the bank to try and get money from a teller. No Tellers. Just ATM's and a lady to help people who dont understand them get money out of the machines. So yeah, apparently since the beginning of 2009 France got rid of all their old ATM's and only have ones that accept Electron cards. With little metal RFID chips on them. So of course my 6 month old American antiquated debit card doesnt work. And only a few banks in Paris actually have a teller. None of which are close to me, all the way near the suburbs. a couple metros away. yeah. and Dylan has 40 Euros. So after an hour and a half I find a old ATM that accepts my card. But then it says Im not authorized to take out money abroad. of course. I even went to my local poulsbo branch BEFORE I left to tell them I was going to Europe for a month and will be using my card. yes yes we have made a note thank you very much. Then I had called my credit cards number to let them know as well and they said that they put in a note. Turns out someone forgot. so I proceeded to spend the rest of my money on phone cards to get ahold of BofA to get them to authorize my card, but each calling card only lasts 20 minutes, and with the hold times I was experiencing, I couldnt get through due to all of the people I had to talk to and the transfers. nobody could give me a direct line to a fraud detect person. Ridiculous. so I used my last 25 Euros and had to haggle with the guy at the hostel front desk to just let me pay for my first night and then the others in the morning, it wasnt his fault but he was giving me a hard time due to all the rules and restrictions. I ended up begging on the ground. and it worked! yess. so this morning at 9am I headed to BofA's sister bank to try and get money. didnt work. so I went back to that random old machine again and I got 150 Euros! yess! but then I tried to take out more again, and it said they are not authorized. so I was able to rush back to my hostel and pay them before they kicked me out with 25 euros to spare. I spent the rest on trying to get ahold of the states again and figure out this ish! finally got everything to work and with 50 euros now. I did some laundry today at this automated washing place. pretty cool! super expensive though but I needed it. When I was there a lady and her two kids were in washing towels and linens and the little boy climbed into the dryers..which are huge here! it was pretty funny. Im living large and hope to find a cheap place to eat around here. fingers crossed. Ciao for now and will write tomorrow. I miss you Erin!
Here are some pictures I took today, one from my hostel window an Eiffel tower view, can't beat that for 25 euros a night!! and then lunch on the Champ De Mars with a closer view of the tower. yum! haha yeah yeah its a cheesy picture I know, but I had just taken one for a family and he asked if I wanted one too so I couldnt say no.
and a couple pictures I took when I was out with JT and Lauren, Sacre Cour (sacred heart) and Montmarte, a beautiful view! Then Notre Dame

The Worksite

Monday morning we all met for breakfast in the "Business Room" at 8:00 for your typical Romanian breakfast: Slices of meat and cheese on a platter, Cucumber and sliced tomato platter, and lots of bread. After a hearty sandwich, we called 3 taxis that transported us to the worksite. It is up on a hill just outside of downtown in a nice neighborhood, it stuck out like a sore thumb, but the house that will replace it fits in nicely. Before habitat started to build at this site, the family lived in a 4 meter by 4 meter shack, with one small window and a door. They had an outhouse behind that had no running water or electricity. The family consists of Alli, his wife Jetta, and their 12 year old daughter. This was no place for a family of 3 to be living and they were put on top of the waiting list for people requesting homes.
In order for a family to qualify for housing they have to volunteer at least 100 hours beforehand working on other habitat projects in the area, as well as 1500 hours on their own house. Sweat equity (sweaquity) is 500 hours per person in the family.
There have been 4 habitat teams who helped build this house (1 team for demo, land clearing and utilities, one for the foundation, one for the basic beam structure, then the team I was in for the inner walls, insulation, stucco and painting/roofing). It was awesome to be the last team because we got to see the finished product of the house! The family was so nice and they really worked hard, it was fun to try and interact with them because they couldnt speak a lick of english and our translater wasnt always around. There were a few times where we would listen to them try and point to what they wanted us to do..and we would all look at each other and come to a conclusion together of what they wanted and went for it. They now have a 2 story house with two bedrooms and a full kitchen and bathroom, with a small view of the city below. It was so much fun! Most of our team was from the US. There were 2 of us that were 21 and the rest were late 20's and early 30's, the youngest group and the only Americans to work on the project! We would work 8 hours with a lunch break, then head back to our hotel to shower and change for dinner. Every night we went out to different places and cuisines and it was pretty much hit or miss everytime.

I arrived during the weekend and I learnt fast that every night most of the team goes out to party till 4am or later, usually to a cool live band karaoke place or my favorite, Club Janis (Named after Janis Joplin) where it was all underground in what would be my guess a couple brick storage rooms with little access doors to each room and mid 90's-early 2000 pop music, and its HUGE over there. Tons of Backstreet Boys and some rap here and there. Every single person smokes over there and you can smoke wherever you want, outside, inside, but only the taxi-drivers can smoke inside their cars.
On our last night in Cluj we went to a terrace bar that overlooked most of the city that was really nice and an excellent way to end the trip!

Ro-mania

After saying goodbye to the apartment :( ---> and Lauren, went outside to the road and said a quick goodbye/croissant offer from Justin and Hallie who were coming back from a run, went out for a quick pizza margarita and said ciao to JT and took the metro off to the airport, one of the 5 in Paris! Geezo, so after 2 metros and then the RER train I arrived at Charles De Gaulle thirsty as ever! no water fountains?? this is something I have noticed since arriving here in Europe and I'm not a fan. I sweat so much I need to constantly re-hydrate every hour! found a McDonalds in the food court and got a large water, laughed at the "royale with cheese" and went in search of my gate. So let me fill you in on my airline, Tarom Air Transport. Wow, the name pretty much gives it away, thankfully I wasnt in a crate, but not much better. got some water and calmed down. I'm definitely not a flyer so I was trying to stay calm, our 30 minute cruise across multiple runways and a smooth take-off, the airline offers free beer and wine! Awesome. Definitely took a look at what they offered but decided against it, although the old lady next to me downed 4 cans (no joke! I would have taken a picture of her empties if I could) of a beer called Ursus, funny because their slogan is "King of beers in Romania". A very smooth flight and 3 waters later and we landed in Bucharest, the capital. Its 9:45 pm and its 94 degrees out. It was nasty. And oh my god, not trying to stereotype here, the airport stank like B.O. About a 100 of us in one room waiting for our connecting flight to Cluj (The capital of Transylvania) in the heat was terrible. Before boarding I changed money to the Romanian currency, Lei (or Ron) depending on what block your on. For 40 Euros I got 210 Lei. I didn't realize at the time because I couldnt read what was posted but I got a good deal. A beer was 2 Lei and a bottle of water cost 3! Finally a place where beer is cheaper than water! As an example of how cheap things are, 9 of us from my habitat crew went out for dinner to this upscale Italian place, everyone got a appetizer and a entree, 2 bottles of Red and a bottle of champagne. the total came to 450 Lei, around $120 US. It was excellent. That was the night I had tongue.. not so excellent. But for everyone who knows me as being a picky eater, I at least tried the local delicacies. Except for the horse brains, that was a deal breaker. Anyways, It's late Saturday night, Arrived at Cluj International (Ha, the airport was about the size of a costco parking lot) I got a taxi from this guy no older than me. Alas, cars are the next best thing in Romania right now, and everyone is trying to get one, and this dude definitely loved speed. In cluj the taxis regrettably do not have seatbelts, but a taxi anywhere costs you about $3 US, so you pretty much just have to compromise. After he raced his fellow taxi friend to the town square, I finally arrived at this ghetto looking alley with walls crumbling and stray dogs everywhere. Side note: there are wild packs of dogs EVERYWHERE, I read this in a forum online before I left the states but didn't really believe it. So yeah. Wild dogs. In packs. Terrorizing people, babies, and traffic. Everywhere. The hotel was nice! Hotel Capitol. "Relax and Business Here" Sums it up ----> Excellent. But for $30 US per night and a complete tile bathroom floor to ceiling, it wasnt bad at all. After not really being tired I took a shower and went on the hunt for a wireless signal. Luckily was able to talk to Erin for a few mins and then went looking for food and a phone card. One thing that is awesome in Romania is that there are 2 payphones on every block that are fastened to walls. The only bummer was that half are broken. But to call the US from most places was only 50 cents for 10 minutes, but you always have to buy the phonecards because they are not refillable.
I spent my sunday morning getting woken up by the guy at the front desk at 9, telling me I needed to vacate my room. WTF. Turns out the Habitat Leader had to put me in the Luxurious super suite for the first night because there was no room. So I had to repack and vacate until 1 when I could get into my new room, which was shared with my Habitat group leader. I walked around looking for breakfast and a coffee to wake me up. It was cool to not see a starbucks on every block though! of course there was nothing on any block, it was sunday and there are more churches than gas stations so everything was closed. I had downtown Cluj to myself and finally found a little bar that was open, sat down and ended up talking to the two guys next to me. One spoke pretty good English and the other guy was silent. The English speaker, Paul, was a psychiatrist who wanted to move to Canada, and the Silent one, Sebastion, was a local police officer. Fun fact, the average monthly income in Romania is 500 Euros, and thats in Bucharest, once you get out to the countryside, where I was, monthly income drops exponentially. Paul said, as a psychiatrist he makes 400 Euro a month. Just crazy. And his friend Sebast, as a Police officer, makes just under 300 Euro per month. But he gets an AK, and so he feels entitled. They filled me in on quite a few local traditions and info, pretty much telling me how crappy it is to live there and work, even with degrees.
Cluj itself is medium sized, mostly cobblestone, and nestled inbetween two huge hills in the heart of Transylvania. As I said earlier, this city was not meant for cars, so you will find scooters, cars, vans alike all parked crooked anywhere there is available space, somewhat close to the roads. Walking around was a challenge pretty much all the time. There are lots of gypsies who speak their own dialect and try to make you buy flowers from them. It is a depressed area for sure, but since the doors have opened to capitalism you can find a Nike store.. right beside a dilapidated spraypainted shack. no joke. Not only are there nice stores every now and then, there are lots of kids driving 2009 BMW SUVs and Mercedes listening to techno, while you see kids without shoes. My new friend Paul informed me that for every legal straight business in Cluj, you can find crooked or illegal operations that are very lucrative. A small middle class is growing too, but it's mostly to parts of familys moving out of Romania to other parts of the EU and sending money home. Paul said that lots of kids leave right after high school to Britain and Spain to make more but end up waiting tables or cleaning hotels etc because of no training, and that even though he makes a little less than others who left, at least he doesnt have to clean toilets.
On a lighter note, I left these guys to find food, with nothing open I found Romania's closest answer to a gelato store and had some quiestionable grapefruit gelato. After sightseeing and going back and taking a shower I met my roomate and Habitat Coordinator, Peter. MIT grad, huge brain, nooo personality. It was terrible. The rest of my group was out on a weekend trip and wouldnt be back till late that night so peter and I went to an Authentic Romanian restaurant. I had some "chicken" and rice with gravy. yeah it was badddd. and for my credit Peter didnt finish his either. it was cheap and so we left and he didnt say much and then went to bed. I found a nice kebab place by our hotel and ate like a king. While in the alley later that night I met a couple fellow group members from the US while I was in the alley talking to my girlfriend and then went to bed to get a couple hours sleep before we had to head out to the worksite.

Sorry!

Ok so for all those who actually read this, sorry about the week delay! Not particularly my fault, I could get a signal down a back alley from my Hotel in Cluj, but it wasn't an ideal area for laptop use and picture downloading. I am back in Paris now, after a horrific first 24 hours things are finally bien, and I have time to update everyone on what I've been up to! So here we go!

The Journey Begins:

Voila! Paris!
Day 1 consisted of arriving in Amsterdam at 7:40 am after a nonstop 9 hour flight from Seattle. A celebration followed by the way of my first 7 euro sandwich, which would'nt have been anything to write home about except the mustard in the tube was definitely not frenchs. A small world indeed, the 16 year old sitting next to me for the entire flight just happens to live 2 blocks from where I grew up in Kits (Vancouver) and currently goes to the same High School I attended for a bit.
Caught a train from Amsterdam to brussels, a commuter that was pretty dingy, but took the last leg to Paris on a Thalys High Speed train, 300km/hr and really plush.
After already scoping out my metro plans from Gare du Nord before leaving the train, I connected to the underground immediately and arrived much earlier than JT and Lauren expected. With them not being home I went on a 1:30 mini tour of the surrounding area meeting 2 nice British ladies and one grumpy newspaper stand dude who refused to tell me where the local payphone was. Finally found the payphone and spent 15 minutes trying to make a US call which ended with a New York Operater wanting $11 for the first minute and $3 per minute after. Giving up I headed back and found them just getting back.
<-------JT and Laurens Apartment is amazinggg, and there will be more pictures later, but after a short tour and a shower we went out for a tour of the right bank and St. Germaine, where we are staying. A walk through the Louvre and the Touleries found us at a cheesy tourist cafe where I had a decent and very hot basil penne. Delish! After a freak rain shower and me being able to see a Colette store ( it made my day) and seeing the Bell & Ross watch I would kill someone over, we retired to the apt where I took a 2 hour nap. I met JT's good friend and fellow apartment residents Justin and his wife Hallie who had been soaked out in the freak rain storm. After drying off, Dinner followed which meant opening my vaccuum-packed bags and having to do some ironing but the meal was 9 courses and was the best I've ever had, sans the l'oeuf in the cup. This crab pictured to the right was excellent!

9 hours on the air mattress is going to do me good and hopefully skip on the jetlag. I miss you Erin!