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Euro trip
  • Ethan Rivest
Mar – May 2024

Euro trip

Doing whatever we want for 6 weeks Read more
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  • Ethan RivestEuro tripTraveler
    2111

    Prauge

    April 17, 2024 in Czech Republic ⋅ ☁️ 5 °C

    Another late night and early morning turn around. Bec took us up to the castle district to look around. Last night, when Pearse and I were power napping, Bec handed out our 24 hour metro passes. She gave ours to our roommate, Dan. Dan gave them to Pearse because he stayed in last night, so he was up earlier than me. I had about 5 minutes to get myself ready and get to the meeting spot. At this point, I still had no idea our metro cards were handed out. I got down to the meeting point where we walked about 5 minutes up the road to the train. This is when I realized I didn't have a card and everyone else did. So I asked Bec she told me she gave it to Dan, I asked Dan who told me he gave it to Pearse, so I asked Pearse where it was and he said "oh you didn't see it?" The train we were taking was arriving in 2 minutes, so I just decided I'd get on the next train. I ran back to the hostel and looked at the table Pearse said he put it on and said I should have seen it on. It was just covered in all his shit lol. So I moved everything and there it was. Under his toiletrie bag lol. All good. I grabbed it and ran back to see everyone still waiting at the stop for me. It turns out they put it to a vote, to wait for me or not. I guess they like me lol. A couple of them went into the coffee shop while waiting for me, and unfortunately, it was busy in there. The next train pulled up, and we were instructed by Bec to get on. No vote for them. We just left them behind lol. I did feel guilty but better them than me. When we finally got there, it was so cool to see this castle that can be seen all across the city up close. It's massive. It kind of reminded me of a super mini Sagrada Familia. Outside, there was a cage sitting next to a fountain. We learned the cage was a "shame cage" so if a lady was accused of being a witch, they'd put her in there for people throw things at or shame her in any way they could. Pearse and a group wanted to go inside the castle, but I left to go tour some other stuff. I walked across Charles Bridge and through the city with a different group of people. The group I was with stopped for a classic Czech dessert, trdelník. It looked so good, but I wasn't feeling like straight sugar and ice cream at 11 am. It's a pastry cone that's coated in sugars and stuffed with ice cream, cream, and berries. That's the one I thought about getting anyway. My group met back up with Pearses group for lunch. We decided on a Czech BBQ spot. Even though it was pricey for lunch, it was the best lunch I've had so far. There were 11 of us, and 10 of us ordered 1kg of pork knuckle. All the flavors sounded so good as well. There was a lemon grass, honey mustard, spicy, or BBQ flavors. I got the spicy. I tried the honey mustard one, though, and i think it was better. The meat on my knuckle was falling off the bone and so tender. I was the only one to eat the whole thing lol. I regretted it after cause I was so full and so tired. We walked around for a little while and ended up at the astronomical clock for the turning of the hour by pure chance. The clock itself is beautiful, and the show at the top of the hour was pretty silly, actually. We all got a little laugh out of it. I needed a nap so bad after that pork knuckle, and we had a walking tour called Hidden Prauge, so we trained back to the hostel, and I passed out. It was a weird sleep because I was having really strange dreams as well as sleep talking to our roommate, but I was aware of everything while that was happening, at least I thought I was because Pearse basically had to assault me to wake me up lol. Again, after getting ready and to the meeting spot 5 minutes after waking up, I was on time. We met our tour guide, Bruno, by far the best tour guide we have had on this trip. We started out in a restaurant with a couple of charcuterie boards laid out and did a Czech brandy tasting. Two brandy shots, one was 48% and the other was 34%. I think the stronger one went straight to everyone's dome, even Bruno. After we went to one of the only parks in Prauge, of course it was beautiful. There were bee houses set up with cool engraving on them and more peacocks walking around. We even did a peacock ritual dance just for funsies. There was a random plaque on a wall almost 4 meters up. That was the marking of the great flood that occurred in 2001. The next stop was the river bed so we could look at Charles Bridge and also see where previous floods have risen to. The longer this tour went on for the more I was falling in love with Prauge. It was such a beautiful city. After their biggest flood ever in 2001 they installed flood gates near the river but since they haven't been used lol. After the river, he took us to a traditional pub. It was traditional because it was in a cellar because that's where beer was aged back in the days, it was the only way to keep it cool. We've been playing a drinking game called Buffalo, if you drink with your dominant hand and someone yells Buffalo, you have to finish your drink. Pearse was learning the proper Czech cheers with Bruno, and half the group yelled Buffalo, so he slammed his beer. We were only supposed to stop for one beer, but when I saw Pearse get a fresh one, I had to get one as well. Everyone was chugging their beers, and Bruno just kept bringing them for us. He ended up bringing Pearse and I 3L of beer in 45 minutes lol. We stayed longer than we were supposed to, but even Bruno was loving it. Eventually, we had to leave. We all kinda stumbled down to the Lennon wall next. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip so far. Lots of us lifted Pearse up as high as we could, and he wrote "Contiki 2024" right under the lip of the wall. After we were all given sharpies to right our names on this wall covered in graffiti. I sat on pearses shoulders to write our names up, then he got on mine to add a little love letter under it lol. We got an alright selfie, too. The tour ended after walking across Charles Bridge and going to an underground bar. The bar had this stupid system where you upload your money on a blank card and you scan it when you want drinks. The first thing we were told was don't lose this card because you won't just lose what you put on it, you have to pay for it when you leave. I think I lost mine in the first hour. There was no money on it, luckily. I really didn't want to pay for the card, though, so I made sure to leave with a big group, and I gave the bouncer my hostel key card, which is identical. He took it and said nothing, I saw him try and scan it to verify, so I rushed outside and mixed in with the group. A couple minutes later, the bouncer came back out, yelling about somebody key card. Who could that be? We left and went to the same club I was at last night. Again, prauge is one of my favorite places I've been. It's so hard to choose.Read more

  • Ethan RivestEuro tripTraveler

    Prauge to Berlin

    April 18, 2024 in Germany ⋅ ⛅ 13 °C

    After feeling not bad the last 2 days in Prauge, my cold is back better than ever just in time for another travel day. I was so miserable this morning. I was actually pretty sad to leave Prauge. We got on the bus, and I pretty much just shut my eyes as soon as I got on. We're off to Berlin today, though, and I've been pretty excited about it from the start. We stopped for lunch in dresden. We were only there for an hour and a half, but it seemed like a really nice city. We went into a lutheran church that is a sight of a war crime from WWII. The English were bombing Dresden because it had a very established railway system. Residents started taking shelter in their churches, especially this lutheran one. Sir Winston Churchill knew this, so he ordered the air force to start bombing the churches with civillians in it. Lots of people died, and the church was almost completely destroyed. It was rebuilt afterward with parts of the old church. After a quick visit, six of us walked around to find some food, and we settled on a pizza joint. When we sat down, we realized we had 30 minutes till we had to be on the bus, so it was a little rushed. I wasn't feeling well, so I didn't get anything, but everyone's pizzas looked so good. They were massive, too. The pizzas were flopping over the side of the plates lol. Everyone had to eat really fast, so Nick and Pearse cut them in half and started rolling them up them up into a burrito. It was pretty entertaining to watch. We got back on the bus to go straight to the hostel. We had enough time to check in, go to the bathroom, and get back on the coach. Beck and Paulo wanted to give us a coach tour of Berlin, where we drove past some pretty cool things. They only gave brief descriptions because we will be doing a walking tour that sees most of this stuff tomorrow. We got off at the Eastside gallery on the Berlin wall. I thought this was so cool, the art work seemed so creative and random. There was an included dinner at the hostel tonight, but it was pretty trash. The stuffed chicken breast was good, but everything else was wack. A good handful of people went to kfc right after dinner lol. I wanted to go clubbing or check out the night life scene in one of the biggest party cities around, but I felt so shitty and ended up passing out at 8 for some much needed rest.Read more

  • Ethan RivestEuro tripTraveler
    1

    Berlin

    April 19, 2024 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C

    We got up early today for our walking tour of Berlin. It was cold and rainy for it, of course. We just can't escape rain. The rain didn't make the tour any worse for me, though. We got to learn so much about WWII history, which has always been so interesting to me. We started at a building where Hitler used to hold all his speeches. On either side of the staircase were two huge statues of men killing lions. Hitler liked this staircase for speeches because the lions were meant to symbolize the power the Nazi party had. He would do these speeches standing by himself because he was a short, angry little man and didn't want people to see how small he was lol. On this building, there were patched up bullet holes and patched areas from shrapnel. It was really cool to see that less than 100 years ago, something so chaotic and devastating happened right where I was standing. Now, it's a peaceful city still trying to find its identity. There were a few more stops that were really interesting to me, like an entire building for just one statue of a mother holding her dead son. It was used as a war monument. Afterward we went to the empty library. The empty library is another monument that represents the burning of the books. When Hitler first took over, he ordered all books by Jewish authors or in Hebrew to be burned in this square. Thousands of books were burned here. We carried on to the Brandenburg Gate. To get there, we had to walk down a street called Unter Den Linden. The Nazis used to March here, and in Hitlers classic antics, he told people hundreds of thousands were marching. It looked like it, but only because they marched around the block in a circle lol. In reality, there was about 50000 nazis marching. The Brandenburg Gate was built by the Greeks hundreds of years ago. On top of the gate was a statue of a lady on a horse carrige. This statue is called "the statue of victory." Everybody loved it, even Napoliean. Napoliean ended up stealing it and dragging it back to France, where he displayed it for a short amount of time before it was taken back to Berlin. Funnily when they put it back on top of the gate they repositioned the statue of victory to face and point at the French embassy building as a fuck you to the French. I thought that was pretty funny. We went to the "memorial for the murdered jews of europe," which was opened about 20 years ago. It's very abstract with grey concrete blocks in all different shapes. I think the grey rainy sky was the perfect setting for the plain grey blocks representing a grey Era. Unfortunately, the artist used concrete for these blocks, so it's had to be repaired a couple of times already. The last stop was Hitlers bunker, which is just a parking lot now. The tour guide told us how Hitler spent his last days here, suffering from schizophrenia from the opiods and meth his doctor was prescribing him. When he finally realized he was circled and the war was over he married his girlfriend of 18 years and they killed themselves. Hitler was shaky from the drugs so he was scared if he shot himself, he'd miss. So he took cyanide and shot himself. He ordered his generals to burn his dead body so they couldn't humiliate his dead body. The only known remains ever found of the little rat was a small jaw bone with two teeth on it. They were able to use dental records to confirm it was him. Not only did we get to learn lots about WWII, but the tour guide knew lots about the Cold War as well he told us about the Berlin wall. Everybody went to bed one night, and when they woke up, construction had started, and chainlink fences went up. People lost their jobs and were separated from their family's. Even one unlucky family had the border go right through their house. I have no idea what the rules were for them. After 31 years, the government held a conference saying they were reuniting east and west Berlin, and people could freely go back and forth. When the man reading the news to people was asked when this rule was coming into effect, he panicked and read the date of the meeting instead of the planned date 2 weeks in the future. So, people rushed to the borders excited to see their family members and friends. The city had a few choices, open fire on the citizens, open the border, or do nothing and let this angry mob get angrier by making them wait till the original date. They decided to let everyone in. For a city that's been caught up in a lot shitty history, they made the right choice for once. I really loved this walking tour it was right up my alley. A little bit of an extra was the tour guide pointed out the hotel Micheal Jackson held his baby over the balcony of his hotel. After we went to get food and warm up. Pearses cousin Amanda lives in Berlin and she wanted to go out to a club with us later that night. She told us the clubs have an all black dress code. Pearse needed some black clothes so we went to the mall and did a bit of shopping for our night out. We met up with Amanda for some ramen before the club. When I got my bowl, I added all the spices I saw in front of me and made an inferno on accident, but it was still so good. We went to a techno club called Kater Blau with Amanda. I have never seen anything like it in my life. It was by far the coolest club we've been to. As soon as you walk in the club they make you put stickers on your phone cameras. It felt pretty serious. We stayed till past 5 and got back to the hostel at almost 7. We had to be on the bus at 745 lol. I shut my eyes on the couch for about 30 minutes but it didn't help me lol. Overall it was an amazing dayRead more

  • Ethan RivestEuro tripTraveler
    11

    Berlin to Amsterdam

    April 20, 2024 in the Netherlands ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C

    We had a pretty long drive from Berlin to Amsterdam today. It's a good thing we didn't go to bed last night, so I slept the entire time. We stopped for some Macas in some small town. I was sleep walking through the place. We got back on the coach and slept the rest of the way. Because amsterdam is the last overnight city on the contiki, we were allowed to choose our roommates for our dorm. We got our boys' Nick and Cody. Once we got settled in our room, we had an included dinner at our hostel. It was actually a lot better than the Berlin hostel dinner. There is no time for any sleep, though, because we're in Amsterdam on 4/20. After dinner, we all got right back on the coach and went straight to the red light district to a different hostels bar. Bec bought a tray of shots for everyone. Somehow, I managed to get 2 of them. There were discounts at the bar as well, so we started the night off early and strong. After a while, we decided to leave as a group to see what the red light district was like. It was unreal. Women standing naked in a window, calling you over for their services, which we poletly declined. Weed stores and cafes everywhere. Sex shops and sex shows on every corner, it was quite a sight lol. The sex show entry fee was €65 which is bonkers, but a little birdie told us if you enter as a couple, it's only €20 Pearse and I both asked different ladies to merry us on the spot and they said yes! So I guess we eloped lol. My wife Sarah and Pearse wife Eden left for the sex club with the rest of the group. When we got there, we waited in line for 20 minutes and found out it's €65 couple or single. Some people with the contiki coughed up the cash, but the more sensible and less curious ones decided that it was out of our price range. Our big group split up, and we left with 10 people or so. We went to a couple of regular bars than a strip club. When in Rome. Afterward, we tried meeting up with the rest of the group at a club called Escape, but when we got there, Nick was denied entry because he's only 20, and the minimum was 21. We didn't want to abandon Nick, so the three of us went across the street to a different club. After partying for a while, we decided the taxi back would be too much money, so we walked back. The hostel was pretty far away, so it was about 2.5 hours of stumbling back to the hostel. Along the way, we stopped for some pictures on people's boats docked along the canal. Just a quick picture, no harm done. Near the end of the walk, we were on a bike path along the canal. In the dark, I saw 2 big birds, I'm not sure what they are, but they sort of look like geese. When I pointed them out, they started to walk away from us, and all of a sudden, 10 plus babies started swarming us. Pearse Nick and I sat down on the sidewalk because all these chicks were so curious. They thought we had food, so they were nibbling on our fingers. It was pretty cute. When we finally made it back to the hostel, Pearse and Nick were making a plan to stay up all night and start early the next day. I said fuck that and went to bed, they ended up following me to bed lol. I definitely fell asleep fully clothed as soon as my head hit my pillow. Another really fun night.Read more

  • Ethan RivestEuro tripTraveler

    Amsterdam

    April 21, 2024 in the Netherlands ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C

    I woke up this morning around 9:30, but I was in no shape to get out of bed. I laid there while Nick and Pearse were still sleeping. I got up for a shower at almost noon. When I got up on the floor, beside my bed, there was a dried up mess of mucus and spit and probably vomit. I knew I didn't throw up up, but it's hard to defend that when it's right beside my bed and even a little bit of it in my shoe. After consulting with the fellas, none of them knew what it was either. I was tired of looking at it cause it was nasty, so I poured some water on it and used a towel to clean it up. Once we all got ready we went to the train station so we could head to the city for some lunch. We bought one one way tickets, scanned them, and went up to our platform just to realize it was the wrong platform. So, we had to buy another ticket and go to the other platform, but when we tried scanning it, it said invalid. Frustrated and tired, the 3 of us sat and ordered an Uber just to throw a little more money away. We stopped at a ramen restaurant where the boys ordered a bowl, but I was still pissy about the train, so I just ordered an appetizer. After lunch, the 3 of us split up and went on our own. Pearse needed a pharmacy, so he went to deal with that. I got adventurous and went to a weed cafe. I ordered a pre roll and a coffee and just chilled out. The weed in Amsterdam is a lot stronger than at home, so it didn't take me very long to just sit there and question everything that led me to this point. It wasn't fun at all, I was sweating my balls off. Pearse met me there and just sat next to me for a few minutes. When he looked at me, he noticed all the beads of sweat rolling down my face. I went to the bathroom to wash my face and cool off a little before we left. Again, when in Rome. We wondered around the city for a little while, even ending up in some sort of carnival. We had to meet the group in the afternoon because it was our last night on the Contiki so we had a nice evening planned with everybody. Getting on the bus, it was pretty obvious I wasn't the only one to check out what the cafes were all about. A few people, including me, were wearing sunglasses on the bus because even though Bec couldn't stop us technically, drugs aren't allowed at all on the Contiki so we couldn't talk to her about it or tell her. She obviously knows, though. There's a reason everyone called her mom. I also think weed was the least of her problems in Berlin and Amsterdam. A bus of thirty 20 something year olds is gonna have a couple of people looking for party drugs. We had about an hour to unwind and get ready for our last included dinner. We went to an Indonesian restaurant for dinner. Not only was it the best included dinner, but it was one of the best I've had on the trip. It was buffet style with different proteins. One was a peanut sauce skewer, and the other was beef Bolinas. Both were tasty, but the skewers were better. The beef Bolinas was really sweet it was kind of weird. It's still good, though. Even our first two drinks were included in the meal. After dinner, we had a boose cruise scheduled. It was a really wholesome time on the boat because everybody was there for our last night, and we had an awesome time socializing with each other. One of the ladies had a digital camera, and she took some pretty classic photos of everyone. I think the crew on the boat was used to older people on the boat and have a speech and teach everyone about the city but they gave up on the pretty quick because we were just there to have a good time with each other. When the ferry was docked and the bar was closed, I definitely opened the fridge and put a hieneken in each pocket for the road lol. Pearse did the same, but the goon grabbed prohibition beer, so I had to share mine. We had more than enough on the boose cruise, so I was okay with it lol. When we got off, we all met at an Australian bar called cocos because almost the entire contiki was Australian. At this bar, I was talking to my friend Cody, who gave me some pretty interesting information. He was on the top bunk across from Pearse and in our dorms. He asked me if I remember Pearse coughing all night, and I said no because I was out cold. He told me Pearse was coughing so much, and so aggressively, he leaned over the top bunk and threw up on the ground and went back to sleep. Luckily, it was just a bunch of mucus and a bit of beer because it would have stunk so bad if it was more. We finally know who did it after a whole day of it being inconclusive. I'm telling you this cold is nothing to play with. I pulled an Irish goodbye and took the train back with a guy named Dan because we had to get up at 7 for the bus the next day, and I physically couldn't handle another hungover day on the bus.Read more

  • Ethan RivestEuro tripTraveler

    Amsterdam to London

    April 22, 2024 in England ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C

    Today, we had to get on the bus for 730. Before we left, we had to say goodbye to a handful of people who were staying in Amsterdam instead of going to London. It was kind of sad, actually. It's quite the turnaround from where I was during the first 10 days of the trip where I really didn't like most of the people on the bus. As we were all together longer, I started to like everybody and more and ended up making a few good friends. I still dont think I would ever do another Contiki despite having fun. It's not goodbye, it's until next time. Everybody is Australian, so when I go there I'll have lots of places to stay for free. We got on the bus and left for the ferry in France. We drove through the Netherlands part of Belgium and into France all before noon. It's pretty crazy how fast you can get around in Europe. Except because the UK is no longer part of the EU, we had to go through customs. We sat stationary on the coach for almost 5 hours, waiting for the coaches ahead of us to get through. This was so painful. We actually ended up missing our ferry over to London because of the line. We weren't even close. We had to wait for another couple of hours after it left. We finally got through and took the later ferry. The ferry was massive. It's the closest vessel I've ever been on to a cruise ship. Pearse said it felt like a cruise ship. We were on it for a couple of hours, just wasting time with the remaining members from the Contiki. When we docked, we got back on the coach for the last time. We had another 3 hour drive. It was a fucking long day of travel. On the way to London, Bec passed the mic around to everyone and gave us a list of things to touch on favorite memory, favorite location, favorite bar/club, favorite added experience, and give a shoutout to somebody. It was pretty fun to hear everyone's stories and differences of opinions. I was also mentioned in quite a few stories and shouted out a couple of times, which felt pretty cool that I had a positive effect on so many people's trip. After that, we still had a little ways to go before London, but when we finally got there, everyone said their goodbyes and hugs before going their own ways. Even Pearse and I are separating for a few days, so we said bye, and I went to my hostel. On the way there, I got invited to go to dinner with some people. So we met up at a burrito restaurant just down the road from my hostel. We completely filled this burrito restaurant. There were only 2 guys there to make about 20 burritos, so I think they were a little annoyed lol. After about an hour, we all said goodbye for the last time. I went back to my dodgy little hostel for bed. I didn't take a single photo or video today.Read more

  • Ethan RivestEuro tripTraveler

    London to Budapest

    April 23, 2024 in Hungary ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C

    I was planning on a sleep in today but I still got up at 8:00 so I forced myself to get up and do the fastest walking tour of London of all time. I walked past the London museum through a park and straight to Buckingham Palace. It was pretty cool to see the gaurds marching around. What a boring job, though. I'd be terrible at it. I took a few pictures and videos of the surrounding area and started speed walking over to Big Ben. When I was in St.James park enjoying the beauty a thought crossed my mind. I realized I didn't look at what time checkout was at. I looked, and it was a 10 am check out out. It was already 945, and I was an hour walk from the hostel. So I walked past Big Ben and took a couple of photos just to say I've been there. I started speed walking back to my hostel. I got there at 1030, and I packed my shit really fast and checked out. They didn't say anything about it, so that made me feel better. My flight to Budapest was at 330, so I decided to get to the airport early because I had no idea how the tube worked in London. It was definitely a little stressful, especially when I had no reception on the first train I had to take. So I just guessed and got off at the first stop, so I didn't go too far. Luckily, I got off at the right stop. I had to completely leave the first station and go upstairs and outside over to the other station to buy my ticket to Gatwick. Once I was here, I was a lot less stressed. I got to the airport way too early, though I had so much time to kill there. I got a quick bite to eat and went to my gate. I chose to go to Budapest because I just thought there was more for me to see there, and I wanted a taste of solo traveling. In my opinion the only reason to be in England Is for Liverpool or a layover. Im in no rush to check more of it out. The flight was straightforward. It was another pretty full day of travel, though. When I got on the bus from the airport to the city, I got to see all the pretty lights on all the buildings that Budapest is known for. On the way to the hostel, we passed a huge soccer stadium with a really cool statue out front. It was a massive eagle grabbing a soccer ball with its talons. It was one of my favorite statues I've seen so far. I got to my hostel to check in. I explored the hostel for a whil. Itt was really nice and clean. I went for a quick walk around the area just to check it out. One of the first things I noticed about Budapest was how clean the streets were. It was by far the cleanest city I've been to. I was just going to walk for a few minutes until I found a convenience store selling .5l bottles of hieneken for .75 cents CAD. I can't pass that up. So I ended up walking around for almost 2 hours. When I went back to my hostel, I had a beer with the old manager of the hostel who just happened to be hammered. He bought me a couple of drinks before he passed out on the couches downstairs. I went to bed pretty soon after.Read more

  • Ethan RivestEuro tripTraveler
    1

    Budapest

    April 24, 2024 in Hungary ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C

    Today, I finally had a bit of a sleep in. I got up around 10. I went downstairs for my free buffet breakfast. The food was really good and I pigged out. I had two massive plates of food. Once I was done, I started walking. I didn't know what I was going to do other than walk around until I saw something cool. It didn't take too long until I did. I ended up crossing the chain bridge and walking over to the castle district in budapest. The chain bridge is a popular bridge in Budapest. It has two statues of lions on either side, and at night, it glows orange like the rest of budapest. The castle district had so much to see. It sits on a hill above most of budapest despite the shitty weather and rain the views were amazing. I walked around the palace where all the previous Hungarian kings lived. Outside of the palace was Matthias church. It was built in 1255. I really liked the architecture on the outside, but I didn't go in because every Catholic church is pretty much the same thing. Matthias church was located right in front of the fisherman bastion. It was used as a lookout tower over Budapest from behind the castle walls. I was able to see most of it except for the 7 turrets. The turrets are just lookout points, so I don't think I was missing much taking pictures from right below them for free. There are 7 turrets for the 7 tribes who founded the Hungarian state. The fishermans bastion was built for the 1000 year anniversary of the Hungarian state. Further down the river and back on the other side is the parliament building. You can see it from the top of fishermans bastion, and it looked way too cool to skip it. Unfortunately It was pouring rain all morning, though, so I was soaked. I stopped to warm up for a little bit in a bar, had a quick beer, and stood under the hand dryer in the bathroom for a minute. I sucked it up and went back in the cold for another hour walk to the parliament building. When I got there, it was just a cool up close as from a distance. I really like the architectural style on all of the previous buildings I've mentioned, but this one was my favorite. It's probably the coolest parliament building I've seen on my trip. It reminded me of the Gothic style in prauge. Now that it was done raining, I decided to go to a grocery store for lunch and get some dry clothes. The grocery stores are so cheap that it makes me feel like I'm stealing. After some of the more expensive places on this trip, I'll definitely take it lol. When I got to the hostel, I signed up for the pub crawl and asked the guy who was going from our hostel, and he pointed out a couple of ausies so I went up and introduced myself and asked if I could join them for the night. They were really nice and told me they were gonna have drinks at the hostel before we left and to meet them there. I went and made my lupper. After chilling for a little while, I went downstairs to meet Agnus and Indie. The three of us instantly hit it off. The pub crawl took us to a few bars. The coolest one was a ruin bar where we played some connect 4 and just hung out. We ended at a club, which we shut down. We stayed there until they kicked us out. We walked back to the hostel, where we made plans to hang out tomorrow. They're traveling for almost a full year, and in November, they don't have any plans, so they're gonna come up and stay with me to take a trip to the mountains! I'm really happy I met them. Today is the second time on my trip I've been over 30000 stepsRead more

  • Ethan RivestEuro tripTraveler
    1

    Budapest

    April 25, 2024 in Hungary ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

    Today, I made plans with my new friends to meet downstairs for breakfast at 9:00 after getting back at 630 the same morning. I made it downstairs for 9:30. Lucky for me, though, they were still in bed. I went back up to my room and jumped in shoes on and all. My shoes are really hard to take off and put back on. After laying there for 10 minutes, they called me telling me they were on their way. Through our hostel, we booked tickets for the Hungarian Spa. I guess this place we went to was a pretty famous spot in budapest. I should have skipped breakfast. I couldn't even keep my eyes open. We ended up not going to the buffet because the food didn't look anywhere near as good as yesterdays. So we went to a Café a few minutes away, where I ordered my newfound love of yogurt with granola and all of the fruits on top. Anytime I've seen it on this trip, I've ordered it. If it has honey even better. When we were all done eating, we split a taxi to the spa. We changed really quickly and jumped in the thermal poop. It was set at 38 degrees, which was perfect. There were 8 old Hungarian guys huddled up in the corner with three different chess boards set up on the tables. They were there playing the entire time I was there. After chilling in the pool for a little while, we sat in the sun just chatting and just getting to know each other. They've done a lot of cooler things than me. Indie has been all over Europe for the last 2 years, and Angus completed an Ironman marathon last year. I was pretty impressed that he was able to do an Ironman. Afterward, we went inside the "Salt inhalation chamber," which I think is just a steam room with a fancy name, but we got a sweat on in there. I think I sweated all the toxins of the past 4 weeks out of me. Just to make sure I sweated enough, we went into the sauna for a little while. I finished my water in the steam room, so I was dying in the sauna. When I stood up to leave, I got so light-headed that I thought I was gonna fall and embarrass myself. We got some more water and went back to the first pool for a while. Once we got back in the pool, all three of us we were dead tired, so we didn't stay much longer. we just took a few pictures and ubered back. I really liked the spa, though it was nice to just have a relaxing day for once instead of just go go go. When we got back to the hostel, they went for a nap, and I took a shower. The shower in the hostel was so nice. I haven't had a nice shower in so long now. I stood in there for over an hour, just soaking it up. That would be the end of my relaxation for a little while, unfortunately. When we were on the ferry from France to London, I had to pull cash out to tip Bec and Paulo. There were five Canadians on the ferry, and I was the only one who had a card that could pull cash out from the bank on the ferry. So, I helped 3 other Canadians by pulling cash out for them. They just e-transfered me the money they need, but I gave them all the email for the bank account that always needs two-factor authentication to log in. Absolute tard move on my part. I don't have access to my phone number to receive the text message to log into my bank. So I couldn't send myself the $400 that was auto deposited into this account. I used the hostel phone and called ATB, where they were able to help me change the phone number to my email. That went pretty smoothly, so I logged in and sent the money to my TD account. Guess what? The bank that never asked for two-factor authentication asked me to confirm my phone number and enter the code it sent it. So I had to call TD, which didn't go as smoothly. The two-factor had to be a phone number. TD wasn't able to change it to my email like ATB. Unfortunately, I think the person I was speaking with was slow in the head. I had to explain way too many times I didn't have any way to access this phone number. When I asked if I could change the authentication number to my mom's, he said "sure I'm just going to send a text to your number associated with the account." After I explained the situation to him 100 times. I went from relitvley relaxed to my eye, twitching from stress in an hour. He even told me "okay we can fix this. How far is your nearest TD bank? " Sir, it's thousands of miles away. It's always so frustrating dealing with shit like this. As I was getting pretty heated, my friends came downstairs because we were going to dinner together. I ended up just hanging up on the guy with all this money just sitting in my email. I told myself to forget it and enjoy my last dinner with Angus and Indie. To make things even worse on the way to the restaurant, the power button on my phone became completely unresponsive. At first, it was just annoying until I googled it and and google said, "Don't let your phone die, or you'll never be able to turn it back on again." When I read that, I began to unwind a little bit. It's funny how fast shit can pile up on your shoulders. I tried my best to push it out of my mind and enjoy dinner. Luckily, we picked a really nice authentic Hungarian restaurant, and the food was so good. Again, though, I forgot to take a picture of it before I started destroying it. Dinner was really nice. We even got a shot of schnapps on the house. After dinner, we went back to the hostel, where I made them promise they would come to visit in November, they said of course and extended their invite to Australia as well. We said goodbye for now, and I went to my room to pack for a 10 hour direct bus ride for croatia. When I got to the airport for my bus, I got frustrated and pressed the power button on my phone as hard as I could to see if that would fix it, and some how it actually did. That's one problem fixed. My bus was coming at 12:30 am but was delayed until 1 so when I was waiting I was on my phone watching videos at 12:55 am I ran out of data with no free wifi anywhere to download more data to my esim. It was a very up and down day, and now I have a long ass bus ride with nothing to do lol. At least my power button works now, though.Read more

  • Ethan RivestEuro tripTraveler
    112111

    Budapest to Split

    April 26, 2024 in Croatia ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C

    It was a looooongggg night. I have no sleep from yesterday, and I got no sleep on the bus today. My first bus was about 5 hours from Budapest to Zagreb Croatia. I had a 15-minute layover at 6 am. I had to find my platform while trying to add more data to my esim. I must have looked like a zombie walking around, but that's okay because I completed both tasks successfully. I was on the website buying more data on 1 bar of the free wifi, so I didn't want to move, and the bus drivers were definitely yelling at me to get on the bus. I delayed the bus by two minutes, but I think everyone survived. I wasn't going another 5 hours with no reception at all. The second bus was better than the first one because I had nobody sitting next to me or on the other side of the aisle. So I laid down and took up all four seats lol. I still didn't manage any sleep, but at least I was somewhat comfy. We finally got to split at almost 1100, so I had some time to kill before I checked into my hostel. I haven't booked yet lol. Everything is always better last minute. So I went to a cafe and ordered a coffee and a beer while I searched for hostels. I'm meeting back up with Pearse today, but his flight is arriving at almost 9 pm. When he had some time, he gave me a call, and we agreed on a hostel. It was still a little too early to check in, so I walked down the beach with my backpacks on and just explored the area a little. It was warm and sunny out so it was really nice because we haven't had good weather since Venice so it's been a little while. I rocked up to the hostel and checked in. It's a really small hostel with only 4 rooms and a kitchen but it seemed really nice. The lady at the front desk gave me lots of recommendations for everything to do it split. She told me about a hike so I decided to do it because it was nice out the hike seemed fun. Sleep is the cousin of death, I don't need it. As soon as I entered the park it started pouring rain on me. I still can't escape the rain. Rains never hurt anybody, though, so I decided to do it. It was absolutely worth it. I didn't count, but after I finished, the lady at the desk told me there were 814 stairs on the trail. A decent amount. At the top, there is a huge cross looking over the city as well as a huge Croatian flag. I read a fact at the top that they removed the cross during WWII because they didn't want the sight to be a point of interest in the war and get bombed. Of course, I had to stop and look at some of the little critters. I tried taking a cool video of this little miliepede I saw, but I accidentally flipped the camera to my lega, so dont mind me lol. The top is the highest point of the city, so I got a full 360 view of the city. The city is surrounded by mountains on one side and the ocean on the other. The view would have been nicer if it was still sunny out, but I was still happy I did it. On the way down, I took a different route to avoid all the stairs the way I went. It took me to the smallest church I've seen. It was built in 1250. It was pretty random, but it made a nice picture. Shortly after that, I ran into a bar with a really nice view over the city. The rain went away just in time as well. I was so wet and cold, though I ordered a drink and sat outside shaking. I asked a guy to take my picture. I'm thankful he did, but he was standing on a ledge, so my hat looks a little goofy over my face. When I left and got lower into the city and more into the sunlight, I started to warm up a lot, so I just kept walking and looking around. I found a restaurant to sit and chill at. I ordered chicken with gorgenzola sauce, and it was so good. While I was sitting, I spoke to dad on the phone for a little while and had a nice conversation with him. When Pearse landed, I grabbed us a 6 pack and went back to the hostel where we met up. We ended up just sitting on the balcony telling each other about what we did for the last few days. There was a thunderstorm way off in the distance, I guess it moved pretty quickly because it started hailing on us lol. We took that as a sign to go to bed and have a sort of early night.Read more

  • Ethan RivestEuro tripTraveler
    1111112

    Split

    April 27, 2024 in Croatia ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    When I showed Pearse pictures of the hike, he wanted to do it as well. I agreed and thought it would be a nicer day to do it then yesterday. We had a bit of a late start, so we popped into a burrito place for lunch. It was really cheap and really good. We agreed we'd go buy some sunscreen, check out a beach, and go do the hike. We really should have reversed the order of the last two. We did great by getting sunscreen and a bottle of beer first. We just got the half liter, not the absolutely insane 2l bottle. We will put that in our back pocket for another time. When we were walking to the beach, we found a bit of a cliff that was climbable. Some people know us as mountain goats, actually. We took a few awesome pictures and decided to just "look at the beach." What a joke the second we saw the water we were sold. No hike for us. I love the picture of us lying down with the beers because we just got to the beach, and we were just laughing. We weren't even saying anything or joking around it was just staright happiness. The only shitty part was neither of us had a towel, so we were lying on these really chalky pebbles that turned our shit white. It was worth it, beautiful water, women, and mountains lol. We went for a little swim, and when i came back out, I was freezing. The water was a little cold for sure. I laid on the beach to dry off and shut my eyes. After a few minutes of being too comfortable, I sat up and said to pearse "shit I almost fell asleep." He just looked at me with confusion and said, "What do you mean? You were out." I guess I was too comfy and didn't even know. We stayed there almost all day but skipped the sunset. We were starving at this point, so we started the hour long walk back to split for dinner. We went to a bistro right across the street from our hostel that we get 10% off at because they have a deal with the hostel. We both got this delicious authentic Dalmatian meal. It was braised beef in a sweet wine sauce with potatoes. I couldn't ask for a better meal than beef and potatoes. While eating, I noticed a lizard run across the restaurant wall. The lizards in Capri might have been too fast for me, but these little guys weren't. I snagged one after we had dessert. I was not expecting to actually get him because he was hiding in a tree that was growing out of the wall of the restaurant. I was so excited after I caught him that my entire body was shaking. It made my day. Seconds after that, we looked at the time and realized we were about to miss the start of the pub crawl we wanted to do. It only ran on Friday and Saturday, so this was our last chance to do one in Split. We ran into the hostel and asked if we could still make it, and the lady said they would leave the first bar at 930. We both had 2 minute showers got dressed, and ran to the bar. We made it at 927, enough time for our welcome shot, a very heavy free poured cocktail, and we stole two more of the free welcome shots lol. We pretty much coasted off that for the rest of the night until the club. It was a pretty typical pub crawl 3 bars and free entry to a nightclub. Somewhere along the way, I got the Netherlands flag painted on my face for Kings Day. I don't think there's a picture of it anywhere, but it made the fit way better. Anyways, Pearse and I pulled the most greasy move in the club. The club was way too full, so we were looking for a tiny bit of space to stand and dance with our new friend. This is when we saw a standing table with nobody there. We sussed it out and made it ours for 5 minutes. On this table, there were 6 untouched beers and two full bottles of Jameson on ice. We exchanged a look and grabbed a beer each, poured a shot of Jameson into each other's mouths before pouring a double shot into each of our glasses. Pretty soon after the free shots of Jameson two guys saw us loitering around the table and said what the fuck man. Like the little rats we are, we squeezed through the crowd and disappeared still with their beers in hand. I didn't think I was proud of this, but as I'm writing it on the plane, I'm chuckling to myself. It's stupid but a really funny memory. We walked back to the hostel at 4 am. We probably could have been a little quieter in the room. Like not playing tiktoks without headphones, Pearse. He was asked at 430 to please turn his videos off lol. Our first full day in Croatia was an absolute success.Read more

  • Ethan RivestEuro tripTraveler

    Split

    April 28, 2024 in Croatia ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    We were pretty slow moving after staying up all night. We got out of the hostel at 1230 and went straight to lunch. We walked up away from the touristy area and into the city where we could see what normal life is like in Split. It seemed overwhelmingly normal. It was still beautiful, but there wasn't a whole lot to it. We went to a burger restaurant called Plan B Pub. The food was pretty good, I got a gorgenzola burger and finished what Pearse couldn't of his BBQ burger. They sat us on the "patio," which was wrapped with a tarp. It was sitting right in the sun, so the inside was like a sauna. They were trying to slow cook us, I swear. Afterward, we went to a grocery store and bought two of those 2 liter bottles of beer we saw earlier, as well as a cooler bag. Even though it was so cheap, we had faith it'd keep our beers at least cool. Neither of us was up for a two hour walk to the same beach we chilled at yesterday, so we took a taxi over there. We met up with a lady we met from the pub crawl last night and just chilled out with her on the beach. We went for a swim and napped on the beach almost all day. The weather was too good. We decided to stay for the sunset, which was a really good call because the sunset was nice but we ended up seeing a dolphin swimming right in front of us. The scene looked like one of those puzzles I used to do back in the day with the sun setting and the dolphins jumping out of the water. The dolphin was my favorite part of the day forsure. We went back with 2 liters of very warm beer and stopped to get a kebab. It was good but I'm missing donairs from home. We made plans for the Krka waterfalls for tomorrow, so we went to bed really early. I don't want to be tired for something I've really wanted to do for a long time. Other than the dolphin, today was very uneventful but relaxing. We definitely need a few beach days in our system.Read more

  • Ethan RivestEuro tripTraveler
    11

    Krka waterfalls

    April 29, 2024 in Croatia ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    Last night, we signed up for a day trip to Krka National Park. I heard about this place in school a really long time ago and thought it looked beautiful. Now, years later, I'm going there. It's a really cool feeling, actually. On the drive out there, we drove past an old palace on the hillside in Split. Game of Thrones used this palace for one of the cities. Split has a GOT museum, but I don't need to go after going to the main one when I was in Ireland. The national park was about a two hour bus ride from where we were staying. For about the last half hour it was a beautiful drive with some really blue water beside us surrounded by trees. I couldn't wait to get out and abandon the rest of the geriatrics on the bus and go do our own thing. The entry fee to the park was €20 but I lied and said I was a student and showed my health benefits card from work, and they accepted it, I'll take that. As soon as we got off the bus and the tour guide explained the map to us, Pearse and I jumped ahead of everyone. As soon as we stepped foot on the boardwalk, I looked at the crystal clear water to see tens of fish swimming. We ended up googling it and found out there were a couple of types of trout in the park. We were 5 steps in, and I had already found a spot I could just sit and watch all day. Just around the corner from there, we could hear tons of frogs croaking, so we ended up looking for them. They were pretty easy to spot in the swampy areas because their cheeks would balloon up every time they croaked. I caught one for good measure. Pretty early on into the hike, we had our first lookout point of the falls. It was stunning. We didn't stay too long because there was a group of real geriatrics that we kept getting stuck behind. It must have been a seniors only type of tour. It was painful walking behind them. Once we got in front of them, though the hike through the trees was almost as relaxing to me as a beach day. I loved the birds and the frogs while watching the fish. You can constantly hear watter from one of the seven falls at almost any point. It was perfect for me. When we got to the bottom, we found a pretty good spot to post up and take some really good pictures. We found a beer and sat close enough to the falls to still hear them and just chilled out. The falls were stunning from the bottom. It was everything I hoped for and more. The tour also included a small town called Skradin. We did a wine tasting for an extra €10. The wine was okay, but the person hosting the event didn't really give any information on what we were drinking. He also just looked like he didn't give a fuck. From there, Pearse and I went to lunch, where we only had 45 minutes to eat and get on the bus. I had chicken stuffed with ham. It was pretty good, I think. I had to eat it so fast I might not have tasted it. We cut it close, but we made it with 2 minutes to spare. We're pretty good at doing that. On the way back, both of us got a bit of rest on the bus. We had a pretty chill night planned, we were going to chill and split that 2l bottle between us and call it a night. Until we heard someone inside say they were canadian. We went inside to investigate, and sure enough, three other Canadians were chatting. One was from Edmonton, and the others were from sask. I'm pretty sure one of the sask boys lived in Shorewood Park before he moved to Vancouver. Once we started chatting and talking about the coincidences, we decided to pull out a deck of cards and play the drinking game sociables. Pearse and I quickly grabbed a mini keg of hieneken and came back. I've never played a game of sociables and been okay after. Tonight would not be any different. Pearse and I finished all 7 liters of beer we had by 10 pm. The hostel closed the common area at 10, so we decided to go out to the bars. At the first bar, the doctor bought everyone a jager bomb, which would be the end of me. I was hiccuping and sweating. I knew I didn't need or want anything other than my bed. I ended up walking back to the hostel way before everyone and went to bed. Sociables is my biggest enemy. 10/10 will play it againRead more

  • Ethan RivestEuro tripTraveler

    Brač island

    April 30, 2024 in Croatia ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    After having a good night with a bunch of other Canadians, we all made plans to go to Brač for the day and hang out on the famous Golden Horn Beach. It was about an hour long ferry over to the island, and we found cheap tickets. €12 round trip. Once Pearse and I got up, we went to a Café near the port and met up with the Edmontonian lady. She was suffering pretty badly from a hangover, so she ended up bailing on the island to go to the beach we had already spent two days at. It turns out everyone was suffering pretty bad because Pearse and I were the only ones to make it onto the ferry. We got to the island around 2:00. We needed to take a taxi 30 minutes to the other side of the island. The taxis were asking for €80 to get to the beach, so we found a group of people and asked if they'd split a ride there with us. It worked out pretty well. It was only €10 per person. When we got off, we asked for their number so we could arrange a time we all wanted to leave so we could do the same thing later. We went our separate ways for a little while. Pearse and I grabbed a beer and set up camp on the beach. The water was beautiful here. I don't know how it was clearer and more blue than the water at the last beach, but somehow it was. It was pretty hot out, so we went for a swim and dried off on the beach. I had a little nap on the beach again. I woke up absolutely starving, so we packed our things and went for dinner. I picked a restaurant off Google maps that was about a 25 minute walk from where we were. As Pearse and I were talking about how we were worried, the group wouldn't wait for us and taxi back without us. We realized they were walking right in front of us. We stopped them and asked them not to leave without us, to which they agreed again. We continued our walk down the beautiful coast line to get to our restaurant. As soon as we got to the restaurant, I had to pee so bad, so I ran to the bathroom, which was in its own building, separate from the restaurant and used the urinal. After I flushed, I realized all my pee and water was pouring all over the floor. The pipes were completely missing, and i didn't even realize. I felt so bad. It made me feel even worse when I left the bathroom and found out the only people working in this restaurant are an old married couple who have run this restaurant themselves for almost 60 years. The lady cooked, waited, cleaned, and did everything. She was so sweet. A family next to us asked for salt and pepper, and it totally offended her. She said she had already put some on, and the family insisted. When she brought it to them, she said only a little and watched them put it on lol. She later came over to us to explain she doesn't use any electricity to cook any of the food. Everything was done over a fire. This was definitely the most authentic meal we've had on this trip. I brought it back to my childhood and ordered an entire fish with some potatoes. I remember loving it in Mexico, and if I was going to eat a fish anywhere, I think this restaurant was the place to do it. This one held up as well. It was so good. The bones weirded me out a little more than when I was a kid, though. Im so happy we ended up at this restaurant, so far thos is my favorite dining experience of the trip!While we were eating, the group of people started messaging me and rushing us. They wanted to catch the next ferry out. We told them we were about to go to dinner, and 20 minutes later, they were telling us to hurry. Pearse and i didn't even have our food yet, so we weren't going to have time. We asked if they'd be fine with taking the next ferry, which was only an hour later. They said sure but continued to rush us through our dinner. I totally thought they were gonna leave us. They had enough where the taxi would still be affordable. For just Pearse and I, it would have been extortionate. We quickly finished up and met them at the taxi where we got our ride back to the port. Stuffed from dinner and drained from the sun, Pearse and I were pretty much ready for bed. We had a really early flight the next day. We're heading to Morocco!Read more

  • Ethan RivestEuro tripTraveler
    1

    Split to Marrakech

    May 1, 2024 in Morocco ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    Today, we're leaving Europe to go to Africa. I've been so excited about this for a while now. My flight home leaves from lisbon so I wanted to finish my trip somewhere close to Lisbon but I didn't know where. I'm not ready to go back to a place i've already been to. I was talking to my parents about my dilemma, and my dad brought up Morocco and told me about a camel tour through the Sahara desert. Immediately, I was sold. Pearse just decided a couple of days ago that he wanted to do it as well. Now, here we are in Marrakech, Morocco. Our flight out of Split was at 10 am. To get to the airport it was about an hour long bus ride. I guess the Split airport is very small because we got everything sorted and at our gate really fast. This is the first time ever I've had an entire row to myself on my flight, so I really enjoyed that. Our connecting flight was back in Gatwick, where we had a three hour layover. I totally forgot to check my bag and brought it through security. We were in the duty free area when I realized I fucked up. So I sat for three hours worried I was gonna get fined for asking them to put it under the plane at the gate. We had an extremely overpriced burrito and tried to chill out. When we got to our gate, I realized it was really simple, and they had no problem tagging it and putting it on for me. I gave it to a young guy who told me he'd do it for me, but he was super busy. I just left it on the ground beside him and prayed he actually remembered. We had about four hours from London to Marrakech. I distracted myself by grinding out 5 find penguins posts on the plane. When we landed, it was 7:00. We got off the plane and started walking to customs in the airport. There was a window looking down from the terminal to customs where we saw this huge crowd of people waiting in line. By the time we got down there, it was even more full. Neither of us knew this airport would be so busy. We waited in line for over an hour just to get through customs. The entire time in line I was just thinking ablut my bag. When we got to the booth, there were 4 questions taped to the window, the reason for traveling, the address of accommodation, the length of stay, and occupation. There was no wifi working, and neither of us had a Moroccon sim, so it was very high stress finding some of that information and proof of the information. When we finally got through security. They'd already taken my flight off the screen, so I had no idea which belt my bag was on. I ended up finding a couple of British dudes with the same problem, and we ended up finding the belt together. There, my bag was going in circles. I bought a sim card at the booth, and Pearse decided he would get an esim tomorrow and just use my Hotspot for the night. We got on the bus to the stop closest to pur hostel. The hostel was right outside the city Square, where a huge music festival was happening. I had no idea this was taking place, especially so close to the hostel. The crowds were insane. There were so many people everywhere. Immediately, I could see how different this place was to anything I've ever seen. Trying to maneuver through the busy streets with our backpacks on was sucked so much. There was barely enough room to walk, let alone people riding motorcycles through the crowds. Once we got off the busy street, we realized how confusing it was to get to the hostel. Not even google Maps could figure it out. We walked down dark, quiet streets for almost another hour. We finally got to the hostel at 930 at night. We checked in and went looking for our first taste of Moroccon food. We saw a restaurant outside the music festival and wanted to check the menu, so we started walking over, and a guy asked me if I wanted hash. I said no and asked the guy in front of the menu if I could take a look. He opened it for me, over my shoulder. The guy who tried selling me hash was asking if we wanted a drink at the restaurant. I was kind of shocked. This man, who's front of house at the restaurant, tried selling me drugs as his side hustle and a minute later was pointing me to the other side of the restaurant where we could drink. I mean, a brothers gotta do what he's gotta do. Pearse and I sat down and had some Tagine, which I found delicious. We enjoyed the music and the service at the restaurant it was a really good first experience in Africa for me. Soon after, we went to bed in the most uncomfortable bed known to man.Read more

  • Ethan RivestEuro tripTraveler
    111

    Ksar Ait Ben Haddou & Tinghir

    May 2, 2024 in Morocco ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

    Today is the start of our 3 day trek across morocco. We had to get up at 630 to get up on time and find our meet-up location. It wasn't hard to get up because we slept on a brick of a mattress and the softest pillow ever made. I got up and had a shower with lots of time to spare and check the room for anything we may have forgotten. We made it to the pickup spot on time, but there were so many buses and people it was overwhelming. Buses started leaving for their tour before Pearse, and I even knew where we were supposed to be. We were worried our bus left without us because we just couldn't find our guide. Luckily, a man named Aziz pulled us out of the crowd and asked if we were Ethan and Pearse. We got on the "bus," which is just a work fan with seats in it. It's pretty small with no leg room at all. Of course, we got the very back with the least leg room as well. Crammed in this bus we left for our first stop. It was a look out of the Atlas mountain. It was the first really cool view we've had in Morocco so far, and it didn't disappoint. It's nothing like the mountains I'm used to back at home, but I think I liked it so much because the landscape surrounding us was so cool. It was dry and Rocky with this red rock gorge. It was really interesting. Our next stop was only about an hour away, where we stopped on Africa's highest road. It's about 2600 meters above sea level. I had no idea we were going to see this, so it was a nice surprise. After some more photos, we had to get a move on to today's main attraction, Ksar Ait Ben Haddou. This village was built in 800 AD. There are two main sides to the village, the old ksar and the new ksar. The old ksar has a ruined fortified lookout tower called a kasba. Unfortunately, an earthquake destroyed the kasba only a few years ago. All that remains from it is rubble and the bottom portion of it. What makes a ksar a ksar are the houses. They're made of clay and mud, meaning a rainy week will start melting the buildings away. I couldn't imagine seeing rain in the forecast and thinking, "Ah shit I'm gonna have to remold my house." Right before we got off the bus, Aziz told us to apply sunscreen because the sun was really strong here. I looked at my weather app, and it only said it was 20 degrees. I grabbed the sunscreen but decided I wouldn't need it because I'm really good at ignoring people's advice. Well, after standing outside the van for two minutes, I conceded and put it on. I felt like my neck was turning red in the two minutes I was outside for. We started by having lunch on the new ksar I had tagine for lunch. I had it for dinner last night, so I knew it was gonna be good. I think last night's was better, but it was still really good. We walked across the bridge that connected both sides above what's supposed to be a river, but it was completely dried up. I guess lucky for their homes, they haven't had any rain in a long time. When we got to the other side, we were able to look down at the bottom of the ksar and could see where the movie Gladiator was shot. Everyone knows Gladiator is a badass movie, so it was really cool to see where the arena used to be. My favorite show of all time, GOT, was also shot here in season three. This world heritage site has been the filming location for tons of different movies and shows. Those two are just my favorite. We kept climbing the stairs of the ksar when we came across an old man sitting down with a recorder playing some music. He called me over to sit next to him. When I was on my way over, he pulled a snake out of a burlap sack and put it around my neck. I was not expecting that at all. He started playing the recorder, and this snake that was probably almost dead just laid in my hands. It was a really weird experience. Pearse took some pictures and a quick video for me, so when I got up, I told him to sit down and I'd do the same for him. We were both pretty excited by it and not paying attention to the rest of the group. As the old man was about to pass a chameleon to Pearse, he froze with a concerned look on his face and put both the snake and the chameleon back in the bag. Confused, I ended the video and turned around where we saw a member of our group having a seizure. We later found out she has epilepsy. She's okay it was just a little concerning to see. She just sat down in the shade for a while while we finished the tour. The next stop was my favorite stop. We stopped in this guys ksar where he was painting. The style of art he was doing is hundreds of years old and is only practiced here. He only has a few colors to work with, blue, which is indigo in water, yellow is saffron and water, and for black and 6 used tea and sugar in water. The really interesting part is that the only color that's visible after being painted is the blue. The brown and yellow disappear into the canvas really quickly. The way they make the colors come back and stay on the canvas is by lighting a gas stove and heating the canvas over top of the flame. It was really cool to see the painting just appear after being over the flame for a few seconds. It doesn't really make sense to me how that works. I ended up buying a small painting because I thought it was so cool. After the demonstration, we continued to the top of Ksar Ait Ben Haddou, where the kasba was located. We got to walk around and explore for a few minutes before making our way back down. It was so hot in the sun. In only a couple hours, it jumped to almost 30 degrees outside. For the rest of my time here, my sunscreen won't leave my pocket. I think this is one of the cooler world heritage sites I've been to. It was really interesting to me. Unfortunately, it was time to leave, so we got back in the van. This is where I realized I left my fuckin headphones at the hostel. I'm devastated. There's no way to contact the hostel, so I'm gonna go back there after the three day trip to see if they still have them. I don't have much hope. It was a long drive to the hotel we stayed at, but it was worth it. We stayed at a really nice hotel with comfy beds and even a pool. We had one roommate named Billy who's really cool and easy to get along with. We had dinner where we played uno for a bit and chilled out. We sat by the pool for about an hour before hitting the hay. Tomorrow is a huge day!Read more

  • Ethan RivestEuro tripTraveler
    112

    Tinghir to Sahrah desert

    May 3, 2024 in Morocco ⋅ ☀️ 33 °C

    Today was a surreal experience. We left our hotel at 8 am. Our first stop was an oasis and a gorge. It's pretty much the only green I've seen in Morocco so far, so it was really cool. There was a river that ran through here and something like 30 villages share and help each other with farming in this one oasis. They dig irrigation ditches for the water to flow to their crops. When they have enough water, they just block off the stream they made with dirt and rocks. We walked along the banks of the oasis in the shade, which was much needed. It was only 10, but it was already a heater. The tour guide took us into a so we could enter somebody's home and learn about how rugs are made. We learned that women will sit and work on these rugs for 4 hours a day for months at a time. They are hand woven with crazy detail. My favorite rug took 6 months to make and full of symbolism about her life. It has her Berber tribes symbols on it as well as mountains, obviously meaning her tribe is from the mountains. I'm sure there's more symbolism I don't understand in the rugs, but those are the two I remember. While we were being taught about these rugs and watching a demonstration of how they were made, we were brought tea to enjoy. They call it Moroccon whiskey. It's really good with a bit of sugar in it. These people were so hospitable while we were there. It was really cool to see how welcoming they were. They laid out about 30 different rugs, all made of different materials. Sheep wool, camel hair, cactus silk, and more. Basically, whatever they had and could use, they had a rug for it. They kept flapping the rugs in this tiny room, and I felt like I was having allergies to something. My nose was leaking, and my eyes were so itchy. Up to this point, it was a really cool experience. They had the opportunity to try and sell us a rug just like everywhere we've been so far. It's their livelyhood. It started getting awkward at this point, though, because everyone on our guided tour is either young and backpacking with nowhere to put a rug, broke, or just not interested. I'm all 3. They made us watch as they started folding all the rugs up and told us to put one aside when we saw one we liked. It was 15 minutes of absolute silence. I felt bad because of the looks on their faces, but I just kept telling myself it's part of their bit. Make the tourists feel bad and they'll buy something. Even after all the rugs were folded up, the guy thanked us for coming into his home and said, "I keep smiling, no problem." Pearse and I ran out as fast as we could before the hard sell could start back up, plus I was actually dying from whatever was making me itchy. Some of the guys were inside for almost 10 more minutes because they got targeted. Other than the little bit of awkwardness, I thought it was a really cool experience. We were just in a berber families house, made of clay, learning about these insanely complex rugs. After everyone was out, the tour guide walked us through the village and back to the oasis. While still in the village, 2 little kids, maybe 8 years old, came running up to me, begging me for money. I said no, sorry, nicely. Like how I would talk to a kid anywhere. These kids were trained, though. They knew what they were doing. I had to talk to them like an adult and give them the silent treatment like I do 55 year old street vendors. It was a shitty feeling because they're children, but I know that's how they get you. It was still just a weird feeling. When we finally got back to the oasis, we got some awesome pictures with the surrounding gorge. Lucky for us, we got to walk through the gorge. The gorge is very famous for its rock climbing. For weeks, I've been telling Pearse that when I go home, I want to try a rock gym, and seeing these people climb here made me want to even more. How cool would it be to scale up a straight vertical wall? After spending a bit of time in the gorge, we all packed into our tiny bus to go for lunch before we hit the Sahara desert. My lunch was not bad it was roasted chicken, soupy rice, and vegetables. The rice was nasty, and I hate zucchini. I wanted the tagine with an egg, but I've had it 3 times since I been here already, so I wanted to change it up. I think it was a mistake. After a quick lunch stop, we drove a little longer to get to a store where we could buy our get-up. I swear I've never had more fun shopping in my life. When we came out of the store with the head dresses on and covered from the sun, I immediately knew next years Halloween costume. What could go wrong. Pearse and I looked like true locals. We were finally ready for the desert. We still had a ways to go, but I was so excited that the rest of the drive flew by. When I saw the first sand dune is when it began to not even feel real. We got out of the van and into the 32-degree mid day weather in our traditional berber outfit and onto a camel. I had to call mom and dad to just show them, which is crazy I had bars in the desert. We've done some cool shit on this trip, but it'll take a very long time for me to do something this cool again. I had to share it with them. We walked for an hour on the camels, which was more than enough for most of the fellas, I think. These harnesses were so uncomfortable to sit on I couldn't imagine doing any longer on them. We got to the tent where they gave us welcome tea in 35-degree weather. We got sorted into our tents and immediately went sand boarding. It was fun when you got going, but getting back up, the dune was terrible lol. Everyone did a couple of runs and gave up on that noise. Pearse and I went on a walk to explore the dunes where we made more of our classic videos of us acting like idiots. It was actually a lot of fun making them. I was doing flips in the sand. We were jumping off the dunes and doing summersaults down. To sum it up, just being children. We sat down to watch the sunset with a couple of people from the tour and then went for dinner. After dinner, there was a fire and a drum circle, which was cool, but a way cooler alternative was to lay in the pitch black on a sand dune watching the stars. Kinda creepy knowing there's weird fucking critters out there that could kill us lol. I wasn't worried it was just a thought. We just laid there and talked for a couple of hours listening to the drums in the distance. I don't know if there was supposed to be a meteor shower, but we saw 4 massive meteors. It's easily the biggest I've ever seen. They were flying right over us, bright orange from fire. They were so unreal. For me, today was the best day of the trip and the most fun I've had in recent memory. I'm so happy, dad told me to do this, and I'll remember this forever.Read more

  • Ethan RivestEuro tripTraveler

    Sahrah to Marrakech

    May 4, 2024 in Morocco ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    Today, we got up at 5:30 so we could watch the sunrise from our camels. They said breakfast was included, but it was just small pastries and a lot of bread. It was pretty disappointing because we had a really long day ahead of us. After eating, Pearse and I made our way down to the camels where we waited to get on one. Other groups were leaving, and we were told to wait. We ended up waiting until we were the last two people waiting for a camel. It ended up only being Pearse and I on the one group of camels, so we kinda got a private tour. The saddles were probably even more uncomfortable today. I swear it was just made of wood with a little blanket over the hump. Unfortunately, because we had to wait so long for our camels to leave, we weren't allowed to stop for the sunrise. We could see the other groups sitting in the sand watching, but we had to catch up. The sun was rising behind us, so we could sort of turn around and see the begginging of it, but we ended up going behind a sand dune for most of it. When the sun first started rising, it made a perfect shot of our shadows. After an hour, we got back to the bus. It's about an eight hour drive back to Marrakech from the dessert. We stopped for some coffee after an hour and a half. I ran into the bathroom really quick, and when I was in the stall, there were 2 huge spiders in the corner just above the toilet. To be honest, I was terrified of them. They had really long legs and a body shaped like a long grain of rice. Absolutely nasty. It was a few hours until our lunch stop. For lunch, there was a pretty big buffet. It was about €12 for the buffet. I went up about four separate times and completely filled my plate all four times. I had to make it worth it. After lunch, we got back on the bus for a few more hours before we stopped at a rest stop with a little spot to take some pictures of the surrounding mountains. I quickly took a couple of pictures and went downstairs to just sit in a lawn chair in the sun. In short bursts, the hot sun feels so good. I pulled up my sleeves and just shut my eyes until Aziz, the tour guide, had to beg me to get back on the bus. Pearse and I booked our hostel we would stay at for the next 3 nights. Our friend we made on this trip, Billy, decided he'd come stay with us for a couple of nights before he left for London. When we got back to Marrakech, we had to deal with the city traffic again. The streets are so chaotic and stressful. I don't think there are any rules on the road, except for maybe stop at a red light if you feel like it. Seeing the streets here makes me feel bad for ever complaining about the roads at home. When the three of us checked into the hostel, it was almost 9:00. Pearse and I got onto our room, where we sat and spoke to our roommates for about an hour. Once we felt comfortable leaving our bags under the bottom bunk with these people, we met back up with Billy for a little bit of grub. We stopped at a place in the market that was filled wall to wall with people. It was a really good spot for one of my favorite pastimes, people watching. Billy was a professional as well. On the way back to the hostel, the three of us made plans to hang out and walk around. Today was a really long day of traveling, so it was pretty early to bed for us.Read more

  • Ethan RivestEuro tripTraveler
    11

    Marrakech

    May 5, 2024 in Morocco ⋅ ☀️ 33 °C

    With a good nights sleep, we got up early to enjoy our hostels' included breakfast. It was actually really good. It was an omelet with a crepe, some sort of bread that was a little spongy but really good, and for desert, a little cinemon bun with honey on the side. I had two because I was hungry and it was really good. After breakfast, the three of us started walking around in the scorching heat. We made sure to bring lots of water with us. We started by walking to Kotoubia, which is a mosque pretty much right outside our hostel. The inside was closed, so we took some pictures and continued walking with no real destination in mind. We ended up in a market with no tourists around. We were the only ones there. I think it was the weekly farmers' market Aziz was telling us about. Even though it was cool to see what it looked like, it smelled like shit. They had raw meat hanging and raw fish just sitting in the sun. There was a lot of mouth breathing going on. I don't know how the locals don't get suck from eating this kind of stuff. At one point, it had been over an hour since we had seen any tourists, and we came across a group of young kids who were actually excited to see us. They were all waving and saying "bonjour" to us. It was pretty cool, actually. It felt like something I've seen in a movie before. After having enough of the crowded narrow streets, we decided to go to a tomb built for a king and his wife. It was another 45 minutes away, so we stopped to get some water and made our way over. When we got there, my water was almost empty and hot. It was almost like tea. To actually see the tomb, we had to wait almost an hour in line in the dirrect sun. Just as we were getting to the tomb, we realized you couldn't even go inside. We had to take pictures from behind a rope. So we waited for an hour for two minutes of pictures. To be fair, though, it was beautiful inside. It was full of shiny tiles decorated with fancy patterns. Even though it was beautiful, I don't know if it was worth it. Once we left, I needed more water desperately, so we went to a restaurant and sat in the shade for a while. We chatted with Billy for a while. He's got some really cool stories from being part of the American Navy. After some water and a beer, we wanted to go back to the hostel and get away from the sun for a while. We ended up in Madina Square, which is just a huge tourist trap. There are snake charmers charming cobras and shops to buy little souvenirs. The only thing we stopped for were pictures with some monkeys. We gave them 20 durhims, which is about €2 for some pictures which they happily took in exchange for all three of us to get a turn holding the monkeys. It was cool, but at the same time, I kind of think monkeys are gross, so I was a little uncomfortable touching them. When we were done with our photo shoot, Pearse started to pull out some more money for them for a small tip because he said they were really nice, and all of a sudden, they were flies on shit. They asked for 200 durhims from all 3 of us. That's €20. Yeah, right, buddy. I said I had no more money. The guy grabbed my wrist until I went in my pocket and pulled out a couple of coins to give him. I was saving that for another bottle of water. They unwillingly let us go after we all chipped in a bit of money. Maybe a lesion learned not to pull money out in front of street hustling vultures. Something I've learned from being in Morocco is that a lot of people do not care about personal space and will touch you and grab you for no reason. It was really uncomfortable. After the monkeys, we were thankfully only a few minutes from the hostel, I noticed I had a slight headache, so I wanted to buy some more water and do nothing. I had actually made plans to go get a tattoo with Bill in the evening, but when I sat down, my headache got so bad. I chugged my fourth 1.5L water bottle, but it didn't do anything for me. I tried to tough it out, but my vision started getting blury, and I started to get really nausious. I canceled on my tattoo plans and decided to buy another water and go lay down in my bed. When I laid down, I got so much more nausious, and my head felt like it was being crushed. I definitely think I had some heatstroke or something because I felt so shitty. I ended up falling asleep for a few hours. When I woke up, I felt a little better but still had a headache. I took my water up to the rooftop balcony where Pearse and Billy were sitting with the ladies from our room. I just sat there quietly, listening for about half an hour until they had to close the rooftop down for the night. I didn't have the energy to do anything else, so I said goodbye to Billy because he had to leave early the next morning and then went straight back to sleep. We convinced Billy to come up to Canada next year and come to visit because it was so easy for both Pearse and I to get along with him. He even told his girlfriend it felt like the three of us had been friends for years, so that was really cool. I look forward to meeting back up with him.Read more

    Trip end
    May 11, 2024
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