They Can Take Your Money, But They Can't Take Your Attitude

Paris was such an unexpected adventure.  I left with the intentions of only staying two days at a friends flat and ended up staying for four!  I have had many a crazy travel shenanigan in my day but nothing compared to what this past weekend had in store for me.  It all started in India where I met Solen(see   India Part I), we had such a fab time on our trip and hanging out we both invited each other to visit any time.  So my first free weekend I booked a trip out to Paris to visit!  I planned a short stay friday night through Sunday afternoon, just expecting Solen to show me a couple thing but thinking I would be trekking out on my own for the most part.  I was so wrong, not only did she show me around, introduce me to the locals and show me the inner workings of Paris but when tragic circumstances struck she saved my life quite literally.  My trip was mind blowing and I owe it to Solen for showing me all that she did.  

India: How to survive a rickshaw

 I awoke, early the next morning (day two) feeling bruised and like I had taken a turn in a washing machine on high...  I would soon learn, that the feeling would be a reoccurring event each morning.     We arose extra early to try and watch the sunrise over the Taj Mehal.   By the time we had walked over to the Taj, the sun had already risen and there was a considerable line.  There were four different lines to get in to seethe monument: Indian Men, Men, Indian Women, Women with seperate prices for each group.  I'll leave you to your own emotions on that on, but we had gotten half way through the line when we realized, they didn't sell tickets.  Robin ran back to one of the shop owners who had tried to corral us into buying something from him, and somehow convinced him to take her on his moped to buy tickets and that we would stop in after our trip inside.

So Happy Making

I don't even know where to start.... There is just so much I have to say, and there are so many little off shoots on a main story - like an episode of How I Met Your Mother, just bare with me and you can hear an unbelievable story.

Firstly I was so excited to be going on this trip, Cinque Terre was on my list of places that I really wanted to go to. Cinque Terre for those of you who don't know is a set of five small cities interconnected by a foot path and train system. Cinque Terre literally means "five lands", and is a protected historic land mark by the Italian government. Each Town has its own individual flavor to it, although each four towns are located on the cliff's of the Mediterranean and one town is more inward. Chronologically we went through Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia,Vernazza, and finally Monterosso al Mare. Our hostel was in Riomaggiore, and was by far the best choice of towns to stay in. Riomaggiore is on one end of the chain of towns, so we we able to start our hike and go in one direction for the whole day - although I use "one direction" loosely. The hike was unbelievable tough, but now that you have some idea of what Cinque terre is I will start from the beginning.
So I have work on Fridays and the girls I was traveling with didn't have plans on Friday so I was going to join up later in the day after work. I am not going to lie I was a little nervous taking the train alone, I have had a couple disastrous experiences with taking the train alone , and this would be my first time since my return taking the train. Thankfully this was nothing like the first time, using all my knowledge of trains I had acquired and timetables I was fine!