It's a small weird, weird world - The Parisian Edition

[CAN CAN GIRLS]

When you think you can't
You'll find you can can!
[SOPHIE]
Everyone can can can!
[SOPHIE AND CAN CAN GIRLS]
You can can can too!

--Anastasia Soundtrack, "Paris Holds The Key To Her Heart"

The lyrics really have absolutely nothing to do with my trip, but Anastasia has been my favorite princess ever since I learned of her existance when I was in grade school, and this song is so fun to sing.

What else is fun and a little bit obnoxious?

Selfies!

Not the most flattering blog ever written about Paris

The first thing I noticed about Paris was....how to put this delicately.....

It's kind of gross.

Now some of my perception could be blamed on the fact that I just came from the Netherlands and the Dutch people are stereotypically clean freaks.  The street sweeping truck passed me multiple times a day in Amsterdam.  I'm pretty sure they employ someone just to go around and find all the gum people spit out during the day.  My view of all cities everywhere has been ruined by the cleanliness of Amsterdam.

But regardless.  Paris...

Rock 'n' Roll Dublin Half Marathon

Despite not running since setting foot on this continent almost 2 months ago, I still finished in 2:13:22. Yay!  

Ireland had people blessing it's constantly overcast skies for probably the first time ever.

By the way, Ireland?  Amazing.  Love it.  I want to keep my entries somewhat in order though, so more Paris articles later this week, then my adventures paragliding in Munich and soaking up the sun on the coast of Croatia.  

But for me, I'll be heading to Belfast on Thursday and then hopefully *crosses fingers and prays imploringly* getting a ferry to Scotland and getting to Edinburgh before 10pm on August 11.  After that I'll be traveling the rails again, this time across Great Britain.

So much to do before I come home September 10th!

Disclaimer:  I do not recommend my training schedule to anyone not wanting to hobble up and down three flights of steps to get to their room in the hostel.

Amsterdam: beautiful, fun, and delicious

Believe it or not, these are actually all pictures in the Red Light district.  Which is where I stayed.  Accidentally.  But it felt super safe and I was close to all sorts of great restaurants (because, hello, the stoners need gelato and waffles (they totally ripped off our "birthday cakes" at CU, btw), and funny stores (the "Condomerie"?????).  

Ich bin ein Berliner!

Overall Berlin was one of my favorite stops: rich history, interesting people, great beer (and not-so-great-but-definitely-intriguing flavored beer), tremendous amounts of food, a thriving arts scene...

Top left: yes I drank beer.  Quite a bit of it actually!
Top middle: my 3 euro meal that was some sort of falafel-asian food thing.  But delicious
Top right: If you squint you can see the Berlin Wall ending on the left of the picture, beyond the bikes, and facing what starts a long line of crazy offers like hot air balloon rides in a balloon that looks like a globe, currywursts, painted cars, museums, art displays and...
Bottom left: an artificial beach.  Just down the road from the wall and from Checkpoint Charlie
Bottom middle: Raspberry flavored beer.  Apparently when the French arrived many moons ago, they didn't like the taste of beer so they added fruit flavoring.  I don't like it.
Bottom right: Just another example of random art work in Berlin

As President Kennedy said after the wall went up:

All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner!"