This will be my last post about the trip. We start our trek back to London, England today, sleep at the airport, and then fly out tomorrow morning. It’s been a good ride so far but we are both exhausted and missing everyone back home. Especially now since Darryl is engaged!! Paris has been good. We did all the touristy things like see the Eiffel tower, go the the Louvre Museum, see the Notre Dame, other churches and famous buildings. We got really lucky throughout the trip. We saw the Eiffel Tower except it was their version of Independance Day here so there was a half hour long fireworks showed synced with music behind the Eiffel Tower along with probably 120,000 people or so. We got to Notre Dame except there was mass going on so we got to experience mass in French at one of the most famous churches and beautiful churches in the world. Things like this happened our entire trip. Like getting into the Collessium for free because it was some gladiators birthday. Just happen to be going past Pamplona during the one week festival of running with the bulls. Being in Ireland during the one day festival of World Class street performers (post to come later about that). Being in Munich during their big festival called TollWood. I felt like it never stopped working out all trip long. Couldn’t have asked or planned a better turnout when its all over. Rachel and I get home tomorrow night and then head off for one or two weeks (yet to be decided) to some cottages up north with her family and then this blog will be back to its regular scheduled programming.

Rachel posted about our 29th day, so I won’t. I will post a few pictures of the Eiffel Tower fireworks and such if they turned out later. Rachel also told a story of my Q-tip scandal, which she still hasn’t forgiven me for. Mostly because I’m not sorry apparently. Read her post here.

Yesturday I ran with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. Check out what happened there the day before I did it (just to show you what I was up against.) I didn’t find out until after though. We arrived in Pamplona around 5:30 in the morning, and I ran around 8:00. At 7:00 there was still a hardcore show going on at a local bar and the street were full of people, urine, puke and filth. It was quite disgusting so it was good we only spent the day there. This week in Pamplona everyone is dressed in all white with a red bandana tied around their neck. I thought this meant everyone was running, so that gave me some more courage to go. I was wrong. Probably only 200 people or so did it, and me with all my ignorance was one of them. You start in one big mass of people and then they spread you out over the course of the run. The gun sounds and they let the big bull go, then a few seconds later they let the other 6 bulls go. People were running franticly in every direction. The few brave ones were hitting them with newspapers and everyone ran toward the stadium. You are only advised to run a part of the track so that’s all I did. Once the bulls passed safely I stopped, walked back to Rachel and then we walked over to the stadium. In the stadium, anyone can go into the area and taunt, wrestle or get gored by the bull. They let out each bull, one by one, and then it precedes to run around chasing whoever can annoy it the most. I didn’t get hurt mostly because I had no clue what was going on and I just stayed near a side and jogged happily beside the bulls, but far enough away that I had time to react. until I was tired. If I was to do it again I would have done it a bit different, but either way it was still a lot of fun. The one picture is of me, I’m rockin out the white t-shirt looking through the fence that separated the bulls and me from Rachel and the camera. See the guy between the police and the paramedics on duty. The other picture is the stadium where the crowds taunt the bull and then the bull attacks the, and hurts them. Quite hilarious actually.

You can tell I’m getting frustrated with the foreign keyboards because the letters are all in different places, my posts are a lot shorter. I’m missing my laptop more than ever know. Rachel and I spent two days in Barcelona and tried to keep it chill as possible to avoid any more sickness. We saw the Sagrada Familia, Les Rambles and at to put to rest all curiousity for Rachel we saw the new Harry Potter movie. That was about it. I am getting tired of taking pictures of buildings with construction going on all over it. I know its necessary but basically every main site has cranes, bright orange and workers surrounding it. It was impossible to find good food in Barcelona, it is nothing like the rest of the cities/countries we’ve been to where we have found restaurants, mini-marts or grocery stores on every street. For this reason alone, I had no problem leaving Barcelona. We did find one good restaurant though thqt was all-you-can-eat, so that helped even it out. Then we were off to Pamplona for the Running With the Bulls.

Yesterday we spent the day in Nice, sitting on the beach (getting a wicked sunburn). We also got bored later at night so we went to see Ocean’s 13 in the small little theatre close to the beach. Great and comfortable seats, bad sound but only sat 50 people so it was more like your home. Today we went to Monaco, home of the rich. I thought I was cool because my Dad has a big boat; “fastest boat in Sarnia” he’d tell you. Then I saw these boats and some of these people have their own personal cruise ships. I’d post some pictures but it seems as if my 4gb memory card got some sort of virus on it from one of these Internet cafes, good thing I backed up all the pictures yesterday. They use boats like my Dad’s as a lifeboat We couldn’t get into the main casino cause my attire wasn’t approproate. Tie, coat and pants only. So we went to a less famous one and played a little blackjack. We doubled up, then bought lunch and then left. Always good to leave one up on them. Tonight we are off to Barcelona.

There was a change of plans since last post. After I posted Rachl was feeling even worse to we went to the hospital there and got her checked out. They kept her overnight there and ran tests. After everything they think it was an infection of some sort: She had an extremly high fever, pain in her side and chills. They gave her a prescription, but recommended that she stay a few more nights. Not even that will stop Rachel from experiencing her dream trip, especially Paris. So I slept at the train station, and Rachel got the bed. We left last night instead and arrived in Nice this morning. We walked around for a few hours and then went back to our hotel and crashed all afternoon. Woke up, ate some food, then Rachel went back to bed. The beaches here are all rock and no sand, I can’t tell if I like it or hate it. Tomorrow we are going to try and go to Monte-Carlo and pay for our entire trip through gambling. Then off to Barcelonia, with a side trip to Pampelona to participate (if I don’t chicken out) with the running of the bulls. Then off to Paris before we head back to England to fly home. Rachel is feeling a lot better now and just needs to catch up on her sleep, just so you all know. Thanks for your prayers.