Chapter 2: Paris and Brussels

Ireland passed by verrry fast. On the last day we went to the cliffs of moher, one of Irelands main tourist attractions. 500 ft straight drop cliffs all along the coast of a place called dooley. On the way we saw the burren which is all the huge hills made entirely of stone. There are a bunch of fields on the way that were created by villagers long ago by moving tons and tons of stone just for less than what looked like a city block. While there we saw a few ancient burial sights from the Celts way back in 3000 BC, not too long ago...Afterwards we went to the Allile Cave which is deep in one of th burren's hills, it was a long walk in and dark as all hell. That night we enjoyed the festivities of the Volvo Ocean Race, a huge sailing race across the World that stops in Galway for 2 weeks. An enormous spectacle with temporary stores and restaurants lining the docks (on the other side of the street from our apartment). There were great concerts at night and plenty to do an see during the day.We went out to a couple clubs the last night and said our goodbyes.

We had to escape Ireland in order to survive assasination attempts from assets...

Got to Paris Tuesday around 3 and it was a non-stop action packed time after that. Within about 24 hours we got to the top of the eiffel tower around 11 pm, beautiful sight and terrifying journey straight up. We also toured the Notre Dame Cathedral, The Catacombs (hundreds of thousands of bones stacked underground to make walls, we thought it might be a good momento to bring one home, but the thought of being haunted for years afterwards turned us off the idea.), Arc de Triumph, The Lourve (now thats a big museum), and indulged in 6 euro cups of coffee and anchovy and caper pizza. The hostel was great and we ran into an ex-richmond tennis payer who came out to dinner with us while we watched Barcelona win the champions league and had a few drinks at the nightclub shywawa.

Then we went to the French Open Wednesday afternoon, which was the highlight of the trip. We had great seats (thanks Will) in the 3rd row of boxes and were able to watch last years womens winner Anna Ivonovic, shes a serb with quads the size of two massive roast hams. Hard to believe shes only 21, there was a heavy duty Serbian politician in the first row to watch her as well. If anyone knows who the serb is with gray hair and a huge black patch in the center of it, let us now. Needlesss to say Anna and those quads prevailed against her Thai counterpart. Afterwards we saw an incrdible match between the Russian #20 player M. Safin vs the French underdog Ouanna, who won the first two and almost blew it afterwards but held on to win it almost 5 years later. The crowd was really rowdy and giving Safin the hassle who was acting like a total D bag.

Brussels

We got to the train station with confidence that you just hop on to the next train to the direction you want to go...not a chance. After standing in several lines we finally got a ticket to Brussels (they continually told us we'd have to wait till the next day) So we connected through Lille in the North. Got into Brussels around 7 and basically got the honeymoon suite for 30 euro a piece. Private bath, tv, radio, towels, sheets, who could ask for more. We quickly went to go and indulge in the local brewhahas. We spent the entire night hanging out with a group of clemson students and had some of the infamous 10% alcohol beers at cheap. The club, delirium, was great. It had a loud live band, an encyclopedia of beer choices and plenty of friendly people. We went across the street for an glorified absinthe shot as well and were joined by some clemson spectators. The next morning we had Belgium waffles at a street stand. Duncan got the regular (delicious) while I, Ryan, got the chocolate covered one, sounded like a good idea but it was awful and tasted like a cold stiff sponge. Not too much to see around the city, but certainly a great nightlife and a huge row of restaurants. We hoped on the eurorail to Amsterdam at about 1 pm and thats where we are now....certainly more stories to come