bangkok... wow

We arrived in Bangkok very early in the morning after a red-eye from Stockholm and went directly to a restaurant so Andrew could eat the Pad Thai he had been lusting for over the last couple months. After that we looked for a hotel in the Koh San Road area (not on Koh San Road though, it's a little crazy for us--it's the big backpacker area in Bangkok, and is filled to the brim with street vendors, tattoo shops, food stalls, restaurants blaring techno, and more).

Koh San Road

Maggie had been talking about all the Pad Thai street vendors in the area and they did not let us down. At night it seemed like hundreds of them were on the streets selling the same same, but different Pad Thai as all the others for around 30 Baht (which is around US$1).

Pad Thai street vendor making it right in front of you

Our hotel was fairly standard for the area. The bottom floor was a restaurant / bar with the rooms in the floors above.  And hot water (maybe our last hot water for awhile), all for only 560 Baht a night (about $18).

The restaurant / bar on the bottom floor of our hotel

baconost

Since food was so expensive in Stockholm, we just bought most of our meals from the grocery store. One gem we hit upon on our first outing to the grocery store was Baconost. It's pretty much bacon in a tube. Okay, it's more of bacon mixed with cheese, but still--it is awesome. We looked it up online and found that it has quite the cult following but Sweden is the only place you seem to be able to get it.

It's great stuff, we had it on everything from bread to chips and I can see it good on many other things as well. (I know, it kind of sounds like it could be gross, but it truly does taste like bacon you can spread on bread. Yum.) We would definitely recommend trying it if you can!

two days in stockholm

We ended up flying out of Stockholm, Sweden to Bangkok because we could get cheaper tickets and it was a good excuse for both of us to go somewhere neither of us had been. We had heard it was expensive... and it was. But beyond the price, Stockholm is a very beautiful city when it comes to the merging of scenery and architecture. We stayed on a hostel boat on the river right next to the old city of Stockholm that was been around since the medieval times and is on a very small island.

Our hostel with a rainbow from the many rainfalls we had while we were there

Andrew taking in the view of the old city of Stockholm from our hostel boat

 We weren't there very long but since everything was so expensive, we spent most of our time just walking around and taking in the sights of the city.

Beer was so expensive that the whole time we were there we only bought one beer... but it had an awesome can so we had to get it.

Yeah, that's weasels dancing, one with a hat on

Even Maggie enjoyed weasel beer

Goodbye, Stockholm!

a night of le ligue: us créteil vs fc metz

One of the things on our Adventure List was go to a European Football match while in Paris. So on Friday night we headed to Creteil, a suburb of Paris to watch the US Creteil Urban Devils take on the FC Metz. We took a subway that deposited us right at the Creteil Stadium, which was very convenient.

 We obviously sat with the home team who had a chant they did the entire game. Actually they had about 10 different chants that one guy in the front would lead them all through, but really he just started a new chant and then they all knew what to do. Some of there were quite complicated with songs and arm gestures. A couple times it almost turned into a mosh-pit and it definitely turned into a mosh-pit anytime they scored.

 The other funny things was that they separated the fans from the other team (Metz) from the Creteil fans. And by separated I mean behind a fence with a few security guards making sure they didn't jump it. The Metz fans had their own set of cheers that they preformed the entire game as well... so it was loud.

I think this guy thought it was the French Revolution

What they did to the Creteil fans after Metz scored

The final score of the game was 3-2 with Creteil winning with their 3rd goal coming in the 87th minute, so it was a very exciting game. The two teams fans also decided to forgo the standard post-game brawl (which was a let down to Andrew) but all in all, it was a good time.

funny statues of paris (part 2): le louvre

We spent a long day at the the Louvre Museum and there were more than enough statues in that one very large building for an entire post on the subject of funny / weird statues.  The French can't take credit for all the weirdness though, there are a few Roman statues that made you do a double take as well.

Damn nature, you scary

 

No caption needed, this is just weird

Who knew they had a statue of Tebow as a baby in the Louvre

Statue on the Right: I told you mine was bigger. Statue on the Left: I hate to break it to you buddy, but yours is broken off

What buddy, you never seen a three headed dog before

Yea, I work out,,. You like?

booze of paris

This isn't all of the booze we drank in Paris, but a good sampling of it. Some bottles where purchased, drank and thrown away before we could ever take a picture.

we're velibers: renting bikes in paris

Velibs, in our humble opinion, are the best way to get around Paris.

Velib is Paris' bike sharing program, and not only is it really fun riding around Paris, it's a pretty sweet deal. For 1.70€, you get 24 hours worth of bike rentals, which means you can go to any Velib stand in the city (they claim they're every 300 meters, and I wouldn't be surprised--they're everywhere) and then return it at any other Velib stand. For each individual trip, if you return it within 30 minutes, there's no additional charge. (Which means on longer trips, we could find a Velib stand, return the bike, and get another one out immediately, and not get charged!)

We ended up Velibing all over the city, from our apartment in the Marais to the Eiffel Tower on one side of town and up to the Sacre Coeur on the other (though down from the Sacre Coeur was a much more fun ride...), and everywhere in between. There are even bikes lanes a lot of the way!

The only downsides we found were that 1. You had to be really careful to get a bike that actually worked (we accidentally got bikes with no brakes, one with no chain, and one missing a pedal over our time there). Luckily, if you get a dud, you can just return it and get a new one. And 2. These suckers are popular. Even though there are tons of stands, we'd occasionally have to visit two or three or six stands until we found one with two working bikes available. 

Overall, though, Velibing it was a great way to get around the city, and we'd definitely recommend them as way around the city. We're Velibers!