Meg & Heather's European Adventure

Planes, Oxygen and Puppies!

2010-10-30T10:22:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, September 28, 2010
The most amazing sleep of the trip. I had a whole 9 hours in the closest thing to "my bed" I have experienced in almost 4 months. Heaven!!! Anyhow, my aunt had called ahead yesterday and arranged for me to take the crew shuttle to the airport and the rep was going to hold a seat for me since I wouldn't be checking in until less than 2 hours before our flight. So we had a quiet morning, had a coffee and breakfast down in the hotel cafe. We got our things ready and met up with the whole crew in the lobby. We all hopped on the shuttle and I met the rest of the crew and one of the girls who would be working my section said "oh if we have any medical emergencies we will come straight to you" when learning that I am a Nurse. She then preceeded to tell me she would have me drunk by meal service. Haha! Sweet! The captain also had his wife with him and we were both in the same boat so we stuck together to get to the plane. We got priority check in and priority labels on our bags...I am kind of a big deal! :) haha Anyhow, we wandered around the airport and eventually went to the gate and through security. We boarded the plane and since there was no extra room in business class, we got the best of the economy seats. There is a row in the plane where the rows go from 3 seats to 2 seats and we sat in the first row of 2 seats. So we had all the room where the 3rd seat would normally be for leg room. It was amazing! I could have slept like a baby the whole flight...if I had of slept...Not being the best flyer in the world, I was chill and as promised was feeling pretty good after champagne, wine, and a couple of caesar's later. It was great! I sat with the Captain's wife and we had a good chat for the majority of the flight and the two of us were treated like gold! About 7 hrs into the flight, there was an overhead announcement asking if there was a physician onboard to please identify yourself to the crew... ... ... you have got to be kidding me, was the only thought flying through my head. OMG! So I sat and prayed but the only person who attempted to get out of their seat was this little old German man, presumably heading for the bathroom...again! So the Flight Director approached me and asked if I could help in the back galley. What choice did I have, so I followed her back to the galley...she turned around half way back and asked if I was ok to help. I had to think for a second but I sobered up quite quickly. This is when I found a woman in her 70's having an asthma attack. Her respirations were rapid and laboured, rapid pulse,her lips were tinted blue and she was in obvious distress. So for the next hour, I sat with the women, assessed and treated her appropriately until she was stabilized. It was quite the experience to have to think on your feet and use only the resources available. We did have oxygen of which we applied on low, she had already taken her inhalers and had a long history of asthma including two hospital visits in the last 2 weeks. It was also interesting to see the human reaction of other passengers as they were climbing over us to use the bathrooms and asking for ridiculous things while the "emergency" was taking place. A few times I felt like telling them to go back to their seats and would have to wait because they were not high on the priority list. The girls handled the situation very well and professionally. We did have a call out to a physician who gave us directions if she did deteriorate but she recovered well and stabilized on the oxygen and was able to remove the oxygen and I eventually took her back to her seat. She would have paramedics to greet her at the gate to check her out and clear her medically to leave the airport. It was quite the experience and Mary felt badly for joking about it earlier this morning and then intoxicating me. She even offered me another drink when it was all said and done. I kindly declined...we still had over an hour until landing and who knows what could happen in that short period of time. Anyhow, we did land safe and sound and it ended up being an "experience" to say the least. It also passed time of the 9 hour flight and distracted me from my dislike for flying. We landed around 630pm, customs was really quick to get through, my bag was first off with my priority tag and I met my aunt and we were off. My family picked me up in Cambridge and it was great to see them after so long. We headed home where I met my psycho dog in full force. He was so excited to see me that he went ballistic. I missed that furry little man. It was late now and time to sleep in my own bed!! Finally!!! Amazing trip, great experiences and a once in a lifetime...to be repeated! We have a long list of must see's and would like to do again for Europe, never mind the rest of the world. I definately have the itch for travelling now and will transition well into my Australian move.

Breaking up is hard to do!

2010-10-29T18:59:00.000-07:00

Monday, September 27, 2010
Sad, sad day for us. It was the day we knew would inevitably come but dreaded. Heather and I were splitting up after 3 and a half months. She was off to Berlin early that morning so we had our final breakfast together and she left around 8 to catch her train. After a heartfelt goodbye, I had a lazy last morning. I eventually got ready and checked out of the room and headed into Munich. I had a few hours to kill before heading to Frankfurt and some loose ends to tie up. I went to the train station and stored my bag in a locker before heading back to the fairgrounds to check to see if my camera had been turned in (by some stroke of a miracle). No luck, I did take a good walk around the fairgrounds though, something we hadn't done while we were here. I then made my way to the Englisher Garten by metro. It took me forever to find it, I was on the wrong side of the street and the signs were super small. I finally found it, had a brief walk around and then had to make it back to the train station. I grabbed some food and my bags and hopped on the train to Frankfurt. I was meeting my Aunt Dona (the flight attendant) in Frankfurt as she was working my flight home! Yeah! I got into Frankfurt around 530 and made my way over to the hotel she was staying at and kindly sharing with me for the night. I got in, showered and we went for dinner with some of the crew from the flight. Amazing girls! It was a lot of fun and we went to this great little restaurant. I had to convince the Turkish waiter that I wasn't German! That was a first, I have never been mistaken for a German. Hehe! That was his attempt at a pick up line, I suppose but made for an entertaining dinner. We had a cappucino back at the hotel and then all turned in for the night. My last full day in Europe...:(

Oktoberfest Day #2

2010-10-29T18:48:00.000-07:00

Sunday, September 26. 2010
Lazy Sundays! We slept in and decided there was no hurry to get out today since it was a Sunday and wouldn't be as crazy as Friday and Saturday. So we had our hotel breakfast which by the way had everything imaginable. We didn't go hungry here, that's for sure, and the staff, super friendly! Around noon we put on our drindls and headed off to the fairgrounds again. Today we were going for a more traditional festhall with the real german experience. When we arrived, the first tent on the fairgrounds was the Hippodrom which was meant to be impossible to get into and the most popular. We jumped at the chance to simply walk right in. We found a table no problem right away and were having a great time. We chatted up the people at our table, danced, drank, ate and had a great time. We even met the female Rod Stewart lookalike. She was something fierce! We had a good time but then decided to check out other tents and see what else was going on. We started tent hopping and having a beer at every tent. 3 tents in, we made the stupid decision to do what all the drunken idiots do when Oktoberfesting and go on the rides! We chose bumper cars. So we bought our tokens and I quickly ran into a car before the fun began. Heather didn't make it into a car in time so I was near the edge and quickly jumped out to wait for the next round with her. In doing so, I left my camera in the bumper car, when I realized 30 seconds later, the camera and the bumper car were gone. Someone hopped in and pocketed my camera. Not remembering anything about the car, I started asking everyone if they had found a camera. No luck! What a buzz kill! I was really upset and that pretty much ended the fun of my evening. I was the party pooper and we ended up going back home, disappointed and without a weeks worth of pictures. Bummer! We had made it out most of the day and it was near the time we had to head back anyhow so we really didn't miss out on a whole lot more festing but it did spoil our last night in Munich together.

Oktoberfest Day #1!

2010-10-29T18:32:00.000-07:00

Saturday, September 25, 2010
We woke up at 7 this morning, had our amazing breakfast and were off into town. We still had to find Heather a drindl before heading to the fairgrounds. This ended up taking more time then we anticipated. We both ended up buying a drindl at the C&A afterall. We walked out of the store in our drindls and were ready to fest! We arrived on the fairgrounds around 1030/11 and headed straight for the tent we really wanted to go to...HB! It was the "international tent" and typically a good mix of people. So we got there and it was packed and they weren't letting people in at all. They had even kicked people out in large quantities. So we waited and waited for what seemed like forever, when suddenly these guys behind us all had a stein. "Where did you get that stein?" I yelled while pretty much accosting the poor guy. There was beer being sold on the side of the tent to drink outside. Why hadn't we found this an hour ago? So I ran to get beer while waiting in line, meanwhile the sun came out, the rain stopped and it was quite nice out. So, we decided to forgo the line and sit out on the picnic tables. Apparently we weren't the only ones and this ended up being packed and quite the party central. It was great, they started serving beers and food at the tables and it was "outdoor tent". We met some Italian men and sat with them for awhile, chatted, ate their food, and drank. We had a lot of fun with them until they started stealing things from the vendors and when they inevitably got caught, it put a damper on the day. The security guards swarmed them and choked them until they were blue lipped and struggling to breathe. Not a pretty sight but they took them out and they were breathing as they were "escorted" out. Quite the commotion! We met new people quickly and started drinking again. Heather and I were on a mission to get in the tent now and would stop at nothing. So we tried playing dumb and walking in and that didn't work, we tried asking the beer wenches how, tried to flirt with the security guards, everything we could think of. We were standing at the entrance when this guy came out and was stamped for re-entry and he licked his hand and stamped us. AMAZING!!! He was the greatest thing to happen all day! So we ran around the back and battled the big swarm of people trying to get in. I wiggled my way forward and the security guard pulled me in, I grabbed Heather and we snuck through the crown and were in!!! It was incredible!!! We were literally on cloud nine! The music was playing, the energy was crazy and we were warm. Now the mission was to find somewhere to sit, you can only get beer while seated. Lame rule but we had to abide. We tucked into a table and ordered beer and food. It was great! That is until, I started feeling quite strange and not myself. Heather noticed that something was off about me too so we decided it was best to get me home. It was kind of a struggle but we eventually made it and were home, safe in bed. Great day overall!!!

Sleeping on the wet, cold, Parisian streets!

2010-10-29T18:25:00.001-07:00

Friday, September 24, 2010
Anyhow, we arrived in Paris just before midnight with the intention of storing our bags at the train station and then going out for the night and partying since we didn't have any accommodation and our train was early the next morning. Well once we get there, we missed the luggage storage hours by 5 minutes and were now stuck with our bags. We tried to store them at a hotel and were told that we couldn't and that all the rooms were fully booked. We had tried earlier to book a hostel for the night but everyone was in the same boat and stuck in Paris for the night. So, we grabbed some donairs, found a dry spot on a side street (since the train station closed oh and it was now raining). We played cards for awhile while eating our yummy midnight snack until we got so tired and cold that we all passed out clenching onto our valuables. We only got about an hour of sleep when we awoke soaking wet and shivering like never before. We had to wait until 5am when the train station re-opened. It was hell!!! We ran for the train station when it opened and for the hot beve machine to warm up. The bathrooms were still not opened (yes dumb, I know) so we stripped off our wet clothes in the station and put warmer, dry clothes on. It was great! We got on our train though and made it to the French/German border. From there we had to take a bus, then 3 other trains to get to Munich. What an ordeal! Tommy was even asked for id on the train...police sweaping the train for "terrorists" hehe. So we arrived in Munich around 430pm and there was a huge line to get from the train to the walking path to the Oktoberfest fairgrounds. Going to be crazy busy tonight. We got to the train station and parted ways from Tommy who was looking for a place to stay and meeting up with friends. We were now off on the hunt for drindls. We found a C&A and went shopping. We tried on tons of drindls but weren't satisfied with just looking at one store. We were quite the sight though with our huge packs in our change rooms. :) So we went searching a little further for more drindls. We found more but didn't find "the one". Our backs were sore and we were getting hungry so we decided to hop on the SBahn and make our way to Dachau where our hotel was. It was about a 25 minute ride out of town followed by a ten minute taxi ride. Quite the ways out but well worth it when we arrived. It was a nice place with wild animals everywhere...hehe. We had a nice room with own beds and clean towels. What more could two girls want? It was here that we made the executive decision to stay in for the night, since it was raining and bound to be crazy busy and likely wouldn't get into a tent tonight. We were exhausted from only having an hour sleep the night before and were sawing logs in no time. Early start tomorrow!! YEAH OKTOBERFEST!!!

Another French Strike!

2010-10-13T16:40:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 23, 2010
We were woken up early this morning...6am for our exciting breakfast! So we went to the dining cart to have our toast, croissant and pastry thing. Breakfast of Carbs...alright! So we then went back to our room and packed up our things to leave. The conductor came by and gave us our Eurail passes back (YEAH!) and told us that we wouldn't be going to Hendaye this morning and would have to get off at an earlier stop. When we asked why, they had trouble explaining in English but we got the impression that the French were on strike again and as soon as we mentioned the word "strike" they confirmed that yes, that was what the problem was. BRUTAL! Anyhow, without any idea of what we were going to do or how we were getting to Paris then to Munich we got off of the train and looked for information. The one desk was closed and the open one was super unfriendly and not helpful. So, we took it upon ourselves to figure things out without them. We went in search of a cafe with free wifi and after a few no's, we finally found one! Perfect! It only took us an hour to connect with Heather's laptop, that for some (vista) reason doesn't like certain routers. ANyhow, we connected and started looking into different ways to Munich....bus, fly, rental car...all of which were dead ends as they were way, way too expensive or didn't exist. So, instead we went to the train station to find the other desk was open and quite helpful. He looked into the schedule and told us we could take a regional train to Hendaye and from there an 1130 train to Paris. In Paris however, it didn't look as though we could make the only night train going to Munich as it was leaving before we'd arrive. We thought it would be best to get to Paris or as far as we could so that we could shorten our travel day tomorrow. So off we go to Hendaye...5 minutes down the road to find that the only scheduled train to Paris was at 530 pm bringing us into Paris at midnight. So we had all day to try and find an alternate route to get us to Munich as soon as possible. Only problem was, we have no wifi and the train station was closed so we couldn't book new trains for tomorrow. So, we met up with this Aussie lady and all went on a search for wifi. Hendaye is not a big town and when we did finally find wifi we were relieved. It wasn't much help though and we didn't make any new plans. We did however, decide to price out a rental car. How much could it be between three of us? We could drive to Paris, ditch the lady and then drive onward to Germany. HAHA! They wanted 140 Euro to just get to the France/German border without a GPS. No thanks!!! So there we sat in the train station, drinking big bottles of beer, dreaming of the day we arrive in Munich. We grabbed some lunch (with a pitcher of Sangria of course!) and Heather had a great lunch of chicken and veggies and I ordered the bolognese which was a can of Chef Boyardee. EW! Great day, getting better each second. Lol! Anyhow, we met some people at the lunch restaurant and ended up hanging out with them at the train station. We noticed that the ticket office did reopen so we decided to book new tickets. This is where we met Tommy who would be our new friend for the next 24 hours. Tommy was an American who was also heading to Munich and trying to get there as soon as possible. So at 530 we all hopped on the train to Paris, still unsure whether or not it was going all the way to Paris. We had some good times on this train. We kicked two middle aged women out of our seats after they refused to move for 5 minutes. We were persistant...our seats and we had done this before, we knew this train was about to get a whole lot busier. For the next 5 hours we rode this train and those ladies ended up getting kicked out of their new seats and not happy at all. Lol! Tommy ended up sitting with these French men who thought he was a model and were speaking to him in French and Spanish...pretty much anything but English. Very, very entertaining to try and act as an interpreter when our French is terrible.

Farewell Portugal...You will be missed!

2010-10-13T16:28:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, September 22, 2010
We planned to meet up with Ari and Andrew again this morning for some shopping and light sightseeing. We hit H&M of course, this shot bar that Andrew recommended, a church that burnt in a fire and they just left the burnt areas of the church. Pretty impressive! We then had a late lunch and had to say our farewells as we had a night train to catch. Our train left at 430pm and didn't arrive in Hendaye, France until 7 am. Long, long train ride ahead! So we took the subway to the train station and were pretty pumped because in less than 40 hours we would be arriving in Munich!!! Our last stop on the European adventure. We made our train (but cut it close for sure) and were off to France. We were super smart and booked a bed for this train ride haha (more like we didn't have another choice and paid big bucks for it) and were going to take advantage of the fact we had a bed and wouldn't on tomorrow's night train from Paris to Munich. The night train went without a hitch and we even had an electrical outlet to charge the laptop so we had access to our downloaded movies all night! It was great! The only concerning thing was the conductor insisted on holding on to our Eurail passes all night...we didn't like that too much but what other choice did we have? He said it was so that when we crossed into Spain in the middle of the night they wouldn't have to wake us to check our ticket and we would get them back at breakfast! Breakfast!?!?! We got breakfast??? Apparently and we were pumped!!!! So off to bed we went!!!

Mmm...Port Wine!

2010-10-12T18:44:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, September 21, 2010
We got up this morning and my laundry was wet, of course! Well, it was at least damp and the dryer was being used by someone else. Brutal! So, I hung my clothes from my bed and turned on a fan to dry them. While we were down getting breakfast our stupid roomates shut it off eventhough they saw me hanging up my wet clothes and they had checked out early. What the heck? I was super annoyed. Anyhow, I turned the fan back on and tried to super quickly dry my clothes before we took off back to Lisbon. We checked out from the hostel and headed down to the river to check out the port wineries. We had wanted to go to a winery our whole trip but never made it. This was our very last chance and we wanted to take full advantage of it. But because we were so slack this morning and then had to wait for clothes to dry, the wineries were closed until 2pm. So we had lunch on the waterfront which was great! A pitcher of sangria and two great meals later we were heading back to the wineries for the tastings. I should mention Heather had this interesting traditional dish that you can only get in Porto and it consists of meat and bread with a spicy sauce covering it. Strange but kind of delicious. It had an egg on top too. Not your average lunch but hey, when in Rome. So then we headed to this winery that was recommended to us by the hostel as it's the oldest and meant to be the best. When we arrived however (and it was the furthest one) it was not offering an English tour until 4pm which was way too late since we had a train to catch around 430. So we found a smaller one that had a tour starting in a few minutes and we would have just enough time to do one tour and head back to grab our things. That's what we did!! It would have been nice to have more time in Porto but we had to move on. So we caught the train back to Lisbon. We had a dinner date with our friends Ari and Andrew. It's crazy how quickly time flies because their last stop is Lisbon before they head to Africa this weekend. WOW! We are super excited for them and slightly jealous. Anyhow, we had planned to meet them at their hostel at 8pm which turns out is owned by the same owners as our hostel. So we popped over there and they were waiting outside for us...YEAH!!! Super exciting to see them again! We all agreed that it was time for some Japanese (sushi in particular) since we never did get sushi together in Prague. Heather had found this place in the Lonely Planet guide and Andrew had mapped it out and got us there without a hitch. The streets in Lisbon can be a bit confusing but we made it. We had a great meal and got to catch up on each other's trips from the last time we saw them...must have been Budapest! Long time to catch up on! So after a great supper with great company, we all headed back to our hostel for some cocktails. I guess the cocktail bar switches between our hostel and theirs. So after a few amazing cocktails and some more chatting, we were pooped and all decided to call it a night and tuck 'er in.

Exploring Porto!

2010-10-12T11:52:00.001-07:00

Monday, September 20, 2010
Today we were off to see Porto and the first stop was the beach. Heather really wanted to try surfing and I was considering it but was not thrilled because of the cooler weather. So, we grabbed the local bus to the beach and got to see the city along the way. It was on the complete opposite side of town as our hostel so the bus was a lengthy trip. At least it was scenic! When we arrived to the beach, it was not what we had expected. It was full of seagulls and feathers and nobody around. It was dead! The surf shops were not as plentiful as we had expected and it felt like a ghost beach. We laid out for awhile to catch some "sun" which was hidden behind the clouds. After awhile we decided to grab some lunch and were told that there were some great fish restaurants nearby. After wandering for awhile we settled on a spot that looked reasonable. We both ordered the salmon and boy were we happy that we did. It was a huge serving of salmon and cooked to perfection. It was served with salad and potatoes (salted heavily of course). After stuffing ourselves silly, we went back to the beach to enquire about surf lessons. We had seen a group lesson going on while walking to find lunch so we thought we'd check it out. The guy at the surf shop said the day was not good for surfing and to try back Wednesday. Well, since we would no longer be in Porto then, it was a bit of a lost cause. So instead we laid back out on the beach and chilled out for the rest of the afternoon. At around 630 we went to catch the bus back into town. We came back to the hostel and just hung out for awhile. Heather was planning to Skype with her parents so we just grabbed some quick dinner and hung around the hostel. I watched a movie while she skype'd with her parents and grandparents. We then went to bed. I left my laundry with the staff to be done overnight hoping that everything would be dry in the morning as we were leaving once again.

Later Lagos!

2010-10-12T11:47:00.000-07:00

Sunday, September 19, 2010
We missed breakfast this morning because we decided that we would rather sleep in. When we got up, we went out for breakfast at this local spot that served all day breakfast and was really good. We wandered around a little after breakfast and then went back to the hostel to check out. They let us check out late since they wouldn't get to cleaning our room until later anyhow. So we went back, grabbed our things and were back off to the train station to explore a new place. Off to Porto!! We caught the 2pm train to Porto but since it was across the entire length of the country it was a long train ride and we didn't arrive to our hostel until almost 9 pm. We went to a local spot to have some dinner and made it back to the hostel so I could Skype with my family before bed. It was an uneventful day but a necessary travel day. Tomorrow, we shall see Porto in all of its glory!

Beaches and Indian!

2010-10-12T11:17:00.000-07:00

Saturday, September 18, 2010
We were woken early by the bustling of the people in the hostel and our noisy roommate. So we woke up and decided to go check out the famous crepes prepared by "mama". Up in the kitchen, there was a huge line of people waiting to get a seat at the big wooden table. So after a few minutes we sat at the big "family" table where "mama" (cute Portugese lady) had crepes cooking inside, outside and she just threw them onto your plate. She also had "mama's magic tea" which was a lemon tea and is meant to cure your hangover. It was great! We loved the crepes and I really enjoyed the "magic juice". After a really lazy morning we decided it was time to hit the beach. Today was also the booze cruise but after what we had experienced in Corfu, we decided to sit this one out...:) We were told though that we should take a grotto cruise as it is quite beautiful and cheap. So, we went down to the harbour and met this guy who took us out on his speed boat. We had a 45 minute boat ride along the coast and in and out of the rock grotto's. It was neat! Afterwards we found a quiet beach to go hang out on. We found a really secluded beach where we had to walk under a rock to get to and of course the tide comes up after Heather is through and I get soaked!!! The sun was short lived as the afternoon sun is covered by the huge rocks. We stayed there for awhile anyhow and hung out/slept. We then decided to head back to the hostel to shower and then go to dinner. We have learned our lesson from last night...always go to dinner looking your best! Haha! So on our way back to our hostel, we ran into half of the bachelor party, including the groom who are all looking and feeling quite rough. The groom had to go home quite early last night as he had a few too many shots. Anyhow, we chatted for a few and agreed to party again later and maybe see them around. So we got ready and were off on a mission for a fish dinner. Mama recommended this place in town and said it was the best. So we headed to the fish place and found it was closed for vacation. We were really bummed. However, we passed this good looking Indian restaurant on the way. We walked back towards the Indian spot and took one look at the menu and were convinced. We had an amazing meal and headed bak to the hostel for a big night on the town. We met some people at the hostel and were drinking and chillin with them. We found out that they were part of a big group of people and we moved the party upstairs. We met some fellow North American's that we ended up going out to the club with and partying with the whole night. As we were walking home, I was a bit further behind the others (because my feet were sore and was walking slowly) and I ran into the boys from the bachelor party! They were heading home but tried to convince us to go back out and party some more. I was way too tired and my feet way too sore to continue so we had to sadly decline. We said our farewell's and were back in bed. Solid times in Lagos!!!

Algarve!!

2010-10-12T11:08:00.000-07:00

Friday, September 17, 2010
We woke up today and packed our things to check out so we could spend another magical day on the train. We were pretty excited to be heading to Lagos in the Algarve which is southern Portugal. Warm weather, beaches and good times!!! We caught the train on the other side of town to head to Lagos. It was quite the long train ride as we had to switch in the Algarve to a local train and it was painful. It stopped at every little town and our stop was, of course, the last one. When we finally arrived around 5pm, we were hungry and tired but not willing to waste precious time. So, we took the winding streets to our hostel...."The Rising Cock" was it's name and it was recommended to us by fellow travellers. When we arrived, we were instantly welcomed and knew we would love this place. The mentality of the owners/workers is that it should feel like home, and it was quite homey! We were hungry and dirty and our stomachs took priority as we planned to eat and then come back and get ready for the night. We quickly heard about a popular spot to eat as they have "power hour". This "power hour" was 10 euro's and included a meal and all you could drink wine or beer for one hour. Heather and I being the "experienced" drinkers that we have become, took full advantage of this and were essentially chugging wine. Bad, bad idea! Needless to say, we never made it home to shower/change. We met a group of guys from England here for their friends bachelor party. We started partying with them and it turned into quite the night. We bought the groom a couple of shots and he took it as a challenge and started buying us shots!!! We went to the first bar and it was pub like and quite chill but the boys knew the owner and we were never without a drink in our hand. We then went to this club (don't know the name) and danced late into the night. Much like Spanish partylife, the Portugese stay open late and party hard. We soon retired to the hostel to catch a few zzz's before morning.

A Portuguese Reunion!

2010-09-18T02:32:00.001-07:00

Thursday, September 16, 2010
After a really long and uncomfortable train ride we arrived in Lisbon. Our final country on our European adventure! Definitely bittersweet! We got off the train and our feet were super swollen and stiff and so we managed to make our way to the metro and get ourselves to our hostel to drop our bags. We planned out our day on the couch and were off to see Lisbon. We grabbed a little breakfast at the cafe outside our hostel before catching the tram to the top of one of the hills where the castle sits. At the tram stop we met this Canadian Pharmacist from Toronto who was actually staying at our hostel. We had planned to do the same walking route so we decided to stick together. We saw some really cool lookout points, a church and arrived at the castle. Heather and I weren’t too keen on seeing another castle but he was so we parted ways there. We wandered around some more, saw the Lisbon cathedral and made our way back to our hostel to check in for 2pm. We showered and got ready for the night and took the metro to meet my grandparents who were in Lisbon for the day before flying home tomorrow. We saw that there was a metro stop right outside where they were staying and decided to take the metro. Little did we know that we would end up walking the wrong way, and be an hour late to meet them. We had worried my grandma as she thought that we had miscommunicated and were supposed to meet elsewhere when we were late. We did make it however, and they saw us coming up to the hotel from their window. We brought some more things for them to take home for us. They had brought an extra bag for us to put our things in and had also themselves packed really light. It was great to get rid of some more weight! So we had a few drinks in their room before heading back into the city centre to grab some dinner. The concierge at the hotel had recommended a little spot for some traditional Portuguese cuisine. It was actually quite close to where we were staying so it was really easy for us to get home from there. We arrived to this place and were treated to a fantastic meal and had a really good time. It was nice to catch up with them and have some quality time together. Did I mention how great the meal was? So after dinner we parted ways as they had to get up early for their 7am flight. Heather and I walked the few blocks back to our hostel and had some cocktails. They were having a dinner party but had a little bar set up in the common room and this guy making them. We chatted with him for awhile as everyone else was at the dinner party and had a few cocktails. We were exhausted after that and knew that Lagos was going to be a big party and a very long weekend ahead. So, we headed to bed and really needed to catch up on some sleep after our 1 hour night and then the terrible night train. We were definitely ready for a quality night sleep and the beds looked really comfy which has been a long time coming.

Lazy Days!

2010-09-18T02:31:00.002-07:00

Wednesday, September 15, 2010
So we had only an hour of sleep before we had to check out. It was terrible! It felt like the pink palace check out again. We just shoved things into our bag and hoped that we had everything. We stored our bags for the day since we were in Madrid until 10pm when we had to catch our first night train. There was a free walking tour of Madrid that morning so we decided to give it a go and it was a terrible idea. The guide wasn’t great and it was just super random. It was really difficult to follow what was happening. We were dying as we sobered up and were in the hot sun. The worst 2 hours ever! After we were super hungry and went to get some pizza. We went to this amazing pizzeria and had really, really good pizza. We then went back to the hostel and slept on the couch for a few hours since we had no sleep and no bed to speak of. The German guy and the Brazilian dude were hanging in the common room all day too. I don’t think anyone was feeling great! The Irish boys were nowhere to be seen though so we just assumed they were in their room recovering. That evening while still in the same position on the couch, the Irish boys came through the front door blowing a horn! They had been at the pub all day with the Australian. They invited us down to the cave for some more drinks but we brought our milk and water with us. We ended up having a cooler that the guys bought for us and tried to get us drunk to miss our train and party in Madrid another night. We knew better and stuck to the one drink (which actually made us feel better) and still planned to catch the night train. They were super entertaining though and we chilled in the cave until it was time to go to the train station. We arrived at the train station at a good time, grabbed some snacks and boarded the train. We had only booked reclining seats (cheapest option) and had packed ourselves into these seats with all of our valuables. We had been told to really watch our things in Spain and Portugal and that night trains are the worst for getting things stolen. We secured all of our things and fell asleep within an hour or so of leaving the station. We were due to arrive the next morning at 730 so we just tried to sleep all night long.

Madrid...or is it Milan???

2010-09-18T02:31:00.001-07:00

Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Today was our last day in Seville and we had a late afternoon train to catch to Madrid. We went shopping after check out and breakfast and then headed straight to the train station. We got into Madrid around supper time so we went for more tapas which were equally amazing as a few nights ago. We were determined to go out in Madrid since Spanish nightlife is supposed to be the best and we had really slacked the last few nights. It was our one and only night in Madrid so it had to be done. We came back and got ready and then went down to the “cave bar” at the hostel and started into the 1 L sangrias. This group of guys invited us to sit with them so we had some drinks with the German, the Argentinean and a Brazilian. We convinced them to go on the pub crawl with us. It’s funny because normally pub crawls start between 8 and 10 but in Madrid it didn’t start until 1am. So we all signed up and kept drinking our sangria. There was a group of Irish boys sitting beside us too. We ended up chatting with them too once we started to head out for the pub crawl. The boys we were originally talking to didn’t really like that a lot but we were just having fun and meeting a bunch of people. The deal with the pub crawl was a free shot at every bar and drink discounts and free entry to the club...pretty standard. What was new was that the shots were tequila! Boy oh boy! Not a nice surprise! Anyhow, we carried on the night and went to two bars and then the club and the tour pretty well died off by the club since people were super drunk by then and went home. Heather, me, 2 of the four Irish guys, the German guy and the Brazilian guy were all that was left at the end. We had also met a Canadian guy and an Australian guy at one of the bars but they didn’t go to the club since they weren’t on the pub crawl but were staying at the same hostel as us. So after a great night, we shut the club down at 6 and headed back to the hostel where we chilled out for a long while after and didn’t get to bed until 930. We had met back up with the Aussie guy and chilled with him for a bit when we got back too.

Bulls and Flamenco!

2010-09-18T02:30:00.002-07:00

Monday, September 13, 2010
This morning we headed into town on foot but the problem with Seville is, that the streets aren’t labelled and nor are they easy to navigate. We wanted to see the bullfighting ring, Maria Luisa park and the site of Expo ’97. So we started off to the bullring and had a tour. Heather being anti-killing of the bulls had a lot of good questions to ask and got them all answered. It didn’t make it better but she was better educated about the whole thing. It was pretty interesting the tradition behind it all. We then grabbed some lunch and headed to the park. It was super hot and I was not feeling so well so we sat in the park for awhile and I put my feet in the cold water hoping to cool myself off. We then had to walk all the way across town to get to the expo grounds. It was also some palace in starwars so it was something Heather really wanted to see. It was agonizing walking in the heat and I was really feeling sick despite the fact that I was drinking lots of water and taking breaks. We did get there eventually though and spent about 40 minutes looking for the place. We could not find the spot and after getting trapped in a gated area and having to crawl through a small hole in the fence, we gave up and headed back to the hostel for happy hour. Can’t turn down cheap Sangria!! We sat in the bar and chatted with a few German guys who were studying in Seville and looking for a place to live. Then this American dude comes over and starts talking to us. He just graduated school and was on an architecture tour of Europe and we were apparently the first people he had conversed with in the past two weeks...not sure how...Anyhow, he asked what we were doing tonight and joined in on our plans. Great! We were fine with it, but as the night proceeded he just got on our nerves more and more. We had paella on the roof of our hostel and then wanted to go to a flamenco show before heading out to a club. We had the paella (again quiet disappointing) and he met us up on the roof and we headed to the flamenco show. It was really neat to see the show. The girl who was dancing was amazing and so was the guitarist and the man who sung. It was really entertaining but by the end we were so annoyed with the American that we decided we would rather go to bed then go out with him to the club. That’s exactly what we ended up doing...going to bed! Hehe! We really didn’t know where we were going to go anyhow and it wasn’t a big deal.

The Flying Train!

2010-09-18T02:30:00.001-07:00

Sunday, September 12, 2010
We had to get up and check out this morning and head to the train station to catch our train to Seville. It was going to be an 8 hour train ride and we were really not looking forward to it, at all. Scottie stayed around and was going to take the later train back to Barcelona after he saw a bit of Valencia. So we boarded another “flying train” and spent 8 agonizing hours on the train to Seville. We were exhausted after being on the train all day and just wanted something to eat and go to bed. We went to this little local spot and had our first tapas. They were super good and we didn’t really know what we were ordering but everything was really good oh and cheap!! Our bill was 20 euro and we left stuffed. We waddled back to our hostel, and just hung out in the room and went to bed. Heather had planned to Skype with Caitlin and got to see a bunch of her friends that night on Skype. It was really exciting for her! I passed out while she was Skyping and we had a big Sevillian day tomorrow.

Beaches and Gay Bars!

2010-09-18T02:29:00.002-07:00

Saturday, September 11, 2010
We didn’t set an alarm for this morning and just woke up on our own. We had some breakfast and were supposed to call Scottie in the morning to see if he was coming or not. He had an excursion with his class that he was considering doing so we didn’t think he would come but when we rang him, he had just arrived in Valencia on the early train! We were super pumped! So we met him outside the hostel and he went in and tried to book a night at the hostel. They had his name from yesterday and were telling him that he was a no show and owed a night stay. He played dumb and they didn’t end up charging him. They didn’t have any availability for that night either so he had them take his number and call him if they had any cancellations. They took it but didn’t seem to confident that there would be a bed come available. The next closest hostel was like a 10 minute walk so we decided to wait it out and worst case scenario he could camp out in our room. So we had the day to check out Valencia. We started out at the central market where Scottie used his Spanish to converse with the vendors and we met this cheese man who was really cool. He recommended this delicious cheese that we bought and a place to go have some good paella. Valencia is known for it’s paella and he said this place had the best! It was apparently right at the beach and we wanted to head there anyhow so we took down the name of the place and he told us the owners name and to mention his name. So we wandered the market, bought some fresh produce and stuff to make tacos for dinner. We hit up the supermarket for the rest and then took it all back to the hostel before heading to the beach. We met this English girl who was waiting for her boyfriend to arrive so we invited her along to the beach with us. We caught the metro and were in search for this paella spot. The locals that we asked said it was really far down the beach but recommended a closer spot with a great view of the water. Off we went to the new spot and when we got there it was closed! We were so disappointed! We wandered up and down the strip and just picked this place where the paella was not overly good but it was edible. We then laid out on the beach for awhile and swam in the ocean! The British girl headed back before the b each as her boyfriend was due to arrive soon, so we made plans to meet up for a drink that night! They were staying in our room so it was convenient! After awhile we headed back to the hostel and made our tacos. They were super good!!! We made some excellent chefs! We still hadn’t head to a gay bar for Scottie so that was the mission of the night. We had some drinks and listened to music in our room as we got ready and the English couple joined us later and we all headed to a pub to grab a few drinks. This place was pretty sketchy but had cheap drinks so it was great! A few drinks later, we told the couple we were with that we were going to the gay bar (which happened to be across the street from our hostel) and they were welcome to join if they wanted. They weren’t too keen but were willing to walk along and check it out. When we got there, they decided to sit this one out and we went in to party. It was pretty crazy! Good music but nothing we had ever before experienced! Heather and I met some boys and were trying to hook them up with Scottie. He really put himself out there and was chatting it up with all the cute boys. Everyone in the gay bar is “a lady” so the female bathroom was 99% men and then the occasional girl...aka Heather or I. Pretty hilarious actually! We had planned to make it a big night but after Scottie had too much liquid courage and Heather and I were feeling pretty good we headed back to our hostel to catch a few hours of sleep before we had to check out and catch a train. We had this big extravagant plan to sneak Scottie in to the hostel as we had these security cards that we were supposed to show to get in. So we walked up with our plan in our back pocket just in case. We walked up, gave the guy a smile, told him our room number to get the key and all walked up without showing our security passes. Perfect!!! There was also an extra bed for Scottie since the British couple were sleeping in the one bed together. It was great! We all passed out after a really good night and had only a few hours until we had to wake up.

Paella and Sangria!

2010-09-18T02:29:00.001-07:00

Friday, September 10, 2010
Heather and I had to wake up at a reasonable time this morning since we had a 9 am train to Valencia to catch. Plus, we had to get out of Scottie’s dorm room before Jose came by (his landlord) and caught us. So we snuck out the back door and were heading down the stairs when Heather wiped out and fell down a flight of stairs on her butt. I was in shock and didn’t know what to do but she popped back up and continued on. What a trooper! We thought we heard someone upstairs and the light went on so we ran out of the building as quickly as possible. She recovered well though, she just had a few bruises. We then took the metro to the train station and it was more like an airport...the train had gates and each gate had a scanner for bags much like that in airport security and we had to show our tickets before getting on the train (which is a new concept). Our seats on the train were numbered like a flight as well, it was by row and a-d. We sat in our seats and listened to the announcements, were given headsets for the “in flight” movie and wondered if there would even be a meal served. Hehe! No such luck but it was pretty funny anyhow. They had crew like a flight too! Pretty entertaining! After 3 short hours, we were in Valencia and ready to head to the hostel. We arrived at the hostel early and put our bags in storage, grabbed some lunch and then it was time to check in. We dropped our bags in the room and had plans to go to the beach that afternoon but I ended up falling asleep and napped for the rest of the afternoon...oops! Oh well, it was much needed if we were going to have another crazy night. We had convinced Scottie to come to Valencia with us and he was going to catch a train after class and meet us that night. We had even reserved him a bed at the hostel. We called him around 7 and he was heading back to his school to email us and tell us that the trains were all booked up and couldn’t catch it. It was a bummer!!! He was going to consider coming in the morning if he got up in time and come Saturday and leave Sunday. So we ended up having a quiet night at the hostel. We did some laundry, made dinner, had a few drinks and were planning on going out but decided against it. There wasn’t a lot going on at the hostel anyhow and the people that were there, didn’t seem like a lot of fun anyhow. I skyped with my fam late that night and Heather went to bed (she didn’t have a nap that day after all ).

Big Nights in Barcelona!

2010-09-18T02:28:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 9, 2010
Woke up this morning and had to check out by 1130 and also meet Scott. He convinced us last night to stay an extra night in Barcelona and to stay with him at his place. We agreed since we didn’t really get a chance to see Barcelona and we had 3 nights in Valencia so we thought we could borrow one for sure. So we checked out and brought our things to Scott’s place but had to be stealthy. His landlord didn’t allow overnight guests since it is a dorm for the school he is attending. But we made it in, no problem. We had to go see Barcelona in a day and originally planned to go to the beach but were convinced to see more. So we went to Sagrada de Familia, this massive church in the middle of the city that started to be built like 150 years ago and still isn’t finished. It was really the coolest looking church I have ever seen. The front is supposed to represent the birth of Christ and the back the death. It was really, really cool. We only saw it from the outside but was really impressed. Afterwards, we grabbed a bite to eat and had to say goodbye to Scott since he had school all afternoon. We did plan to meet up later though for supper. We decided to take the metro to the North end of the city to see this park that was meant to be really neat. It had some of Gaudi’s architecture in it and was a really hot day so it got to be really warm. We wondered around for awhile though and got to see some of it. It was literally on top of this massive hill overlooking the city so it was a really cool view and there were even escalators to take you to the top. Lol!!! Afterwards we headed back to the city centre and hit up the city beach for awhile. It is a manmade beach so nothing to write home about but was still nice to lay out in the sun. It was entertaining because they try to sell you everything and anything on the beach. There was a guy selling donuts that he carried on a tray on top of his head, massages, refreshments/drugs, and hair braiding. The guys selling drinks would yell coca cola, cervesa, aqua and then whisper marijuana, hash, coca when they walked by you. It was pretty funny but they were definitely persistent. We had plans to meet back up with Scottie and go for dinner so we met him close to the beach. We took the metro back to the same square we had drinks at last night and sat at this outdoor restaurant and had a really yummy meal. We had paella and salmon and it was really good, and really cheap. We had plans to go out that night to the gay bar...we had promised Scottie we’d go with him since he hadn’t been in awhile. We went back to his place, got ready and started having some more wine after we had a couple of pitchers of sangria at dinner. We started to crash and found out it was lesbian night at the gay bar so we just threw in the towel and had our slumber party in his room. We were all fast asleep within no time, exhausted from the night before.

Nice to Barcelona!

2010-09-18T02:27:00.002-07:00

Wednesday, September 8, 2010
We woke up early this morning to catch our 930 train...hopefully!! We were told that the strike was only to last 24 hours but who knows... “nothing is for sure in France” we are told! So we got packed up and had to wake up our Argentinean roommate Manuel since he was up late and asked us to make sure he was up for his train too. We grabbed a quick breaky and headed to the reception to check out and ask if the strike was over. They weren’t sure but thought that it had so we’d soon find out. So we grabbed the shuttle down to the tram stop and saw that the trams were running!! Hooray!!! That means the probability of the trains running is good. So we grabbed the tram to the train station and it was packed full of people trying to get to where they are already supposed to be. Anyhow, the train was running and we were thrilled!!! Barcelona here we come!! The thing is though, that our ticket from yesterday doesn’t entitle us to a seat today so I go to the ticket window line and it is simply massive. The line is not moving and there are only 2 people working with about 50 people in line. It was ridiculous. Anyhow, I figured that I may as well wait because what else do I have to do for the next hour?? Heather was waiting on the platform with the bags so I waited and waited and waited some more until finally I was nowhere near the front and the train was due to leave in less than 5 minutes so we just got on the train and took our chance with a seat. We had to move a couple of times while we were on the train but it wasn’t actually all that bad because we only stood for about 10 minutes at the end and we could have found another seat. So we arrived in Avignon but we were at the TGV station and had to catch our next train at the central station so we had to find a bus to take us there. It turned out to be much easier than we thought but once we got to the central station, we only had a few minutes to grab a bite to eat and get on the train. We made it, but just barely. We then took the train for an hour or so and had to change again near the Spanish border. It would be our last train of the day but it was due to take about 4 hours. It was the most ghetto train we have ever seen. It was seriously busted up and had been the same decor since the early 70’s. It was really gnarly!! We grabbed a seat and hoped for the best. About an hour in, we were kicked out of our seats and decided to just grab some floor space and some beers and make a party. We had the laptop out too so we put on some tunes and rocked out on the floor. Great way to meet people too! This Turkish guy came and talked to us for awhile and taught us how to speak Turkish...then we ran into Manuel!! The guy from our hostel who we woke up this morning! We had known that he was heading to Barcelona too but we left on different trains and never thought that we’d meet up. So, we had some beers and chatted with him the rest of the train ride. It was fun! Funny story though, so when you cross some European borders, you have to clear passport control. So essentially the French customs officers came and then the Spanish customs officers to check passports and visas if necessary. The first were the French...”citizenship?” he says and we reply with “Canadian”, of course and he just walks away. No identification needed if you are Canadian. Again, same thing with the Spanish officer...he walks by and asks for our passports, Heather holds hers up to give to him and he just waves it away and walks on. HAHAHA! We laughed about it for a really long time. Apparently if you are from Canada, they don’t give a crap if you enter the country or not. So funny! We even made friends with the conductor. Anytime we had to stop at a station, he would come and let us know which side ahead of time since we were blocking the doorway. The one time though he got it wrong so we were totally in the way with all of our stuff and he helped us move everything. Pretty ridiculous actually!! He was holding the laptop which was beating out the tunes. Hehe! Anyhow, after a lot of beers and a few laughs later, we arrived in Barcelona. We parted ways with Manuel but planned to meet up after. He gave us his mobile number and he told us where he would probably be tonight. So we headed to the hostel, checked in, met a Canadian guy and got ready. We got into a little “tift” this evening but cried, hugged and now it’s all good! Hehe! So we got ready really quickly and Scott met us at the hostel at 10pm ready to rock! It was so good to see him; a familiar face (even though he’s a new friend) is so amazing! Plus he is amazing! So we ended up going to get some drinks and heading to the apartment of the Canadian guy Michael’s friend Iris. Wow, mouthful! We had some drinks and decided at about midnight to head out and grab a drink at a pub or restaurant before heading to the clubs. In Barcelona, the party doesn’t get good until 2ish so we had some time to kill and just chill out first. After we left, I remembered that I left Manuel’s phone number on the vanity at Iris’s apartment. Shoot! I felt really badly because it felt like we stood him up. Oh well! We hoped that we would run into him that night since we were heading to the beach bars that he suggested. So we ended up in this little outdoor square or Piaza they would call it in Italy, and had a drink on the patio. Now when I say we had “a” drink that means Scott and I had a litre pint of beer and the girls had huge, really strong sangria. It took awhile to get those ones down. When we were done, we grabbed a taxi to the beach bars and decided on one that looked the busiest and had good music playing. Cover was also cheaper there too so that was a bonus. It was a crazy night, lots of good times and we partied until 430 at the club. We were wrecked and it was time to head back. We grabbed a taxi and started heading back when we started talking about food and our hunger especially since we didn’t have any dinner. So we had the taxi driver, literally turn around and go the opposite direction to McDonald’s because that was all that was opened. So we went to the drive thru which was full of taxi’s and got our mcmeals. Hehe! 45 minutes later and a 20 euro cab bill later, we arrived back at the hostel. Everyone was getting back around the same time but everyone was jealous of our food. They all loved it! We ate, then hit the sack, Scottie went home and we had to laugh, he wasn’t a far walk home but the metro was now running again because it was nearly 6 am by the time he left.

Nice on Strike!

2010-09-18T02:27:00.001-07:00

Tuesday, September 7, 2010
We woke up this morning feeling pretty rough but we got all of our things in order to take the shuttle to the train station. We were told yesterday that the buses and trams were going to be on strike today and we were getting a ride to the station by the hostel but had to be ready early. We left shortly after 8 and good thing because it took an hour for us to drive what normally takes 10 minutes. So we arrived at the train station to find out that the strike affects all public sectors and the trains are not running either. Great! France does not like us very much and our luck has definitely run out. There was a possibility of us getting to Avignon later today but we didn’t want to decide as of yet. So we sat outside the station and waited for the next shuttle to arrive. The second one arrived very shortly after as it was a second van transporting people. So we went back to the hostel, had some breakfast as we didn’t have any earlier and used the wifi to figure out a plan. We decided to stay and extra night in Nice and go to Barcelona tomorrow when the trains are meant to run again. We went back down to the train station to see about changing our tickets and there was literally a parade going on with the picketers. It was pretty funny! We picked up some essentials and food and walked back to the hostel. We were able to check into our new room when we got back so that was nice. A nap would be well appreciated right about now. We checked in to our new room, settle in, met our roommates (some of which we had met last night, some people from England) and chilled out. We tried to Skype with Jax but the connection was terrible and the calls kept on dropping. It was a failed attempt but we tried! Then we just napped, read, caught up on emails and kept it a low key night. We are saving our energy and livers for tomorrow night when we meet up with Scottie who we met in Athens. He is living in Barcelona and we are going to hit the town!!!

Big Money Monaco!

2010-09-07T12:17:00.003-07:00

Monday, September 6, 2010
Woke up at a good time this morning for breakfast and so we could head to Monaco for the day. The boys were fast asleep and we tried to wake them so they could eat but they were not having any of it. So we got showered and ready for the beach and the room started to really heat up from the sun. The boys all woke up sweating and hungover. We chatted for awhile before Heather and I went to catch the train to Monaco. The boys were up to the same thing but were going to the famous casino first to try and earn a bit of money. So we said we would catch up later and maybe see them at the beach. We took the train to Monaco and as soon as we arrived, you could smell the money everywhere. There were Bentley’s, Ferrari’s, Porsche’s, Rolls Royce everywhere. It was mad! We walked along the harbour and the yacht’s were crazy too. They were everywhere and massive. Big money country for sure! So we walked down to the casino. It was really busy and really nice. We thought it would be much bigger than it was but was really cool to look at anyhow. We then headed down the beach, grabbed some lunch (not cheap either) and laid out in the sun. The beach was made of stones but it was nice out anyhow plus we had to swim in the Mediterranean. We stayed and chilled on the beach for a while and headed back after 5 when it started to cool down. We trained back to Nice and went to get changed and ready for the night. The Aussie boys were there too and they had won some cash at the casino. One of them won 90 euro and the other 200. They had an overall good day! We ended up joining up with them downstairs for drinks and drinking Uno. We ended up playing a massive game of Uno and just chilling at the hostel. They had canned pints for 1 euro and the place was pretty chill so we just stayed at the hostel for the night and stayed up pretty late which would not fare well in the morning when we have to catch the train by 930. Oh well!!!

Nice Is Nice!

2010-09-07T12:17:00.001-07:00

Sunday, September 5, 2010
We got up early to take advantage of clean towels for our shower and to grab some breakfast before our 830 train. The shower was splendid and we headed down for breakfast. We had fresh croissants with brie cheese and an assortment of cheeses and fruit and cereals etc. I even had coffee which I have definitely been missing for awhile. We headed to the train station and tried to book our last trains...we are almost fully booked to the end of our trip, including hostels and transport. It is kind of sad but exciting that we don’t have to do anymore booking/ planning. Yeah!! Anyhow, they weren’t able to reserve our trains so we will have to do it another time. We made sure we got on the train early and didn’t want to mess it up today. We had a train to Milan and then had only a few minutes to switch to our train to Ventimiglia. From there we had to change to a Monaco train and in Monaco change to Nice. It was another long train day but we were excited to actually make it to Nice. We did too!! We got in by 6 and made it to our hostel. It was a villa hostel and is on the famous hostels list meaning it’s supposed to be the best. We arrived and were definitely not disappointed. It was really big and nice. We were in a 12 bed mixed dorm though so not so nice in the hot Mediterranean weather. Anyhow, we wanted to make the most of the day so we got changed and headed into town for dinner. The hostel offers a shuttle to the closest tram stop so we grabbed that and while we were waiting we met an Aussie girl named Laura who was travelling solo right now and she joined us on our mission for dinner and to see the town by night. We ate at this little place on a side street that had a great set menu and had the local specialty which is Nicoise salad. The food was really good and we had a good time with Laura, she was really sweet. We then walked through the village and found a market and headed to the beach. It was really neat all lit up at night. We walked around for awhile before retiring back to the hostel for the night. We headed to bed and were sleeping for awhile when our roommates came home late from the bar and were super loud and drunk. It was a bunch of Aussies and we ended up chatting with them a little at 530 in the morning when they got home. They were super nice and we had a few laughs before going back to bed now that the rest of our roommates really hated us all.

Stuck in Switzerland!

2010-09-07T12:16:00.001-07:00

Saturday, September 4, 2010
We were woken up early this morning by the girl who came late last night, checking out early today. She was making a lot of noise for nearly 2 hours before she finally left. Then our other roommates left too, they were noisy leaving but were out quite quickly. We woke up for some more of the fantastic swiss breaky and checked out in time to do a little planning and head to the train station. We had a train to catch at 1130 so we headed on down, caught our first train which is just a 5 minute ride to make the connection back down to Interlaken. Officially leaving the Swiss Alps! Today was meant to be a really long and boring day of trains as we had to take 6 of them to get to Nice, France. We would be arriving in Nice late, 10 pm or so but we were ok with it and ready to tackle the day. We actually took the earlier train and were waiting in Spiez for awhile before we took the train to Milan. We sat there and talked to some American women when the train is due to leave in less than 5 minutes, there is an announcement that our train has been cancelled since there was a problem with the train. So we had to take a train to Brig to make the next connection to Milan. This would put us an extra hour behind but what could we do? So we headed to Brig, which is only a 30 minute train ride away. When we arrived, the train that we hoped to catch that wouldn’t put us so behind, never showed up! So 25 minutes before the next train was due, I decided to go down to the info desk and ask if there were better routes to Nice as the train we were meant to catch from Ventimigilia was the last one and we would not be making that anymore. I waited in line for a really long time and when I got to the desk, I was told that we could not make it to Nice today. This really didn’t sit well with me since this was not our fault or doing and we were now stuck in Brig (where is Brig!?!?!?!?!). So I worked my magic and got new tickets for first thing in the morning and a hotel paid by the train company. We had 150 Swiss Francs each for accommodation so we took advantage of this and stayed in a nice hotel across the road from the train station and got an upgraded room. It even had breakfast included in the morning!!! So we checked in and just hung out and grabbed some dinner and watched a movie. Heather Skype`d with her parents that night too. We had an early night and caught up on some terrible sleeps we have had the past few nights.

Gondola's, Hiking and Waterfalls!

2010-09-07T12:15:00.000-07:00

Friday, September 3, 2010
Still feeling quite crappy today but it was our last day in Switzerland so we wanted to make the most of it. We got up to have our free breakfast and it was really, really good. Fresh bread, cereal, milk, mountain cheese, fruit etc. It was great! We then both wanted to just go back to bed but instead we got a trail map and planned our day. First we took a gondola up to Mannlichen which was a fun first experience for me and although Heather had taken one before, enjoyed the view for sure. We then hiked a train along the mountain, it was quite tame which was nice and arrived at our destination. From there we took the train to Lauterbrunnen and then caught the local bus up to Tremelbachfalles. It is a glacier waterfall just North of Interlaken. We had heard really good things about it and wanted to check it out. It was a total of 11 waterfall chutes but wasn’t really all that exciting. It was neat to see but definitely didn’t exceed our expectations. We then caught a bus back to Lauterbrunnen to catch a train down to Interlaken. While we were there we forgot to go to the chocolate show that one of the restaurants in town holds. So we made it there for 6, just in time for the last showing. Again, not as exciting as we thought, it was fun because we got to try our hand at being a choclatier. Swiss chocolate is definitely delicious and we got a voucher for the chocolate store. From there, Heather wanted to get a Swiss army knife so we found a store that sold a lot of knives and the biggest selection of cookoo clocks in town. Haha, it was pretty funny actually! She got one and even got her name engraved in it. A true Swiss souvenir! We were pretty hungry by now so we just picked the closest restaurant to where we were and ordered the meat fondue. I don’t think it was very authentic. It was run by Asians and the fondue came with French fries. An interesting experience nonetheless. We then had to make it back to the train station so we could catch a train back to Grindelwald before the trains stopped running and we’d be stuck. We caught the 2105 train but it didn’t got all the way to where we needed to get off, so we had a 20 minute walk in the dark ahead of us. The conductor was really good though and showed us the path we needed to take. It ended up being fine but just a bit sketchy in thought. We were ‘pooped’ and wanted nothing more than a good nights sleep. When we arrived back at our hostel, we found out that we had roommates. Bah! We had enjoyed the room to ourselves and now we had to share...not cool! To make things worse, this girl comes in just as we are going to bed and it’s another roommate...at 11pm. She stood in front of Heather’s bed, doing god knows what for like 20 minutes while Heather waited to get into her bed. It was really brutal. I don’t think it helped that we were tired and grumpy.

Taking Flight!

2010-09-07T12:13:00.002-07:00

Thursday, September 2, 2010
Had to get up and out this morning despite the unwillingness! We got up, had our breakfast and got out of the room for check out. Just shortly after, Heather ran out to do some Hangliding as they were leaving pretty soon. She went with this Aussie guy who owned the company and he had a camera attached to the glider so she got some really cool pics and a video as well. He also carried an Ipod with him so they listened to ACDC while hangliding over the Alps. Pretty sweet!!! While she was gone, I did some Australian paperwork (yes more of it, I know) and mailed it then walked to the train station to book some trains to Nice and Barcelona. The trip is coming to an end and we have only a few trains left to book. It seems pretty crazy! Anyhow, I got there at 1245 and the booking place was closed for lunch (must be nice) and re-opened again in an hour. Since I had walked all that way, I just decided to wait the 45 minutes there. I was able to book some trains but they were not direct at all and I could tell instantly that it was going to be quite the adventure and we were bound to miss one or two along the way. Oh well, all she could or was willing to offer me. Anyhow, afterwards I met Heather back at the hostel where we did a bit more planning, watched her Hangliding video and saw her pictures. We then headed off to Grindelwald which was our next stop in Switzerland. It was only about a 30 minute train ride away and we were heading up the mountain a bit. We arrived and the hostel was right beside the train station which is always a nice thing. We checked in, and both went for a nap, while watching a movie. We are both quite sick and congested. We needed a room to ourselves and some sleep to rest and recover. We slept until almost 9 at night and then decided that we should eat something. The only place still open was the local restaurant so we went and had some raclette and pizza. Haha! It was yummy but we were still tired and just went back to bed afterwards.

Party Swiss Army Style!

2010-09-07T12:13:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Heather was up and out by 9 am this morning to go canyoning, while I took a little longer to be useful. I slept in until 10, then I had to leave the room, they lock it until 3 for cleaning and ended up having a nap on the couch. I caught up on emails, blogging and pictures and just lounged around all day. I finally decided to make something of the day and go for a walk which was really nice. The sun had warmed up the air and I wasn’t freezing as we normally are here. Heather got back in the meantime...she had a really good day. They couldn’t do the one jump because of the water levels but she did a lot of things. They repelled down rocks, jumped off of cliffs, did back flips into the water and slid down rock chutes. The pictures are really good and it looked like a lot of fun. She said though that I would not have made it with my bum ankle so I am really glad that I didn’t try and go. When she got back we had a Skype date with Jax and she has a webcam now so we got to see her and she didn’t have to type everything. It was really, really good to see her and catch up. We then lounged around the room, Heather was not feeling well, fevering and had the chills. We went to get some dinner and ended up running into the Torontonians again and a few other Canadians we had met and started drinking again. So much for not drinking and going to bed early! Heather went to bed a bit early because she was still not feeling well. We ended up going to the nightclub again and dancing it up. There were 50 or so Swiss army guys there in their uniforms so we were definitely out numbered. I ended up talking to a few of them and they were pretty cool guys, we ended up having a few shots together. They are required to serve in the army for four weeks a year and yes they are issued Swiss army knives...don’t worry, I definitely asked! The Swiss are an amazing group of people, quite kind and willing to help but also amazing linguists. They are fluent in Swiss German, English, Italian and French. Anyhow, the time came and passed when was supposed to Skype with my parents that night and I caught them just as they were about to give up on me. They were babysitting Campbell tonight while Brandon and Chantelle were out and since I haven’t seen her in awhile, I asked my parents to meet me on Skype. It was really, really good to see her! She is such a doll and getting so big...long like her parents!!

Lazy Canadian Days!!!

2010-09-07T12:11:00.001-07:00

Tuesday, August 31, 2010
We didn’t really get up to much today. Heather had wanted to do canyoning today but the weather was not appropriate and it wouldn’t be running today. We were told that the next few days were going to be nicer weather and would be a better time. So we just hung around the hostel and went to the grocery store and that was pretty much it. We met a couple from Toronto while we were sitting on the couch and got chatting with them. We ended up making dinner and then joining them for some drinks. It was happy hour so we started having a few which turned into a lot. We had a good night, there is a nightclub here so we went there, played flip cup, found ourselves at an Indian wedding and then laying in the roof hammocks. A really, really random night but it was a lot of fun. We ended up staying up really late which was not good for the adventurers in the morning.

Movies, Chocolate and the Alps!

2010-09-07T12:10:00.001-07:00

Monday, August 30, 2010
We really didn’t sleep well last night and the boys were up and at it early this morning. So we were pretty tired but were going to go see Zurich in all of its glory! We found out that we got a free boat ride with our Eurail pass but the water level was too high and the dock was closed, plus it was really, really cold. We decided to just start walking around, we grabbed a starbucks to keep warm. We found ourselves stuck in the rain so we had some lunch and decided instead of sightseeing, we would go to the cinema and see a movie!  We saw the movie Letters to Juliet and it was quite cute...really bad acting but it provided some afternoon entertainment for us on this rainy day. After the movie we headed back to the hostel and got our bags and headed to the train station. We were off to Interlaken today and had to wait until after 3 when the hostel opened to get our bags out. So we got our train to Bern and from there went to Interlaken. It was still raining and quite miserable. We were quite excited to get to Interlaken and there were mountains at our feet. It was such a beautiful sight! We arrived to our hostel which had been suggested to us by Stef and it was really cool. There weren’t a lot of people staying here since it is so close to the end of the season but still a really cool place. It is one of those all in one places. We had a little dinner, the cheapest place with good food is the Thai place next door so that’s where we went. It was amazing, we even had leftovers for lunch tomorrow! After supper, we headed back to the room and pretty much went to bed. I Skype’d with my family and called it a night.

It's Zurich Day!

2010-09-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

Sunday, August 29, 2010
We were not overly ambitious to get up this morning and didn’t have much to see in Milan. We checked out by 10 and headed towards the train station and stopped for breakfast on the way. We took the subway to the cathedral and since we had our bags, took turns going in to see it. It was a really beautiful looking cathedral but since mass was happening we couldn’t go in to see much of it. The stained glass windows were quite beautiful though. We hung out in the square and then headed to the train station. We were off to Switzerland. Our train left from Milan around 1 and we were off to Zurich. We arrived to Zurich and were freezing! The temperature dropped dramatically while we were on the train. Everyone was wearing long pants and warm coats. It was pretty ridiculous. We walked to our hostel which was in the old town, and went right through the city festival that was going on. We knew it was happening from the booking of the hostel but it was neat to see. So we checked into our hostel and decided to go have a look and taste some local foods. First thing that we discovered is that Switzerland is really, really expensive. The prices are about twice as at home. Needless to say we will be living pretty cheaply in Switzerland. We took a look around and decided to get some local eats. There were live bands and beer tents etc. We grabbed some pitas with shish kabobs and racelette. It was really good! We hung out on the street for awhile and enjoyed the festival. We then thought we would go check out our rooftop patio and what we found was not exciting! We assumed it was a licensed bar and there would be people up there. It was an empty rooftop with no sign of life. We had to walk through a sketchy attic to get there too. Anyhow, we ended up chilling in the common room and deciding to head to bed early. We went up to the room and met our roommates. There were two German boys and one guy from Brazil. They were heading out and after chatting with them for awhile, they convinced us to go out with them. We headed back out into the old town and it was now barren. The whole festival had shut down and it was really quiet in the streets. We found a pub to go have a drink at but the bartender was quite unpleasant so we didn’t stay for more than one. In the meantime however, we learned some German. We can now count to ten in German! That may come in handy someday. Anyhow, after we left the pub, we looked for somewhere else to go and had no luck. We looked and looked and everything had closed, we assume it’s because it is Sunday night and most people would have to work in the morning. We then thought lets get a bottle of wine or something and just have a drink at the hostel. We found a kebab shop and they sell beer and wine but when we asked how much a bottle of wine was, we were told it was 45 swiss francs. Ha! That is equivalent to our dollar and it wasn’t even a good bottle of wine. There was no way we would be paying 45 dollars for a bottle of wine. That’s ridiculous! Instead we bought a beer each and headed back to the hostel and pretty much turned in for the night. We met our other roommate then too. He was also from Brazil and the guys were all pretty funny and we had a good night!

Italian Indian!

2010-09-01T04:14:00.001-07:00

Saturday, August 28, 2010
Today was our day to see Venice, well until 3pm anyhow. We went to San Marco’s basilica and did some shopping in the stores. Before we knew it, it was time to head back to the train station. We grabbed a quick slice on the way and off we went to Milan. We arrived in Milan later in the day and the directions that were on hostel world were absolutely wrong! It was really annoying to walk around Milan and have no idea where we were or where we were going. When we did arrive, the guy there was not so pleasant. He was annoyed of the time that we arrived because he apparently had been sitting down at the reception desk for 3 hours and we arrived just when he went to change the laundry and called him mom. Oh wow, did that annoy us! Maybe we would have been there a little earlier if we hadn’t wandered through Milan due to dodgy directions. Anyhow, he showed us to our room, told us that there was wifi but there was only one spot on the stairs where it worked but he didn’t like people sitting there. He also charges for wifi but would give us a discount. Heck no, we are not paying for wifi to sit in a hallway and get yelled at. We wanted it for free and did get it for free. We then made the mistake of asking him if there are any Indian restaurants close by as we were sick of pasta and craving some curry. He was such a jerk! He was like no I only eat Italian food because it’s the best. He was like I don’t try eastern food if it’s not Italian. Heather and I were both like, how do you know if you don’t try anything else. We didn’t push the subject but he was super chatty and went on and on about how the Arabs are in a certain part of town but if you go one street over we can have good Italian food. We just Google’d Indian restaurants and ignored the ignorant man. When we arrived we met this guy who was sitting in the hallway using wifi and he was from Newmarket area and was also our roommate. We chilled with him (Quinn) for awhile while we booked our Swiss hostels and the three of us went for Indian. We got a few bottles of wine on the way for afterwards and took the metro to the restaurant. The first place we went to was non-existant but there was one just around the corner. So we headed in and the smell was fantastic as soon as we walked in. We sat down and ordered a bunch of food to share. It was quite incredible! The food was so good and we ate every last bite. The chef’s were straight from India, from New Delhi so it was authentic and amazing! After dinner, which was like 1130 pm, we headed back to the hostel and went out onto the balcony off of our room and drank the wine. We chatted and watched the city for awhile before turning in for the night.

Hills, trains and Gondola's!

2010-09-01T04:13:00.004-07:00

Friday, August 27, 2010
We woke up early today to get a nice hike in before our train was due to leave at noon. We had some breakfast and were off on the adventure. The guy who worked the hostel told us of a train that would take 2.5 hours from start to finish and would go up the mountain for a fabulous view and back down and then along the coast back to our hostel. We left just after 8, giving us plenty of time to get back and sorted before our train left. So we started out and the first part was quite steep and a lot of steps up and this was to the first town where the national park trek actually started. Once we arrive the terrain was quite flat along the trail but we were walking alongside the side of a cliff on a narrow dirt path, with nowhere to go but carefully straight ahead or falling all the way down the cliff. We walked along vineyards and really cute little houses on the cliff and were careful to take our time and walk carefully. We were still walking at a good pace and stopped only a few times for pics. Time kept passing and we were still walking alongside this huge cliff. We came to a place that we thought was the start of our decent but just ended up being around a river. We continued on, not having any other way to go and were starting to get worried about time. We only had a few hours to get back to Manarola, grab our bags and get back to the train station. We continued down and down and down and it seemed like forever. We got down to the town where we were supposed to start our walk back to our town along the water at about 1200. We were rushing and trying to catch the train back to our village and knew we would have to hurry up to our hostel and back down if we had any hope of catching this train at 1239. The train was due to leave back to Manarola at 1212 and arrive at 1219 and we were confident that if we really hurried we could make it. Then comes an overhead announcement that our train would be delayed by 10 minutes. We were still thinking that we have to at least try and make our train and would have to essentially run up the hill and back down...but it was doable. Then a few minutes later we hear that it was 15 minutes delayed...at this point we are hot, sweaty, thirsty and grumpy so we had beers at the train station and decided that we would definitely miss our train. It was a terrible feeling and we started planning a new way to get to Venice today. The problem was that we had a reserved train from Florence to Venice at 430 and we would miss that and have to pay for a new reservation. What other choice did we have but to just figure out a way to get there and if we had to pay an extra 20 euro, well then so be it. So we got on our train and we still had our beers with us (but you can drink anywhere in Europe...kind of strange but we aren’t ones to complain) and a girl motioned towards Heather and her beer. Heather and I both initially thought she was like “ya, drinks are a good idea, good for you” sort of idea. Until she asked if she could have some! Haha! Italians have proven that they are not shy to ask you for what they want if you have it. Heather said no and I had only a little bit of warm beer, probably mostly my saliva anyhow and said, “Well you can have mine”. Her face lit up like a Christmas tree as she took my nasty remains of a beer. My rationale was that now I didn’t have to find a garbage can and drink the nasty warm spit beer either. I didn’t think she would take it but low and behold...she did! We had a good laugh about it afterwards. Anyhow, up the hill we climbed and back to our hostel. We weren’t very happy with the guy who told us that it would only take 2.5 hours and it took over 3 and we didn’t even finish the route that we trained back. So we thought, let’s give him the guilt trip and maybe he will drive us to the main train station so we could catch our 1341 train. The station was only like 10-15 minutes away but the train from the village ran so infrequently that we were out of options. The guy was not very sympathetic as we had wished and told us to book a new train. Hehe! It was worth a shot! We then asked about a taxi and he said that we could get one but it would cost 30-50 euro since it had to come from the main town. Definitely not worth it! The other thing was that we had told my Aunt that we would be arriving in Venice at our hostel around 7 and now we would be late. She is a flight attendant, the one who we met up with in Athens, who just happened to be in Venice the same night as us. So when we got back to the hostel I rang and rang my parents on skype until they finally answered (it was before 7am there) and asked my mom to text my aunt and tell her we wouldn’t be in until 8 or 9. We headed then to the train station to La Spezia and had figured out that we had 5 minutes to run, make a reservation and get on the 1406 train. So Heather stayed with the bags and I ran and tried to get a reservation. I ran up to the first window and was asking this man if we could get on this train and he said no and that he couldn’t help me. So annoyed I went up to the information desk where this woman was taking her sweet time to ask for directions for the supermarket...meanwhile I am trying to dodge past her to get on this train! So I finally got to the front of the line and asked how we get to Venice as fast as possible the lady wrote out the trains and told us to get on the 1412 train and would have to switch and would get to Florence at 1633 (3 minutes too late for our initial reservation). So I ran to the gates, grabbed my bag and yelled to Heather to get on the train. We just made the train as the doors shut right behind Heather before we were even seated. So we trained to Pisa, switched quick and headed to Florence. We ran off the train in Florence and knew there was no way that the train was late leaving and could not make our reservation. Darn! It was quite the thrill though to try and make it! We had an hour before the next train and went and made a reservation and got on the 1730 train to Venice. We would only be an hour late arriving in Venice. When we did arrive we got a 24 hour water bus ticket and were on our way to our hostel. We had decided earlier as well that we would leave our big packs at the train station and only pack our little bags for the night, since we leave tomorrow anyhow. So we were packed onto this little water bus and it was really neat but we were so glad to be without the excess baggage. We had our directions written down and although they were kind of confusing, they were quite simple from the waterbus stop. We walked the way the directions told us and just around the corner from our hostel, we hear “Meghan!” and we look and there is my Aunt and her friend Elaine sitting at a table at a restaurant having a glass of wine. They had been to the hostel to look for us. They even had a little tour of the place and were invited to stay for dinner... it was 5 euro pasta night. Hehe! It was pretty funny! Anyhow, we checked into our hostel, changed quickly and headed out to dinner on the town. We did a little shopping along the way and finally came to Rialto bridge where we found a little waterfront restaurant to sit and eat. We had a really good meal with really good company. We sat and chatted and ate until 1130ish. Dona and Elaine had to get back on the waterbus to get back to their hotel which was pretty far away before the bus stopped running. We said our farewell’s and sent a few things with them to take home for us as well! Heather and I tried walking back to our hostel but got lost and decided just to come back to the waterbus and take it to the stop we had taken earlier and knew our way home. Our hostel also had a curfew of 1am so we had to get back before we were locked out. It was really noisy at our hostel and the beds were terrible. Being a later check in, we had two top bunks, they were quite high and ghetto. Heather’s mattress sunk in when she laid on it, missing a few springs I think. Not going to be a great night’s sleep but it’s only for one night!

Cinque Terre

2010-09-01T04:13:00.003-07:00

Thursday, August 26, 2010
Got up nice and early this morning! We headed for our croissant and cappuccino and headed to the train station. We grabbed some lunch to go from the supermarket and were on the train by 930 headed to Cinque Terre. It was a cabin train and we had reserved our seats ahead of time. When we boarded the train there were 3 guys in the compartment and sitting in our seats but we just put our bags away and sat in the empty seats. The guys took down their suitcases from the racks after we had put ours up and put them into the hallway. We were quite confused as to why they would take them down but we didn’t really concern ourselves with it and sat in our seats. Then after awhile they put them back up and took their seats. As the train was due to leave, this woman came with 6 or 7 suitcases with her two daughters and were telling the men that the seats were theirs. So the men obviously didn’t have reservations and was probably the reason they had taken their suitcases out in the first place. But then this woman arrives late and kicks them all out. On top of that, she had these massive suitcases that she couldn’t lift above her head to put on the storage racks so the one man had to lift them all up. We had to move all of our bags and rearrange everything so this lady could get her bags sorted. It was kind of ridiculous actually and there wasn’t enough room for them all. She had to put them in the racks in the hall, which she wasn’t pleased about. I am not even sure how the 3 of them carried all of these bags. Just a nightmare! Heather and I just sat there and watched it all go down, mind boggled! Anyhow, they ended up being quite nice and offered us drinks and food and were really nice. They also revealed a secret trick about the train seats that we didn’t know. The cabin seats actually recline down and you can lay across the two seats. So we can in the future recline the seats and sleep more comfortably on the train. Perfect! Anyhow, off to Cinque Terre which is a national park about an hour north of Pisa and consists of 5 villages (Cinque Terre in Italian). We had booked a hostel in Manarola, the second of 5 villages. So we took a few trains to get to the village, had to buy a park pass and headed to find our hostel. It is such a small village that it is definitely easy to navigate. The only problem was, that our hostel was at the very top of this monstrous hill and it was still really, really hot out. So we trekked on up this massive hill, were sweating profusely and arrived to a closed hostel. We were not really impressed but the hostel is closed from 1pm to 4pm. So we waited on the stairs for 30 minutes for it to open...still sweating. Once it was finally opened, we were greeted by a not so friendly Italian man who showed us to reception. The man working the desk was much nicer and was quite pleasant. We checked in, and headed to our rooms. The rooms were quite nice and modern but there was a few things that we didn’t like...there was a curfew of 1 am, internet you had to pay for, the showers were coin operated so you only had a few minutes and only one shower allowed, and in the end made us miss our train (we will get to that later though). So we made the best of it and looked at the trail maps and decided to head up to the far town which had the only sandy beach in Cinque Terre to catch some rays before sunset. We grabbed the train and arrived at the beach, had a little snack and cervesa on the beach. It was really busy when we arrived and cleared out quite quickly between 6 and 8pm. It was still nice and warm out and the waves were nice to watch/listen to so we stayed until after 8. Then we decided to grab a little dinner and walk about the village. We wondered through the village and it was really cute and what I had originally pictured Italy to look like with narrow streets and little shops lining the streets. Very nice! We dined on the waterfront and had a bottle of wine and it was really nice! We also watched some guy night fish, who was not having any luck I should add. We had to catch the last train back to Manarola and be in the hostel before curfew so that’s what we did and headed to bed to rest up for our adventure day.

A "Tourist" Experience!

2010-09-01T04:13:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Today we had to get up early to be able to see all of/ or most of Rome. We headed on the town by 9 and bought a hop on, hop off sightseeing bus ticket. We hopped on and went to the colosseum first. It was huge and again, we joined a guided tour. The guide was absolutely terrible and pretty much made our experience very disappointing and negative. We were really happy to have some free time to explore a bit on our own and to join the second tour guide for the Palatine and the Forum. We had a Canadian guide name Eileen who was amazing! She was a great guide and storyteller and we really enjoyed that part of the tour. We then set off back on the bus to see the rest of Rome. We ended back at St. Peter`s to go up the dome but I was wearing my jean skirt which does not cover my knees. Good thing I was wearing a long t-shirt because I pulled down my skirt, really low, and entered like that. Homely looking creature I was! It worked and we had to climb up to the dome. I took the elevator for the first portion while Heather braved the stairs and then from there we still had to climb 320 steps to the top. They were narrow, steep, slippery stairs that winded and you had to lean and duck to get through the narrow hallways. It was super hot but we trekked on up. The view from the top was incredible and we could now get a great view of the Vatican key shape that we were told about the previous day. We saw the Pope`s private gardens and a view of all of Rome. There is a Roman law that no building can be taller than St. Peter’s basilica so it was a pure view of Rome. It was really amazing!!! We then grabbed a quick Gelato (so yummy) and hopped back onto the tourist bus. We took it a few stops to Trevi fountain where again, we did our tourist deed and through a coin into the fountain to ensure our safe return to Rome someday. It was really busy here, with a lot of people hanging out and throwing their coins in. It was funny to learn that 3000 Euro is thrown into that fountain daily...next time we are bringing snorkelling gear. We then walked a few blocks to the Pantheon and it was quite grand. Not a whole lot to see there but we had a quick look before moving onward. We then headed to the Spanish steps to again, snap a photograph and take a look around. We walked through the high end shopping district and window shopped at Cartier, Dolce and Gabbana, La Perla, Jimmy Choo, etc. It was fun! We found our bus stop and for the last time today, hopped back on to head back to our hostel. We were quite sweaty and tired from the last two days adventuring but we had to head to this area on the river where the locals and tourists both meet at night. It is quite an experience we are told. So we took the bus to the square and started wandering through. Heather had met this Italian Massimo when we were in Greece, who is from Brindisi (apparently his mom is quite the cook and had we made it there would have had a nice traditional meal) and his sister lives in Rome. So he had given us his contact and said to let him know when we had made it to Rome and he would email us some suggestions of place to eat/drink. His sister suggested a local spot that we had google mapped and tried to navigate. We walked through a bunch of streets that were lined with restaurants and bars and when it came to an end we continued on. We wound through these empty streets until we finally came to a few tables on the side of the street. The tables were full except for one, there was no sign and the “restaurant” was just a kitchen. We looked at the address and this was it so we were seated and ready to try our traditional Roman dinner. The cute little Italian server came over and we ordered wine (the selection was between red or white) and we were served a homemade bottle of wine. Then came a plate with what looked like mashed squash but tasted like Sauerkraut (according to Heather) and a bowl of baked beans and bread. It was really, really yummy! So we enjoyed that and then the server came back with a one worded question “pasta?” of which I replied “sure!” not knowing or really caring what my other options were. So we ordered the carbonara and the amatriciano to share. The thing about Italian pasta is that it is so amazing that all that is required is the sauce and pasta...none of this veggies and copious amounts of meat. It is perfect just simply made. We couldn’t finish all of our pasta, even though we tried and rolled on out of there. It was the most amazing meal and we couldn’t be more grateful of Massimo and his sister because it was really a great meal/night. We headed home after and went to sleep.

A Catholic Experience!!!

2010-08-29T09:54:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Roma, day one! When we checked in to our hostel yesterday, they gave us a map of Rome and pretty much a route to take to see the sights. It was great! We were also told that Vatican would be better on Tuesday and rest of Rome on Wednesday because the pope gives his Wednesday address at the Vatican and it would be super busy. We had to check out this morning but were told just to leave our bags in the room, the key on the bed. Well, this older Italian lady who presumably cleans the rooms, came by and was telling us we couldn’t leave our bags and had to take them. She was confused as to why we left the key on the bed and just kind of yelling random Italian things. She didn’t speak a word of English so we just decided to comply and take our bags to reception to make life easier. So we grabbed our things, Heather took the elevator first (only fits one of us with all of our bags) and I waited for her to send it back up. In the meantime, the Italian lady had called the main reception and was talking to them and pointing at me. HAHA! She called me to come to the phone as I was about to get in the elevator. So I made my way to the phone and spoke to guy in reception. He said we could leave our bags that it was a misunderstanding but Heather had already left and I was still wearing my pack so we just brought them down anyhow. The people in reception were great and we all had a good laugh about it. Then we grabbed our free breakfast at the cafe around the corner. It was a homemade croissant and cafe or cappuccino. It was really yummy! A traditional Italian breakfast! We came back to use the internet for a little while since we don’t have wifi and needed to make some bookings/check our email. So by early afternoon we were again hungry and ready to go to the Vatican. We stopped at this little place on the way to the train station and everything looked so good. We ended up sharing lasagne, stuffed tomatoes and pizza and generous helpings of all. We were so stuffed after that and had to get to the Vatican before we didn’t make it. So we took the bus to the Vatican and were told by others that it is a good idea to do a walking tour so you skip the lines and actually know what you are looking at and for. So we joined this Californian girls tour and were the first to sign up. So we had to wait until a group was formed. It was ridiculous, in total we ended up waiting almost 2 hours before the tour started. We had some real winners in our group too. There was this mother/daughter from California and they were super dense. They forgot something everywhere we stopped and asked the most ridiculous questions. The guide would just finish explaining something and she would ask something that she had just said. We were really annoyed. They were also the last to arrive and would leave the tour to go to the souvenir shops...we all had to wait for them. It was a big waste of our day. The tour as a whole was really good though and the guide was great! However, we didn’t get to go up St. Peter’s basilica because it closed at 5pm and we missed it. We went down into the catacombs where all of the pope’s tombs are kept. It was really neat. At John Paul II’s tomb there was a security guard and a roped off area for people to pray or pay respect in front of the tomb. Quite interesting! We weren’t allowed to take pictures down there but we did everywhere except at JP II because the guard wouldn’t let you. It was the same in the Sistine chapel, you weren’t allowed any videography or photography but people were anyhow. It was also supposed to be completely silent, and wasn’t and the dress code of covered shoulders and knees wasn’t strictly enforced. There was a “situation” though! There was a young Aussie guy who was wearing a “wife beater” shirt and short shorts. He had to buy a scarf for his shoulders and to wear around his waist to cover his knees. The guide said it would be fine and it was only for St. Paul’s church and the Sistine chapel. Well, when we got through the security check and were on our way into the Vatican museum, a security guard came over and told the guide that he wouldn’t accept that dress. The guy put on the scarves and still the guy wouldn’t allow it. Which, he was annoyed about because it was fine for girls and should be the same treatment but obviously wasn’t. After much discussion, the man said the guy would have to go back out and get a t-shirt and then could be allowed in. The guy was embarrassed and angry so he left and met with the tour manager to get his refund. It was unfortunate but I guess that’s what you get for wearing short shorts. Haha! Our guide later told us that the guard was actually just demoted to a lesser power position at Vatican and was on a bit of a power trip. The Aussie guy was quite built and she thinks he was intimidated by him and had to use his “power” to make himself feel superior. It was pretty dramatic but our day was good! After the tour and then the catacombs we peeked into the gift shop, mailed some postcards from Vatican post and had a look inside of St. Peter’s basilica. It was a massive well I guess it should be since it is the biggest Roman Catholic Church in the world. It had so much marble and gold in it, it was overwhelming. Really amazing! The alter was really big and neat that St. Peter is actually buried under it. It even had confessional booths! We were both quite overwhelmed after seeing it all! Heather’s favourite part was the basilica and mine the funny looking Swiss guards and we both really loved the Sistine chapel. So much history and Michelangelo was quite the interesting character. To look at the ceiling of the Sistine chapel and the alter wall with “The last judgement” was spectacular. It took him a total of 4 years to paint the ceiling and 6 years to paint “the last judgement” so he spent 10 years in the Sistine chapel and didn’t want to do it to begin with. Painting was also not his specialty, he was a sculptor by trade and hated doing these paintings. It was funny to see the subtle paybacks he incorporated into his paintings. There is a bare bum facing down over the Pope’s seat in the Sistine chapel and a few more things. Pretty incredible! Vatican done! We went down to Sant Angelo castle and took a little look around. We wandered back towards the bus stop and Heather bartered for a new cheap pair of sunnies and we found some Piazza’s to look around. It was neat! We ended up in some back alley’s lined with shops and restaurants. We finally found one that we decided to stop at for supper. It was really cute and had an outdoor terrace, like all the rest! We were convinced to order the appetizer special which was massive. It had bruscetta, prosciutto, salami, mozzarella, tomatoes, and melon. It was amazing but really big. We also had pasta plates coming each. Oy vei! Another gluttonous meal! But like they say, ‘When in Rome’! We also had a nice bottle of wine and some limoncello to wash it all down. We walked through the streets some more after dinner and ended up at Piazza Novana. It had street performers, artists, scam artists and heaps of tourists. We got scammed into paying for these string bracelets by this guy on the street. He wanted 5 euro but we refused to pay for it, since we didn’t want them in the first place and said no heaps of times. We ended up giving him 2. 46 euro since it was all I could discretely dig out of my purse, since yes there are pickpockets everywhere. After, we headed back to the hostel, had a beer with the manager and headed to our new dorm room. There was a guy from Hong Kong in our room and one other, who was MIA. We met a few Canadians down the hall since we all (8) had to share one bathroom. We had a pretty quiet night and headed for bed.

Sweat trains!!!

2010-08-29T09:53:00.000-07:00

Monday, August 23, 2010
Our ferry docked at about 930am and we had to figure out how to get to the train station. We had until 2pm to find out how so we were in no real hurry. We found a public bus that runs from the ferry to the train station. The boys were headed to the airport but had to go to the train station to get to the airport. So we all waited until the crowds died down so we weren’t crammed on the overstuffed bus. In the meantime, the boys had a morning beer. Heather and I were feeling pretty crummy from the lack of sleep and the impending hangover. Adam got a call and got some bad news so we were off to the train station to all have a beer together, to make him feel better. While we were there, Simon got a call that his grandfather had passed away! So the drinks were definitely necessary!!! The boys however, had a plane to catch and had to get to the airport. So, we said our goodbye’s and headed to our train platform. I fell asleep at the platform and woke up just as the train pulled in. Grabbed my things and headed for our seats. All of Italy has reserved seating which is really annoying because you have to reserve everything. Thank goodness we did it all in Vienna before we left for Greece but still, madness. There was no place to put our bags and all the seats were full. The train had no aircon or airflow for that matter and we sweat for 4 hours straight to Rome. It was really disgusting!! Anyhow, we were thrilled to be in Rome and we knew that our hostel was really close to the train station. We grabbed a bite to eat (shame moment...we had McDonalds...and regretted it after!) After dinner, we headed to our hostel. It was a great place. The reception was in an internet cafe and Laundromat so we checked in, got a welcome bottle of wine and were told that there was a problem with our room so we were upgraded to a double for free for the one night! AWESOME! We really needed the sleep so we were thrilled! I did a load of laundry, we both showered and fell asleep.

TOGA...the aftermath!!!

2010-08-29T09:52:00.002-07:00

Sunday, August 22, 2010
Last night was quite the late night and we had very little sleep which made check out the next morning by 9 am quite interesting as well. We had to just shove our things into our packs and organize it better later. So many bags and Heather was still wearing her toga ! We had a pretty quiet day, just chilled in the reception area with some people and had some quiet time at the beach too. It seemed to be a recovery day for everyone at the resort...a lot of hung over people. It was kind of a long day, we had to wait for our bus which didn’t leave until 930pm and we had the whole day to kill without having a place of our own. We made the best of it I guess! We snuck into dinner too, we weren’t supposed to get supper tonight but we just walked down and if you pretend like you belong than they don’t question it. Heather was carrying down some cushions for one of the guys who worked there and the security dude was mad and wouldn’t let her take them in, but it was a distraction at least to get us in. Hehe! So we ate really quickly and had to make our way back up the long staircase to catch our shuttle. This Argentinean guy we had met on our first day was also taking the night ferry to Bari so we hung out with him at the port. We also ran into a few guys who we had briefly met after the booze cruise just in passing Adam and Simon. They were taking the same ferry too so we all hung out together. What a blast they were! They were two Aussies who were travelling together and had just recently got off of this bus they were taking with their friends. It is a converted school bus that they bought for like 4000 quid and put another 7000 quid into renovating it and it sounded amazing. So they were now travelling via normal transportation means. So we boarded the wrong ferry, heading to Brindisi, and were told to get off. The boat we were looking for arrived not long after and we were off. Since we had all booked deck tickets and didn’t have a seat on the boat we decided to go check out the outside deck. It was a really hot night and some fresh air was really nice. We were told very different things. The crew were not being very kind to us. They first told us we weren’t allowed into the lounge because we had bags but there were people just let in ahead of us with bigger bags and we only had our day packs with us. Then we asked where the bar was thinking fine if we can’t sit in the lounge we’ll go to the bar. It was in the lounge! So reluctantly he let us in. We grabbed a few brews and went up to the deck. We were told to go all the way up the stairs and out. When we reached the top of the stairs, we were told that we weren’t allowed up there and had to go down to get outside. Then when we went outside, Simon asked for better directions and we were sent back upstairs! So, we just went up and out as quickly as possible so we didn’t have any more confusing directing. When we got outside, we realized we were on a helipad! Haha so we had some beers and chatted on the helipad! The boys were so funny and made us laugh the entire time. After a few beers and at about 330am, we decided it was cold and we were tired so we went to find somewhere to lie down. On our way we also grabbed another beer! We slept in the hallway for a little while and by sleeping I mean, sat and chatted and laughed until we were told to move. So we all went in different directions. I happened to sleep in a chair in the restaurant and was kicked out at 5am. So I found the others who were in the reception area sleeping in the chairs or on the ground. I joined them and tried to get some more zzzz’s.

Boozin' and a Cruisin'!

2010-08-29T09:52:00.001-07:00

Saturday, August 21, 2010
Today we found out that the booze cruise was running so we got signed up! We had heard some mixed reviews about this booze cruise and that it does get pretty wild but we went with the power in numbers theory. Heather, Lindsay and I went on it and Virginia had gone to Corfu town to meet some Italian friends of hers. So we had to swim out to this pink boat where we drank, danced, met some cool people. There was naked cliff jumping (for free drinks), a bat cave, clothed cliff jumping, a private beach and some good times on the water. It was really cool and we were definitely boozed by the end. We then had to prepare for the toga party since it was Saturday night at the Pink Palace. We walked back up to the reception bar for happy hour and had a few drinks before we grabbed our togas and got ready! We had some sweet looks going on with the togas! Heather’s was tied via a youtube video and I used my hairband as a belt. We looked wicked! When we headed to dinner, everyone had their Pink toga on and everyone’s was tied differently. The party didn’t get really started until late but we had a good time anyhow. The Palladium was quite busy come 12 or 1 and that was when the traditional Greek dance began and followed with plate smashing over our heads. It was quite good! Christo, who was our quad safari guide was one of the dancers and was smashing the plates over our heads. So good!

ATV adventures

2010-08-29T09:51:00.002-07:00

Friday, August 20, 2010
We woke up this morning well rested and excited to be in Corfu. We had been told about a “booze cruise” when we arrived and was apparently the best thing to do here, but the water has been quite rough and it didn’t go out again today. So instead we decided to give the quad safari tour a chance. Well don’t we know it, the loud mouthed American is doing it too. Fantastic!! It only took the group about 2 minutes to get to know him as we had and already be annoyed. Looks like a long day ahead! He is just a know it all, in your face type and it gets really annoying...he tries to be the comic too. Anyhow, he is the reason that we met Lindsay from Hawaii and Virginia (Aussie) who are really cool. They are nanny’s in Milan and have been travelling together the past few weeks before they go back to Milan/home. So we hung out with the girls all day and American boy was entertainment for the day. We rode ATV’s around the island stopping at a beach, cafe, and nice view spots, doing some cliff jumping as well as some off roading. It was a good but dirty day. At the end of it, we got free t-shirts and drinks from Christo our Greek guide or god as he would like us to think. Hehe! After the long day on the town, we hit the showers and went to dinner with Lindsay and Virginia. It’s pretty sweet...we get breakfast and dinner included every day here and we don’t normally make it to lunch so it has been really cheap living. Anyhow, after dinner we were at the Palladium (the resort nightclub) and it was really dead and nothing was happening so we ended up in the reception bar with some English boys Virginia knew. Again, really dead and we were tired and not feeling like partying so Heather, Lindsay and I had a sleepover. We had the extra bed, so Lindsay slept there and we had popcorn and a movie. It was pretty cool actually! Good day and a chill night!

Recovery day!

2010-08-29T09:51:00.001-07:00

Thursday, August 19, 2010
We landed in Corfu at about 830 and at the Pink Palace around 915 and were super pumped to get there and be off of that bus! We came in and had our “orientation” which consisted of a morning Ouzo shot and a description of all of the fun we could expect. During this time, Michelle, an English lady who we think is a teacher had us play an introduction game. So we got to learn more about this guy that annoyed us all night! We had to fill out a paper and they got mixed around and we had to find out who was who and introduce them to the group. It was during this, and breakfast, that we bonded with 3 Austrian girls who were just as annoyed at this American. Anyhow, after breakfast we broke free from the group and checked in to our room. We had a private room with our own bathroom and 3 beds...an extra for luck!?!?! So we had both fallen a bit ill from the ferry, no sleep, bus extravaganza so we slept the day away. It was pretty sad and a little disappointing but it was definitely necessary for our wellbeing. We woke up, showered, went to dinner and came back to the room for bed.

Melting in Athens...off to Corfu!!

2010-08-29T09:46:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, August 18, 2010
We arrived in Athens at 5am, bright and early to start our day!!! We had made plans to meet up with my Aunt Dona who is a flight attendant at her hotel as she was in Athens for the morning and we could meet up. So we found a taxi to take us, which again farce, and we had to share it with this Greek girl who was in a moped accident and had a neck collar on. She was limping pretty badly and was quite beat up...I guess I have nothing to complain about! We headed to the Hilton downtown Athens which was quite nice and rung up my Aunt to let her know we were there. So she met us in the lobby and we took our bags up to her room, which was amazing! We were so jealous, especially after sleeping on a ferry all night. Anyhow, we went out for breakfast together and caught up. It was nice to have a little taste of home and cool that we were able to meet up in a different part of the world. After breakfast, we headed back to her room, where she had scored some extra towels so we could use the amazing shower in her room. She also had room in her luggage to take some of our excess home...Auntie’s are the best!!! She had a midday flight though so we only had a short visit together but made plans to meet up in Venice in a weeks’ time. So we had a full day in Athens before we got the pink bus to the Pink Palace so we ventured into the city. Heather and I had planned to see the Parthenon and do the touristy things today but because of my mobility, there was no way or not worth the risk of going up the Acropolis. So, Heather went in the scorching heat up the top while I wandered the streets looking for a new watch (because I drowned mine while doing hand laundry in Santorini) and whatever else I could bargain for. After a few hours in the 40 degree heat, we met back up and went to have some much needed fluids and lunch. We then went back to the markets for some more shopping...there really wasn’t much else to do since it was so hot. The shops are at least shaded and have air conditioning. After a long and tiring day we went to the hostel that was the meeting spot for the pink bus, had some dinner and waited till 10pm. So we wait around for what feels like forever and then all of a sudden someone comes outside and is like “ok, lets go”! He then proceeds to “sprint” down the street and we were so taken aback that we have our bags flying and grabbing stuff and trying to walk as quickly as we can to follow everyone. The picture of us would have been hilarious...Heather loaded down with both our packs and me with all the miscellaneous things hobbling behind. It was crazy! We almost lost them a few times as they weaved through the streets...luckily Heather stayed close behind to see where they went and yelled the directions back to me.  Pretty hilarious! Anyhow, we get to the bus, hop on and are so tired at this point that we are ready to crash. We had lots of space and the bus was dark but we had this one know it all on the bus who liked to hear himself talk...the entire time!!! He was this American who told everyone that he is 30, lives with his mom, no job, lives off of his mom and is therefore broke. We were just like...you are so annoying. Then there was his Canadian hype man. Oy vei! This Alberta dude was hanging on to every single word out of this guys mouth and it was all nonsense. He didn’t know what he was talking about...well neither of them did and it was just embarrassing. The Canadian was telling him that Ottawa is a province when Heather chimes in with “no actually, Ottawa is in Ontario”. It was gold!!! He did eventually stop talking and slept for awhile...but not nearly soon or long enough for our liking! He should have been sleeping earlier since he was on a ferry the night before and didn’t sleep and now on a bus so he deserved the back bench on the bus...we just shook our heads because we were in the same situation only he had a 4 hour nap that afternoon and we didn’t. It wasn’t worth our breath though. Anyhow, the bus stopped a bunch of times and eventually we had to get off so we could take the ferry.

Ferry hopping!!

2010-08-29T09:45:00.002-07:00

Tuesday, August 17, 2010
We had to check out today and return our ATV ...we have a later ferry back to Athens as well so we pretty well had another day to chill out by the pool. We took our last spin on the ATV shortly after breakfast and we got a tensor bandage for my ankle that is fitted for ankles so that I have a bit more support when I decide to bear weight on it again. We then relaxed by the pool as we waited until our taxi was due to pick us up. It was a bit of a farce this taxi thing. So the whole time we were there we heard about how there aren’t very many taxi’s and it’s quite difficult to get one on the island however, the one that picked us up had a sweet deal going. He already had two girls in the taxi when he picked us up so we all crammed into his little car and he got 20 euro from both us and the other girls. So he made 40 euro for a 10 minute drive and when he dropped us off, there were tons of taxis all lined up waiting for the ferries to arrive. There are definitely taxis in Santorini, you just have to get it at the ferry port if you want one. Anyhow, there was a bit of confusion as to what ferry we were supposed to get on, so here’s Heather hopping over barrier rails to ask the people so we don’t miss the ferry and the ferry isn’t even the company that we bought our tickets from...it was quite strange. Anyhow, we got on the overnight one to Athens which is all we wanted. I did do a bit of walking onto the ferry which was painful but definitely better. Heather scored us some benches too so we could lie down on the ferry once again! YEAH! Although it was a noisy group on the ferry and there wasn’t all that much restful sleep happening. Heather was smart though and downloaded some movies in Santorini so we watched one on the ferry...parts of it anyhow!

ATV's and black sand

2010-08-29T09:45:00.001-07:00

Monday, August 16, 2010
Our main goal this morning was to make it to breakfast at the villa. It is included with the cost of the room so why not? Well it was an amazing breakfast...toast, eggs, fruit, juice, cereal, quiche...the works! It was really good! We wanted to inquire about renting an ATV again for the day so we could at least bomb around the island and check it out a little better. We were told that there were two main beaches...the red sand beaches and the black sand beaches. The red sand beaches were much too difficult to access and the terrain was less than ideal however, the black sand beaches we could park right next to the beach. So we grabbed a ride to the rental place and got ourselves and ATV. We started off on our search for the black sand beach called Kamari however, the streets are poorly marked and navigation is more luck than skill. We made it fairly easily though and Heather got us there safe and sound. We parked pretty close to the beach and I was able to hop my way over to the closest lounge chairs. The sand as promised was very hot to walk on. It was a gorgeous little spot though and we spent the majority of the afternoon lounging and soaking up the sun. We then headed back through Fira to our villa to get ready for dinner. We wanted to head out to somewhere Greek for a nice dinner. George at the villa recommended a few places for us to try and we decided on one just up the road. We hopped on the ATV and headed to this place. The food was really, really good. It was definitely traditional Greek food. It was funny though, they had a platter with a sample of all of the appetizers on it and you could see everything...very enticing! We had these amazing stuffed peppers and some escargot as well. Heather chose to have the lamb...(that’s ok, I make lamb ) and I had the moussaka. It was definitely a good last night to our relaxing (forcefully so) stay in Santorini. After dinner we headed back to the villa and headed to bed...we were so exhausted.

Lounging poolside

2010-08-29T09:43:00.000-07:00

Sunday, August 15, 2010
We slept in until 11 am this morning and it was very much needed. We decided to move into a closer room to the road and reception as George had offered the night before. Heather went up to reception to sort things out while I began my journey up the mountain. I had forgotten how steep it actually was going down the night before, my ankle did not. I decided that I was going to stay off of it completely so here I am hopping up the hill on one foot. The walkways were pretty narrow but with nothing or very little to hold on to. It was quite the task to get up this hill. I had made it about half way up and was now on the roadside when a little old Greek woman came running towards me, yelling at me in Greek. I wasn’t really sure what to do but she shook a broomstick at me and motioned for me to take it. HAHA! She wanted me to use it like a cane...hilarious!!! I told her it was ok and that I was managing but she insisted. So I gave it the old college try and it was...terrible! She had a good heart though and the best intentions. I had to tell Heather about it when she came by and I got a picture with it...only because I looked like Yukon Cornelius. Anyhow, I finally made it up to the poolside, where our new room was just a flight of stairs away and we hung out by the pool for the entire day. Heather was amazing and went and got some lunch and some dinner with wine later on. She really took amazing care of me!! We both were able to Skype home from the pool as well which had the most beautiful view of Santorini. We couldn’t have asked for anything better. Our families enjoyed the view as well!! We chilled out on the pool deck until after dark and watched the sun set over the volcanic island in front of us. It was absolutely stunning and definitely a surreal moment. After we headed back to our room, which wasn’t quite as difficult as before and were able to Skype with our friend Jer! It was really good to talk to her since we haven’t seen or talked to her since we left. Very cool! We then packed it in for the night!

It's not broken!

2010-08-15T14:42:00.002-07:00

Saturday, August 14, 2010
In the morning Heather came down to check on me and we made the executive decision to go get it looked at. I couldn’t walk on it and when I tried I was really light headed and feeling faint. So we grabbed the bus into town, walked a little to the hospital. When we got there, we had to call my insurance company but we couldn’t figure out how to call collect so Heather had to get phone cards from the mini market and then call. The guy was pretty lame on the phone and was snippy with Heather and made me come to the phone...which was down the stairs, outside. Anyhow, we got it all figured out, I had an x-ray, and then saw the doctors. There was one doctor and two newly graduated doctors with one nurse. So the x-ray showed that I didn’t have a break or fracture which is great but I did injure it pretty good. So the nurse tensored it, the doctor wrote a prescription for an anti-inflammatory and a muscle relaxant and they also gave me an injectable dose there. It had to be an intermuscular shot and being as they are a little archaic, I got a shot in the butt. Great!! It was fine actually and the nurse who did it was really good. Heather was on top of things and seeing what they were giving me and giving her approval!  So we had to go into town, fill the script as well as do a lot of running around. This was not going to work for me since I could barely walk. So Heather lugged all of our bags to a nearby hotel to store them and then went and rented an ATV for us to use. It was great! She drove us into town, filled my script, and we had our first meal of the day at 4 o’clock. While we were sitting on this little side street in town, up walks the Aussie boys we met in Prague and ran into in Dubrovnik. It was crazy! We couldn’t believe that we actually ran into them again. They were pretty funny and had just gotten into town. They were pretty jealous of our ATV and rightfully so. Hehe! It was quite ironic that we saw them for the second time after meeting them. Good times! So anyhow, we went back down to the ferry dock, where Heather was going to drop me off and then go get our bags when all of a sudden I hear someone yelling my name. I turned around and it was Theresa! The Americans were getting on the same ferry as us and heading to Santorini. Again, funny the way things work. It was great too as Scott was really nice to carry my bag for me. Heather took him on a ride on the ATV of which he slung both of our pack around him and rode on the back. Pretty hilarious! So we took the ferry to Santorini, which was almost an hour late and were off to Santorini. We arrived shortly before 10 and had arranged to be picked up which was really convenient. We said goodbye to the American’s and would probably catch up sometime in Italy. We arrived in Fira which is the capital and were greeted by a Greek couple who own the property. When we booked our Villa, we were upgraded because of room availability so we were quite a ways down from reception. This was really bad for me, the walk was steep and uneven. Heather helped me and I took it really slowly. It was quite painful but I did make it. We were staying in a little white concrete house, typical of Santorini and it was really cool. George (the owner) carried my bag down and offered to move our room in the morning but he didn’t have anything tonight. So we showered and pretty much went to bed. The lack of sleep the past few days has really caught up to us and we were pooped.

Chasing ferry's and taxi's

2010-08-15T14:42:00.001-07:00

Friday, August 13, 2010
Our original plan was to stay up all night and then catch the metro for our early morning ferry at 5. Well we were exhausted and ended up going to bed at 4. Heather set 11 alarms on her ipod and we slept through all of them. We told Scott to come wake us up, which he tried but wasn’t sure where we were. He came into our room which was apparently left open, and had his Iphone right up to my face but couldn’t tell if it was me and didn’t want to wake up the wrong person. Haha! After we found out that it was me that he was flashing his light at. Anyhow, at 7 our roommate Sofie woke up and was like don’t you guys have to go? YES!! Our ferry was in 25 minutes and on the other side of Athens. We threw our things into a bag and ran down to grab a taxi. We flagged one down and got him to drive really fast. We were yelling at him to drive faster and being really bad backseat drivers but he did well. The cab ride should have taken 20ish minutes and it took only 15 which was great because we only had exactly 15 minutes to get on the ferry. We pulled up as the boat was leaving...we ran on at the last possible second as the back was going up to close. The man asked to see our tickets which of course we didn’t have, but did have a reservation number. He really wasn’t too happy about it but looked up our reservation and let us go. As we walked onto the deck we were talking and laughing and Theresa was like “I hear Americans”! Her and Scott’s faces were priceless. They couldn’t believe that we had made it! They left over an hour before us and got there just in time. They took the metro and had to buy tickets but still. The best part about it was that in Greece we were told that the cab drivers will likely rip you off as a tourist and the crazy cab was only 7 euro. It was fabulous! So we were off to Ios with our buddies and slept most of the way to the island. The ferry was a slow one so it took about 8 hours to get to Ios but we were ok with resting and recovering. When we got to Ios we had to figure out a way to get to our accommodations. The Americans didn’t have any reservations/place to stay so they just tagged along with us to Far Out Camping and hoped that they could stay. They had a shuttle bus to the beach which was amazing!! So we headed to Mylopotas beach to check out our place. We pulled up to this sweet beach and our camping was a resort. It had a pool, restaurant, mini market, bar and a beautiful beach. Heather and I had a bedtent which is a floorboard with walls and a canvas roof with a locking door and of course it was at the very top of a steep hill. So we trekked up to our tent, which was disgustingly hot, and settled in. We put on our bathing suits and headed for the beach. It was absolutely gorgeous there. We lounged on the beach for awhile before grabbing a quick bite to eat and hitting the stage/dancefloor where everyone was partying and dancing. This went on until about 10 when the music stops, everyone gets ready and then takes the bus into town. So we got ready and grabbed the local bus into town. The town was just crawling with tourists and is pretty much run by Australians who come for holidays and don’t leave. So it was a good night. We actually met a guy from Brisbane which was cool because we haven’t met anyone from there yet. It was really cool to chat with him a bit. We danced the night away but when it came time to head home, we had really only one choice. A half an hour walk home! So we followed the way that most people were going and actually ran into some Greek guys and they showed us the way as they were staying at Far Out too. As we were walking I was mindlessly talking to Scott when I walked onto some uneven part of the road fell and twisted my ankle. It was a really severe pain and I actually felt so much pain that I thought that I was going to be sick to my stomach. It started to instantly swell and was really, really painful. So the one Greek guy, hailed a taxi, gave the taxi driver directions and even paid for the taxi. He was so worried about me and it was really, really sweet. I told him not to pay but he insisted and told the taxi driver to go. So, off we went and when we got back to the campground I sat down at the entrance while the guy got me ice, and peroxide and gauze for my scrapes. My right leg was pretty scraped up and it was my left ankle that was injured. So Heather cleaned me up and iced my ankle and Scott offered to let me sleep in his bed which was just at the entrance and he would sleep in mine as I was able to make it up the hill. Very, very nice of everyone to be so helpful! So I iced my foot and fell asleep. I woke up several times in a lot of pain and soaked from the ice. I didn’t much care though because I couldn’t move or go elsewhere even if I wanted to.

It's all Greek to us!!!

2010-08-15T13:23:00.002-07:00

Thursday, August 12, 2010
Woke up this morning in good time for breakfast, since its free! We went down and had a great little breakfast with eggs, toast, cheese, tomatoes, tea etc. It was great!! We had also previously decided to go on the walking tour offered by the hostel. It was just after breakfast so we headed to that next. We had a nice tour of Athens from our guide, George. We saw the Olympic stadium, the Akropolis, the town/markets, the gardens and he pointed out a lot of other places too. It was really, really hot today and we were definitely feeling the heat. We had a break for water and something quick to eat half way. Along the tour though, we had met 2 girls and 1 guy who were from California and were travelling too. They were really cool so we hung out with them along the walking tour. When we stopped for break though, one of the girls had to leave as the sun really got to her. We couldn’t blame her, the sun was killing us all. So Scott took Theresa back to the hostel and Marilei continued on with us. At the end of the tour the three of us went for lunch in the square. We sat down at this little greek restaurant and the patio was right on the square where there was shopping as it was right next to the market. There are street vendors everywhere and this guy was selling knockoff Raybans. The guy came right up to our table and we were checking them out and the waiter grabbed the glasses right out of Heather’s hand and told the guy to get lost. He kept the sunglasses though so the guy was really angry. He kept coming up to us and telling us that we need to give them back. We told him that we didn’t have them, that the guy did and he was getting really upset. He kept asking different guys for the glasses back but still getting mad at us. We told him that we would try but that’s the risk you take. He obviously knew that they didn’t like them selling at the restaurant and this can’t be the first time that they have gotten angry with them for selling at the restaurant. At the end of the meal, Heather went and asked for the sunglasses back and apologized for the situation. The guy was really nice and said he would give them back he was just trying to teach the guy a lesson and make him remember this. So this is what we told the sunglasses man and he didn’t give us any trouble so we headed on. We went to the market and probably through the day tried on a thousand pairs of leather sandals. It was crazy. We both finally bought shoes along with some other things. We then headed back to the hostel and got showered and ready as we had plans to meet up with Scott, Theresa and Marilei for drinks at happy hour. The hostel that we were staying at had a rooftop terrace and happy hour was from 7-8. We all met up on the roof along with our roommate Sofie and had a few drinks. Sofie is from the Netherlands and eventually left to meet up with her friend who is from Athens. We were all feeling pretty good at this point but thought we should go have some dinner. We walked a few blocks to try and find a restaurant and we decided on the first one that was close to our hostel and looked quite good. On our way to the restaurant, we ran into a guy selling knockoff Ray Bans. So we struck a deal and got 3 pairs for 15 Euro. What a deal...they are pretty good knockoff’s too. We compared them to Scott’s Ray Ban’s that are real and they did a good job. Anyhow, we went to this little Greek place for supper where we had some amazing meals and great wine to wash it down. We also had a little dance with a Greek man and were serenaded by the band. We were even encouraged to yell “opa”. It was fantastic! Afterwards we went back to the hostel for a quick wardrobe change, then hit the town. We convinced Sofie to rejoin the party and this Greek dude who was staying in our room became our guide. We hit up some good clubs and even stole some people from the pub crawl to come with us. A guy from Italy and one from Spain joined us in our mission through Athens. We even tried to find a gay bar in the area but didn’t have much luck. It was a good night anyhow and we weren’t as hard core as we thought and had to go home eventually.

Leaving on a jet plane

2010-08-15T13:23:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Woke up this morning and had to get checked out by 11. We decided to take the day to plan the next leg of our trip. Italy!!! So we sat in the hostel reception until late in the afternoon, headed to the train station and booked some more trains before we boarded a bus to take us to the airport. We arrived quite early to the airport so we just sat and booked Italian hostels. At around 5 we went to check in and go through security. So the strange thing about the airport is, you go to the gate and each gate has a security checkpoint. So literally you go through security and on the other side is a small room that you wait to board. It was kind of neat! So we boarded our plane and were off to Athens!!! The flight was small and not very full so we were able to spread out a bit and have 3 seats for the 2 of us. Also to our surprise, they fed you on the flight. We weren’t expecting a meal since we had gotten a really good deal and had already eaten. Oh well, can’t say no to free food. The flight was quite short, only an hour and a half and we were in Greece!!! We were quite excited to say the least but it had been a long tiring day and we were ready to get to our hostel and go out on the town. We took the metro from the airport which is quite a ways out of town, but made it to the hostel with relative ease. It was nearly midnight by the time we checked in and got to our room. So we decided to stay in that night and catch up on some sleep and go out tomorrow night.

London reunion!

2010-08-15T13:22:00.002-07:00

Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Got up early and headed for the train. Got good seats and were on our way back to Vienna. We arrived in Vienna at a good time, were able to book our trains for Oktoberfest and were off to find our hostel. When we arrived we found ourselves in an old building that had people living in it below the hostel. A bit strange but fine. So we went to our room which was definitely not big enough for 6 people but we crammed in anyhow. We got organized and headed into the town. We had received an email from Ari telling us about this sushi place that they found when they were in Vienna and it was all you can eat sushi train. AMAZING!! So we had a great dinner there. A lot of selection and the food was quite fresh. We rolled on out of there and back to the hostel...we had already decided that we should go back to the travel shack or at least go party in Vienna. It was a great night out last time and we had the whole next day free anyhow so why not? So we got back to the hostel, changed and joined the group of people having drinks in the common room. They were a bunch of English girls (all travelling separately) and a few boys from Oz, UK, and Ireland. After a few rounds of games, we all decided to head out. The one couple knew where to go so we all followed them. We ended up at some Austrian karaoke bar...it was definitely interesting. We hung out and had a few drinks here with everyone but then decided to go check out the travel shack since we know it’s a good time. While we were on our way, an Austrian woman, Isabella, stopped to give us directions. She was headed in the same direction so we walked with her. She was really nice and it turned out she was with some friends but didn’t like the spot so decided to check out something else. So we decided to join her for a drink at this bluesy bar. After we had a drink and chatted for a bit we headed onward. We walked to the travel shack. When we got there, it wasn’t nearly as busy as it had been last time but it was also mid week and last time was on a weekend. So we grabbed some drinks, were chatting with these people and all of a sudden, Heather yells out “No way, its Ben and Jake”! They were the two boys that we met our first day travelling in London. It was really ironic that we are now half way through our trip and are running into the first people we met while travelling. Small world for sure!!! So we joined their little party and got to catch up. They had been up to a lot of mischief since we’ve seen them, running with the bull, partaking in bull fights, partying it up etc. So heather decided that she wanted to write her name on the wall. So in order to do this, you have to funnel a beer and then get your face painted. So here we were, funnelling beers with a giant spider on my face and a butterfly on Heather’s. It was pretty funny but we got to write our names on the bar wall. Quite exciting!! We had a good night catching up with the boys and meeting some new people that we lost track of time and by the time we realized, it was 430 in the morning. Time to hit the hay! So we made it back to our hostel for a few hours of sleep before check out.

Travelling through the countryside

2010-08-15T13:22:00.001-07:00

Sunday, August 8, 2010
Early morning ferry!! Nickolai came to pick us up (along with Sara and Matt) to take us down to the ferry port. We got all packed up, headed down, checked in, boarded and were sound asleep in no time. We had scored some benches this time and we were excited to be able to sleep better tonight than the last ferry ride. It ended up feeling much longer this time and our sleep wasn’t great but on we go anyhow.
Monday, August 9, 2010
We arrived in Rijeka at 0700 and had to wait until 12 or 1 for the train. We headed to the train station to drop our bags and see if we could reserve the 12 o’clock train so we get into Zagreb at a decent time. So, we did and tried to reserve some night trains from Portugal to Munich so that they don’t book up and we are able to get to Munich for Oktoberfest. For some reason they weren’t able to so we will try in Austria when we get there tomorrow. We booked the noon train and had some time to kill. We first went to the bathroom to change and brush our teeth and on my, worst bathrooms yet. They were holes in the ground with a drain...it smelt terrible and was infested with bugs. So we grabbed a drink at a little cafe and used their facilities. We then went on a mission for a new book and a hat for Heather. We found a book store and got some new reads...although their selection was limited we were able to find something to entertain us for the next little while. We also found a butcher to get some cold cuts and cheese for lunch and Heather a hat. We almost missed our train though because we weren’t paying attention to time. Luckily we made it though! We were on our way to Zagreb again! We got into Zagreb at a decent time, 4ish and we now knew where we were going and how to get around so we showered and did some more booking. We both booked our flights home!!! So I am coming home September 28th and Heather is flying home with her friend Stef on the 6th of October. It seems so soon but we really have a lot of ground to cover in the meantime. So we grabbed a bite to eat and headed to bed. It was going to be another early morning train at 730 and probably a long day.

Aussies and bad girls!

2010-08-15T13:21:00.001-07:00

Saturday, August 7, 2010
Today is our last day in Dubrovnik and again, didn’t do a whole lot. We took our time getting up and out in the morning. We made omelettes for the second time in Dubrovnik...such a treat! Then we sat out front (for wifi) and finally booked our accommodation for Oktoberfest. We actually booked the hotel that Heather originally liked because it is in safari decor that had been previously all booked. Someone must have cancelled, thankfully!! So as we are sitting just outside the front door and up walks an Aussie mate we met in Prague. The one’s we cabbed home with from the pub crawl! Small world! They had just done an 8 day sail down the coast of Croatia and had just arrived in Dubrovnik. It was cool to catch up and say hey! We were planning to go out tonight so we told them to join us if they wanted to. They did keep Brigita waiting while we chatted though and she was none too pleased. She told them that we were bad news and basically not to associated with us. HAHA! We have been labelled as the “bad girls”! Pretty hilarious! The guys were getting yelled at and they had just arrived. It should make for an interesting few days for them. We were leaving, luckily. We did however, apologize to her when she passed by us after. She forgave us but was still not as chatty and pleasant as before. If our worst crime is being a little too loud with some Aussie boys and actually breaking the party up and listening to her request well then...I don’t think we’re doing too badly. We thought we would get out to the old town today and walk the walls. Dubrovnik is a walled city and for a fee you can walk along the top of them and get some really amazing views. Of course we went in the middle of the afternoon and were under the beating sun. It was friggin hot! It was well worth the warmth though. We had hoped to grab some seafood at the fish market and make our own dinner tonight. We were under the impression that the fish market was in the old harbour (as the book told us) and we were sadly mistaken. We searched for it for awhile before admitting defeat. It wasn’t until later when we got back home that Sarah told us that it was actually in the new harbour. Darn! So we hit up good ol’ Uncle Ben to make us some rice and sweet and sour chicken. We just make up a stir fry with chicken and veggies. It was really good but definitely not the seafood extravaganza we had hoped. We got showered and dolled up for a big night out. We wanted to go to the beach party, a secret little spot on the cliffs and then to the all night club. We chilled outside drinking when two Canadian boys (Calgary) peaked their head in to see what we were planning for the night. So we told them and invited them to come chill with us and hit the town. So we hung out on our balcony for awhile, ensuring to be quiet after 11 so Brigita wouldn’t come yell at us again. We had heard about a beach party through the grapevine and thought we should check it out, especially since it was only a few minutes away. When we arrived, there was some Croatian pop star singing on stage and it was a huge event. It wasn’t great music and we didn’t know what she was saying anyhow, so we just had a quick drink before heading on. So we walked to the bus stop and took it into the old town and tried to look for this bar that was apparently amazing!! No luck, we looked for quite awhile and found nothing. So, we headed to Fuego, latino club and spent the rest of the night dancing away. The ferry ride will be an interesting one tomorrow. Great time in Dubrovnik!

Island hopping

2010-08-15T13:20:00.001-07:00

Friday, August 6, 2010
We decided that today we were going to go to Lochrum island which is just off the coast of Dubrovnik. It was a quick little ferry ride to the island (15 minutes) and we were there. It is a green island so it’s pretty much just all beaches and there is a salt water lake in the middle of it. The ocean was quite rough at parts and a little risky to swim at so it was nice to have both. On the ferry ride there, we saw our roommates who obviously had the same idea. We ended up losing each other once we got there but Heather and I laid out on the “beach” (huge rocks) and soaked up the sun. There were people cliff jumping into the water, swimming and Lochrum is actually a nude beach but only a few girls actually partook. It was a really nice day on the island. We had packed our lunch and just relaxed in the sun. After awhile we went to go sit in the shade and eventually to the lake. The island was overpopulated with peacocks and they were gorgeous to see. They were being terrorized by all kinds of kids and people wanting them to spread their feathers. Oh well!! We stayed till nearly 630 when the ferry took us back to the old town. We wanted some more seafood so we went to a restaurant recommended by the guidebook for having really good dishes. We got there just in time!! The small patio in the middle of the square had a really long line just shortly after we were seated. We ordered a bottle of wine, some oysters and the mussels each. It was really good! The seafood was fresh and prepared well. Needless to say, we gobbled it up pretty quickly. Heather tried oysters for the first time and wasn’t thrilled (too salty) but was willing to try again (the lemon squeeze helped). After supper, we wandered around the town for awhile, looking in shops and just hanging out. We eventually headed back home and...you guessed it, had some wine on the balcony! Another fabulous day in Dubrovnik! We did however, decide to make friendly with our neighbours above us. A group of Aussie boys!! Our favourite! We sat up on their balcony chatting until late and apparently we were quite noisey because Brigita came and broke up the party. She was not too pleased and had a previous run in with the boys. I guess they came home early (7am) the morning before and were loud and had a complaint. So this was the second time they were getting a noise complaint. We were now associated! If you met Brigita you could imagine that she has a mean streak, for sure!

Croatia has some of the most beautiful beaches!!!!

2010-08-15T13:19:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Today is beach day #1. There are quite a few beaches to choose from so we started close. Lapad beach was only a 5 minute walk from our place and there were vendors and shops on the way. We had to get beach gear (towel, mat , hat and sunglasses) and then we were off. The view from the beach was again, beautiful! However, the beach was not what I had expected...it was really rocky and there wasn’t any sand for you to lay out on...it was gravel. We were glad that we bought the bamboo mats to lie on. The water was really nice though and since it was quite a hot day, it was good to have a cold dip in the ocean. The sun really took a toll on us and again we had a pretty quiet night. We had leftovers from the night before as our mussel pasta turned out to be a lot of food. We met our new roommates too and shared a few drinks with them. Matt and Sarah, a couple from Bristol and very cool people! Heather skyped with her family for a while and ran into Brigita who had only half of the laundry to return that night. We thought, yup, that’s fine...well guess who’s half was done? Heather got all of her clothes back, washed, dried and folded while she still had over a week’s worth of underwear left. Good thing tomorrow is a beach day...I may still have to sink wash a pair for the rest of tomorrow. 

Thursday, August 5, 2010
Beach day #2! We decided to head to the north shore today and go to the Copacabana beach. It is quite the hotspot for locals and tourists alike. It was really, really rocky here and the ocean floor didn’t clear to sand at all. It was much nicer to lay on the “beach” here though. It was like a concrete flat beach instead of loose gravel. It was quite hot at the beach and we were worried about burning so we took shade in the afternoon. We had a light lunch on the beach before heading back to the apartment. We are definitely getting our exercise while in Dubrovnik. The apartment is on top of a hill and the only way to get up is to text Nickolai (we are mobile-less), to take the bus (kind of a waste if we aren’t coming in from old town), or walk which has you in a sweat by the time you reach the top. We chose the latter most days and even when we have taken the bus back, we stop at the supermarket at the bottom of the hill for something or other. We got back to the apartment, had a drink or two with our roommates, showered and went into the old town. It was our first time going to the old town and wanted to check out a spot Brigita recommended to eat at. On the water and reasonably priced! We had seafood risotto and seafood pizza that we shared between the two of us and it was great! We were definitely not disappointed. By the time dinner was over, it was quite dark so we decided to save our adventuring in the old town for another day. We headed back, again sat on the balcony for a few drinks (or bottles) and retired to bed. This is definitely a change in pace from our on the go party lifestyle but we are really appreciating the break.

Welcome to Dubrovnik

2010-08-15T13:18:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Woke up with a start at 630 as we had arrived in Split and it was announced so those travellers departing knew we had arrived. So we were all awake at 630, not well rested but feeling fine for the time being. We had a little warm cup of cappuccino/hot chocolate and were feeling warmer and more alive. We had some breakfast (from our adventure to the supermarket) and hung out for a few hours. The restaurant had cleared out after a few stops so we decided it was our opportunity to move to an outside table with a booth so we could lay down and have a proper rest. I was sleeping on the floor at this point so Heather scoped out a good spot and we moved our things. We felt much, much better after having a little rest and some lunch and being closer to getting there. The coast is beautiful and we got to see a lot of the stops. Apparently the most picturesque part of the journey is Split to Dubrovnik which is perfect because it’s during daylight hours. So, we got to see a lot of the ports and they all look wonderful, we could not even imagine what Dubrovnik would be like but hopefully just as amazing. The water here is like no other colour of water I have seen. It is a true blue colour and clear as can be. Even yesterday in the harbour in Rijeka, we could see right through the water to the bottom and there were mussels on the posts and fish swimming. A bit different from any other harbour I have seen. Not quite as clean and clear water as this. Again, making us quite excited to arrive in Dubrovnik! We were due to arrive in Dubrovnik at half 4 and we had previously arranged for the brother of the owner of the apartments we rented to pick us up at the ferry port. It was really kind of them to offer this service for free! So Nickolai had a little sign with our names on it and was waiting right at the dock for us. He gave us a little guided tour as he drove us from the old town to Lapad (just outside of the old town). We arrived to modern apartments and Brigita was there to check us in and show us our room. She had overbooked so she ran out of double apartments so we shared a common area with one other room. There just so happened to be two good looking Greek boys in the room next to ours. Bonus!! They were actually quite nice and we chatted with them a little. They were heading home the next day but gave us some pointers on Dubrovnik. Our first mission of the night was to find laundry facilities. We had stretched our clothes for awhile now and I was in my emergency underwear. LAST PAIR! So Brigita said her neighbour would do it if we paid her and would get it back, same time tomorrow. Perfect! So we gathered it up and dropped it off. We then trekked down the hill to the little promenade with restaurants, shops and the supermarket. We grabbed some groceries to make a little dinner before we turned in at a good hour. Our balcony faces the new harbour and since we are on the top of a hill, the view is spectacular. Just amazing!! So we watched the cruise ships go in and out of the harbour while drinking some wine on our balcony. Life is good!!!

Trains, Planes and BUSES!!!!

2010-08-04T07:26:00.000-07:00

Monday, August 2, 2010
Off to Rijeka to catch our ferry today. Hooray!!! We are so pumped that waking up this morning at 6-630 was not a big effort. We were pumped and ready to board our 820 train. We had quite a bit of time to wait but again our train was there and waiting. So we boarded early, secured a car to ourselves (3 seats each) and laid down on the bench and had a wee nappy. Two hours later the conductor had brought a translator to tell us we had to get off of the train and switch to a bus. We weren’t sure what this was all about but everyone was doing it and we were in no place to argue. So off we went, climbing over the tracks (apparently platforms are for the birds in Croatia) and headed towards the coach bus that was happily waiting to take us to...”our next destination”??? Who knows...I do remember saying to Heather “where is the water”? It’s difficult to take a ferry from dry land...oh well here we are going with the flow! Next thing we knew, 20 minutes later, we were being taken off of the bus and told to go back on the train. Ok! New train, here we go! I found the young guy who acted as our “translator” originally and asked him what was going on. He thought that the tracks were being replaced and so we had to go around the part that they were fixing and continue on from there. He also said that he thought that we would have to do it one more time. So back on the train we went, ready to move again though. After about an hour maybe we were again moving to the bus, which this time was packed. The bus was full of people and bags and the man I sat beside was ever so kind to move over and allow me to sit next to him (ya no, I had half of a seat because he had his legs wide and was leaning on the window to sleep), Classy!!! Anyhow, this was the longer, worse bus ride and two people actually vomited from the movement of the bus. We were weaving through the mountains and as you can imagine, the roads were not well maintained. Thank goodness it wasn’t the rude boy beside me, losing his cookies. Anyhow, we were then taken back onto the final train that would take us straight on to Rijeka! Wow, what a view from the train. We drove to the coast on the mountain and then had to circle the town to get down the mountain, all the while facing the water. Gorgeous! We got there later than anticipated but we still had like 6 hours until our ferry was due to leave. We then went to the ferry dock, stored our bags, checked in and went looking for a supermarket. We wandered around, found nothing and we eventually went to the shopping centre which was a 40 minute walk in the scorching heat. We found it and were amazed to find a real grocery store with tons of options. Yeah! We had to get enough food for supper, breakfast and then lunch tomorrow since we weren’t due to dock until after 4. Here we come, 20 hours on a ferry. It’s our preparation for our 20 hour flight to Australia. So we grabbed what we needed/wanted and took the bus back to the city centre to catch our ferry. We had checked in earlier when we arrived which was a really smart move in hindsight because the line was massive when we got back. We decided to cheap out on the ferry after spending the big wad on our Greek villa and just get deck seats and brave the night without a bed. So when we got on board there were people everywhere, setting up sleeping areas and reserving their spots. We got an ok spot where we had a table and then were able to sleep beside/under the table. Good times! Heather was pretty excited to have a “sleepover” with a bunch of strangers...I was open to the idea. We were hoping to meet people with a cabin and invite ourselves in but it didn’t quite work out that way.  Instead we slept on the floor under a table in the restaurant. It sounds worse than it was but we were one of many with the same sleeping situation. Our backs were wrecked and we were freezing all night but hey its only one night. There was also a small disturbance just as we were falling asleep. Some man had sat down on a bench beside some European couple and had worked his way closer and closer and was laying down right beside him. The European man said, quite loudly and abruptly, that this was his space and he needed to move over. The man didn’t really move but rearranged himself. About 20 minutes later the man got really upset and hit the guy and got up ready to fight him. Pretty dramatic!! We weren’t so impressed since the guy was already warned to move over and he proceeded to get closer as we were trying to sleep. We think he was trying to push them out of the bench so he could lie down. Pretty brutal but blown way out of proportion! Life on a boat I suppose.
I should mention the new trend that seems to be happening. We have been asked several times now for directions or for help which is quite the change from people asking us if we need help. We must look more experienced and knowledgeable than before. I was approached on the street in Budapest if I knew where the money exchange place was and we had passed it several times so I directed them to the spot. Then on the metro the next day, still in Budapest, we were asked “do you speak English...a little bit?” by someone who clearly did not fluently...of which I replied “a little”! I don’t think he picked up on my sarcasm but he needed directions on how to get to a certain metro stop. Being the amazing metro navigators that we have become, we were able to tell him where and when to change lines and what line he needed to switch to. Then when we were leaving Zagreb, some guy must have seen the Canada flag on my pack (also not North American but he recognized that we must speak English instead of Croatian) and asked us how to get to Vienna. Haha! We were headed nowhere near Vienna but went to the departure board to try and help him out anyhow. Luckily, the train went directly to Vienna and he had about 3 minutes to get to the platform. So off he went, to catch his train. We think it’s pretty amusing that people are asking us for directions when clearly we don’t know where we are half of the time. Good thing they asked us when we had our bearings and were somewhat useful to them.

Navagation System Gone Aray!!

2010-08-04T07:25:00.000-07:00

Sunday, August 1, 2010
Oh my goodness it’s August!!! We actually cannot believe that we have been on the go for over 6 weeks now. It’s quite unbelievable! Anyhow, we are on the road again getting our train to Croatia this morning. We woke up in good time to get the train station (and blow some Hungarian cash that we had leftover in the supermarket) and make sure we get a magnet for Heather’s collection. So we went to the train station and the train was already there and waiting. So we boarded and were told that Hungarian train reservations are mandatory...apparently not! But the 5 people who did reserve, I think on the whole train all sat in the same cart. So it was us and 3 young German guys were crammed and sweating in one car built for 5. Not so pleasant but they were fun. We had quite the long journey ahead of us and after Heather and I pooled our change together and I went to the food stand (that sells beer) and asked for the cheapest beer and to purchase as much as I could for the money that we had. So we got seven tall cans and off I went back to the train. The five of us all had a tall can together to start off a great train ride. So the three of them, as it turned out, were from Hamburg! We told them that we were there for Hamburg day and impressed them with all of our knowledge of German culture, or what we know of Oktoberfest anyhow.  They were on a three week vacation together and we had some good laughs...especially when the train was stopped dead for about 45 minutes to clear customs. Customs you may ask??? Yes, we finally had to actually properly cross a border. So we had our passport stamped by Hungarian border control and Croatian. It was great how quickly they cleared us although the German’s didn’t even need a passport, just an I.D card. We definitely counted our lucky stars though because there were two Oriental girls in the car beside us who got their passports taken for awhile and then we didn’t see them afterwards...not sure of the story there but they disappeared off of the train. On we continued until we finally made it to Zagreb (which is Croatia’s capital apparently). It was nearly 8 by the time we arrived and we had simple instructions to get on tram number 6 and get off at the fifth stop Slavonska. The instructions clearly warned us that there was also a stop on tram 6 in the opposite direction called Slovenska and that was the incorrect stop. However, we weren’t able to clarify this as we were out of juice on the laptop and our ghetto train didn’t have an outlet (or A.C. for that matter). Anyhow, so there was this huge sign in the train station for our Hostel Lika and the directions. So we glance at them and head on to the trams. We get on number six as instructed, count 5 stops and get off. We were then supposed to follow the yellow footprints and that would lead us to the hostel. Well to our surprise there were no footprints. We searched around and found nothing...so we went to the newspaper stand to ask the young girl working there if she knew where the hostel was or the street as we did have the address. She told us that she wasn’t sure but thought it was 1 or 2 stops back on the tram. So we walked back and tried to find the footprints or even a map. We finally found a tram map and saw that we had got off one stop too early...or so we thought. So back on the tram to the proper stop and we discovered that the stop names were displayed on the ticket validation box but was easy to miss. So we got off at the stop and once again, looked for the yellow footprints and found absolutely nothing. It was now getting to be darker, our bags were heavy and it was Sunday so we didn’t know how long trams and stores would be open until. So we went to a supermarket to ask for directions. Instead, after asking a dozen people, we asked if we could use an outlet and look up our directions that we had saved on the laptop. As it turns out, we went to the wrong stop in the complete opposite direction!! So we had to head back to the tram stop and hope that trams ran past 930pm on a Sunday. We anxiously waited at the stop until low and behold, the number 6 tram rolled up. Perfect! So back through town, past the train station and to the far east side of the town we went. We got off at the proper stop and followed the yellow footprints. I must add that the footprints were worn and difficult to see in daylight never mind by the sporadic streetlights that were now our only source of light. We did however, make it and actually arrived just shy of 10 when reception was closed. We literally caught her on her way out. It would have been ok though because the owner and everyone was having a BBQ out back. Phew! We made it and now when we pass through again on our way to Greece we will know exactly where to go. So thirsty, dirty and hungry we had made it and were ready for bed. We tried to be a little social and at least talked to the young German guy in our room but otherwise were not into the garden party that was happening. Quick stop in Zagreb but we will be able to appreciate it better in a weeks’ time when we are back.

Our Cultural Experience!!

2010-08-04T07:24:00.003-07:00

Saturday, July 31, 2010
What a terrible night. The first abrupt awakening was around 230 when this old woman (60+) decided to come find her room (although we had seen her early in the night) and wake everyone up. She flicked on the light, and had the nerve to wake us up and ask us if we were using more than one locker and if this pile of stuff was ours. We clearly weren’t and the things she spoke about were not ours. So, we were annoyed at the fact that she woke us up at that hour and was being ridiculous. She was quite angry that there wasn’t a locker for her to use but really, she should have checked in at a reasonable time and maybe someone could have accommodated her. So we settled back to sleep and a few hours later I was woken again by someone turning on all of the lights and poking around her things. At first, I didn’t think too much of it assuming she was just grabbing something and would soon turn down the lights and go to bed, but I was severely wrong. The girl proceeded to slowly walk around the room gathering her things one by one and unpacking and repacking her bag. A few minutes in, I asked her kindly to shut off the lights...as it was 430 in the morning and the rest of the room was clearly sleeping or trying to at least. She said no, that she would need around 30mins to pack as she was leaving early this morning. I was so annoyed; it would be common courtesy to pack your belongings the night before if you knew you were leaving early in the morning. So off she went packing her things and organizing for about 45 minutes. Taking her sweet ass time!!! I gave her a little attitude before deciding it was a lost cause as she was doing what she wanted and didn’t speak very good English. Nice manners on her though! So after another solid night’s sleep we decided to sleep in a bit and have a bit of lazy day. We wanted to go to the flea market and see if they had dresses and fun things to buy and just poke around town. So we headed up towards the market, which ended up being a junky garage sale. It was a “cultural experience” to say the least. We couldn’t believe that this was marked on a tourist map. So instead of staying at the junk market, we went to the shopping mall!!! After wandering the mall for a few hours, we ended up both buying dresses from the vendors in the underground. They were much more reasonably priced and for the same dresses being sold in the shops. We have done H&M a few times so we are waiting for their fall collection to come out before we will be probably be making any new purchases there. Oh well, mission accomplished!! Long flowing dresses for our upcoming beach vacation, as Dubrovnik is only a few days away. We had to hurry back to the hostel, shower and get ready for our dinner date!! YEAH!! We had make Facebook plans with Ari and Andrew (remember the Aussie couple who are doing the around the world tour that we met in Prague) as they were in Budapest for the Grand Prix. So they had heard about this steak house by their hostel (other side of town for us) that was quite reasonably priced and really good food. So we were pretty excited to meet up with them and hear what was new with them. It was really a good dinner (the goulash was exceptional and Heather really enjoyed her bacon and cheese wrapped chicken) and was with great company. We got chatting so late that the metro had shut down and we had to walk back to our side of town. Our shoes were not walking shoes and not appropriate for long treks but we had no choice. Anyhow, we said our goodbyes to Andrew and Ari and headed towards the nightlife. We were looking for this bar with a rooftop patio and different vibes in the rooms but were struggling to find it. Once we did locate it, we were greeted with a black door and a man standing in it. We had to walk to the roof and that is where the party was going. We had a few drinks, met some English boys and one drugged out Danish guy before we called it a night. The night was not over yet, when we were getting showered and ready earlier in the day, we met some English girls who were rooming with us. We had told them about the crazy old lady that was staying in the room with us and how she was nuts and quite rude. Anyhow, it had been decided that we were going to get our revenge tonight but so that it just affected her, not the whole room. We didn’t want to be as rude as she was. So we were going to “accidently” wake her up for a stupid question. Anyhow, so when we arrived back home at around 3am, she wasn’t there. Her things were there but not her. So we assumed she was getting drunk again and hadn’t yet made it home. She didn’t come home at all...but low and behold, this morning she was at breakfast, dressed in the same clothes she arrived in 2 days ago, drinking beer for breakfast. Apparently she also had a breakdown to one of the English girls about her life and how her children don’t like her or talk to her. It was pretty sad but all the same we were still bitter about her ignorance. So we were glad we didn’t reciprocate and be rude to her back, but I guess Karma will take care of things.

Bathing in Budapest

2010-08-04T07:24:00.001-07:00

Friday, July 30, 2010
We had to get up and moving this morning despite our awful sleep last night. There was a free walking tour that started at 1030 on the other side of the town. So, we made our way there and joined in. The tour was not great but I suppose it has to do with the information and sights available. The history was pretty broken up and focused on communism, not thrilling at all and the buildings of the communist days are really quite ugly. Oh well, it was our way of seeing Budapest in a few hours. Then we were off to the baths. Budapest has a lot of Turkish baths and we were told that one in particular was big and really nice. So, we headed across town and when we arrived, were definitely not disappointed. There is a large outdoor pool that was quite popular along with several indoor ones. We started outdoors, and then worked our way through the indoor ones. They were all of varying temperatures and there were both wet and dry saunas. They were really hot but felt good! We spent about 3 hours at the baths and then decided to head back. We grabbed some takeaway and wine on the way home and headed to the terrace for dinner. It was a pretty chill day but we were quite tired and not showered at this point so we decided to have an early night and go out tomorrow.

Mexican in Budapest

2010-08-04T07:23:00.001-07:00

Thursday, July 29, 2010
Woke up this morning, packed our things and were off to the train station. Lydia had a morning train to Vienna so we all headed out together. We stopped at the supermarket and were sure to label our produce this time. Our train was at 11 and was about 6 hours long. So we were prepared for another long day spent on the train. It rained like cats and dogs as soon as we boarded the train (thank goodness) and subsided by the time we arrived. We easily found our way to our hostel in Budapest, again though we were on a different currency. So we grabbed some Hungarian cash and headed to the hostel. We had booked Casa de la musica hostel and it was definitely colourful. The whole place was in bright colours and had a terrace with a bar and swimming pool. Pretty sweet!! So we checked in, great people who work/own the place and we went to our room to get settled. We had previously decided on the train to go to a restaurant recommended by the travel guide that was Mexican. Iguana was what it was called, and it was just a short metro ride away. So we had a pint first on the terrace and then headed for some eats. Iguana was a really cool place! It was pretty traditional Mexican, for Hungary anyhow, and we really enjoyed it. It could have been the Litre of Margaritas that we had too. It was a great start to Hungary and although not overly traditional, we needed a taste of home. We headed back to the hostel afterwards as we had both planned Skype dates with our families. The time change is really killing us. The Skype session didn’t end until about 230am our time. Totally worth it!!

Eagle's Nest

2010-08-04T07:22:00.002-07:00

Wednesday, July 28, 2010
The bus shuttle picked us up at 820 sharp and we were on our way. We went to the tour bus, boarded and were off. Our guide that day was Andreas and he wore lederhosen so it was already a good start. We headed off to the Austrian/German border and were off to the Alps. It’s quite a steep incline up the mountain and the tour bus had to stop at one point and we switched to public transport which had extra engines and breaks meant to climb up the mountain. We were standing so it was even more interesting of a ride up the mountain. We arrived to the summit and then took the bronze elevator to the top which was a present to Hitler from Mussolini for his 50th birthday. Very cool! When we arrived to the top of Eagle’s Nest it was amazing and very cold. The clouds weren’t too bad so we had a pretty good view with decent visibility. There were places to climb and take pictures so for the next hour we did so. The only thing I was quite disappointed with was the lack of information available about Eagle’s Nest aside from what our tour guide said. I expected some write ups or something on top of the mountain. It wasn’t a big hot spot for Hitler since he was afraid of heights but it is still significant in history. Anyhow, amazing views and very tranquil. We then came back down and headed to a small village of which we really didn’t see because we were too busy eating more schnitzel, goulash and drinking Stiegl beer. So back we went to Salzburg! Along the journey however, we started talking to some Australian dude who had heard about a beer festival and asked if we were going to check it out. Of course!! We were asking our guide though and he didn’t know of any beer festival and doubted there was one. Apparently there was one going on at the Stiegl brewery and was huge. Who knows? Maybe we will check it out later. But for now we had to go back to Mirabell Gardens, we missed the statues of the gnomes and had to go get some pics. We also went up the elevator of Hotel Stein and onto the rooftop patio to snap a few photos of the best view of Salzburg. We headed back to our hostel to drink up our beers and perhaps head to the brewery to check things out. We met back up with our roommate Lydia and she chatted with us for a bit and soon we were drinking beers together and playing cards. Before we knew it, it was 6 or so and we were quite hungry. We decided to hit up the Thai shack restaurant again and visit our friend there. Haha. Again very difficult to find out what the menu said and what to try but he took care of it and we had again, an amazing meal. This time we made sure there was a lot of beef and meat. We were all feeling slightly anemic and needing some more meat. After our meal and beer we headed back to the hostel once again, it was again raining too. So we headed back and had some girl chat over a few beers and really just headed to bed. Since it was raining out, the beer garden wouldn’t be very good and nobody in town or from Austria knew about this festival so we thought it was probably just the brewery and beer garden. Anyhow, off to Hungary tomorrow morning.

The Hills are Alive

2010-08-04T07:22:00.001-07:00

Tuesday, July 27, 2010
We went into Salzburg today and checked out the old town. Again, not a whole lot to see in Salzburg other than the fact that the Sound of Music was filmed here, so we just wondered around. We were going to inquire about the Sound of Music bus tour so we made our way towards their bus station. Along the way, we stopped at Mirabell Gardens and snapped some photos of us in the same places that were filmed in the Sound of Music. It was interesting to see that the spots were very much the same as they were in the film. Most of the filming was done in Salzburg and only some indoor sets were made in Hollywood. So we made it to the Panorama tours spot and decided to take the 2pm tour. It just so happens that the rain had subsided and would be great weather for a bus tour. So we hopped on the bus and were off. Our tour guide was something else! He had a cheesy sounding voice and sounded like a game show host. It was pretty brutal! The tour was interesting I`d say. The places that they did stop at were nice and we did get to go to the place where they filmed the backyard of the Van Trap house, the gazebo, the main entrance to the house, the tree lined drive, and the wedding chapel. We didn’t get to stop at Nonnberg Abbey but drove by really quickly. It was quite the let down and false advertising. We were taken to some lakes too and it was quite picturesque. Anyhow, it was interesting enough and they did sell beer on the bus so it wasn`t all bad. We had booked at the same time, a tour for the morning to go to Hitler’s Eagle`s Nest in the Bavarian Alps. So we hoped this tour would be better or worthwhile anyhow. So once we returned to the hostel, we had our grocery store supper, some beers and just chilled and watched some football. Again, not an overly exciting evening but we had an early start the next morning.

Productive Day in Salzburg

2010-08-04T07:21:00.003-07:00

Monday, July 26, 2010
Woke up and had to check out and head for the Haupbahnhof or the train station. We got all packed up, went the grocery store and headed for the train station. We did however, have a most “pleasant” experience at the supermarket. We grabbed all of our items, headed for the cash and got the most awful look of disgust as the cash lady grabbed all of our produce and just walked away from the register. At first we didn’t know what to think until we realized that you have to weigh and price tag all of your own produce before proceeding to the checkout. Oops! She was so angry and was just huffing and puffing the whole time. We apologized but I think it may have gotten lost in translation. Oops. Oh well, we’ll never see her again! Lesson learned, look for weigh scales in the produce section next time. So over to the train station we went and hopped on a really empty train, spread out and were pumped to have all this room in the empty compartment. That is until the conductor came by and said this train had ended and there wouldn’t be a return to Salzburg. So we had to switch trains and luckily the other one wasn’t all that busy either. Through the train ride only a few people sat in our room for short periods of time and we were still able to spread out and be comfortable. Off to Salzburg we go!! We arrived to some really nice weather and a considerable increase in temperature. Needless to say by the time we arrived at our hostel, we were warm and needing a cool off. We wanted to finish the planning we had started in Vienna so we took that evening to do so. We booked our ferries from Athens to Ios and Santorini and back, and also our bus trip from Athens to Corfu to stay at the Pink Palace (sure to be a good time). We also looked into our big splurge of the trip, a villa in Santorini. It was amazing to look for places to stay and where we wanted to be. The views are great and the villas look spectacular. We did narrow it down though and gave it a day to think on and we had emailed a few places to check availability. By now it was nearly 8 and we were quite hungry. There was this badly photocopied menu of some nearby restaurant at reception so we decided to just go there and get some food into us. We arrived at was surely was a shack converted into a restaurant. It had outdoor seating and was a little Thai place. So we stepped up to order and really got one answer. Pad Thai! That was what we could understand from the menu and what the owner working the counter told us to get. So we did and wow it was really good! The cooks were two Thai women and they were fantastic cooks. We really enjoyed it and also tried for the first time Radler beer which has grapefruit mixed in. It was quite refreshing but light in nature. Only 2.5%! Anyhow, we went back to the hostel and got things organized, met our Australian roommate Lydia and called it a night.

Productive Day in Budapest

2010-08-04T07:21:00.002-07:00

Popcorn and Production!!

2010-08-04T07:21:00.001-07:00

Sunday, July 25, 2010
Wow what a day. We had popcorn for breakfast and spent the entire day planning for the next few weeks of our trip. It was quite productive but very, very time consuming. We figured out all of our transportation, lodging and itinerary for Croatia, and Athens. We are sailing to Dubrovnik from the north of Croatia and back and then flying to Athens from Austria. We were pretty excited but at the same time feeling quite faint and needing food...considering it was now 530pm. So, we decided since we are craving it so much, to go to the sushi place in town. It had a half price menu where maki rolls of 12 pieces were like 3 Euro. It was amazing. We ordered so much food and loved it. The only thing was, that the sushi didn’t have any spicy sauce...we miss Ye’s in that regard. We really can’t complain though because we had really cheap sushi in Austria and got our fix for now. We were really tired and decided to head back to the hostel for a nap and then wake up and go out back to the travel shack later that night. Well that was the end of that...we didn’t get up when the alarm when off and had a solid 14 hours sleep. What a great night!! Hehe

Fireshots and Aussies - Oh My!!!

2010-08-04T07:20:00.001-07:00

Saturday, July 24, 2010
We decided to go check out Vienna today. So, we got up early and headed into the old town on the metro. It was a pretty overcast day and it had been spitting all morning so we weren’t expecting it to be a good weather day. It was also quite cold out so we grabbed a Starbs and walked around the shops on the pedestrian road. It was a neat little street with lots of culture and street performers etc. So without much luck finding dresses we continued on to the palace. It was quite large and had a lot of different sections to it. The gardens were the prettiest part by far but at this point I was strangely feeling quite dizzy and lightheaded so we decided to head back. Nurse Heather being the great friend that she is, was quite concerned and followed behind me so as to catch me if I passed out. Haha! I’m sure that would have ended well!!! Once we got back to the room, I had a Gatorade, Advil and water and a little chill out time. After a shower and a little rest I was on my A game ready to hit up the town. We headed to a little restaurant that was recommended to us that served traditional Austrian food. Meaning schnitzel and sauerkraut!!! MMM!!! We saw what the schnitzel looked like and only one word can describe, ENORMOUS!! So we shared a schnitzel and a side of sauerkraut with some local beer to wash it all down. It was a really great meal; the potato salad that came with it was great too. Then we decided to check out Vienna nightlife. We had a map with a few spots on it so we decided to check them out. The first stop was an Irish pub, not a lot going on but we enjoyed a pint there anyhow. Then we decided to go to the Aussie pub since they always guarantee a good time. It was called the travel shack and immediately we were welcomed to shots and a loud roar of people having a good time. We grabbed some pints and decided to check out what was happening. The first table we saw, they had a contraption where you take a shot (not sure what it was, other than strong!)Then you snuff minty powder and then there is this “fan” like device that has like twine spinning that you put your nose near. It was quite an experience. There was an Aussie girl who bought us each a shot so we partook in the experience. It was definitely interesting. There was also a nail game, where you hammer the nails into a huge tree trunk...much like what we have played at K-W Oktoberfest. Then the Irish girls that we met suggested that we all do a Sambuca fire shot. So I was volunteered to go first! First you wet your mouth and lips, take the shot, go down on one knee and open your mouth wide. Then the bartender lights the shot in your mouth and shakes cinnamon in to make the flames grow high, then finishes by shutting your mouth and you swallow it. WOW! It was really cool to watch but the fire actually burned the inside of your mouth and my lips were really sore. We were all taking pictures of each other and the only one that actually had a good picture of them was Heather so for the photo, we all did another one. Wow did our mouths really hurt the next day. Oh well!! So we finished the night well and went to go to a club called Pandora’s Box. It was dead so we went and got a bratwurst and hit the hay.

Czech to Austria

2010-07-28T07:05:00.001-07:00

Friday, July 23, 2010
Slept in! We had 25 minutes to repack our bags which were a disaster and check out. We made it by the skin of our teeth. Pretty rushed but we made it happen. We only had a short time in Prague today as we have to catch a train in good time to get to Vienna. So we headed out to the synagogue in the Jewish quarters to find a huge cash only line. We were out of Czech money and were hoping to use card all day so we didn`t have to get any more money out. `The line was much longer than we had time for and it didn`t help that it was raining. So instead we decided to head to the Astronomical clock and see the hourly performance. The clock was built in the 12th century and was a technological wonder of its time. It has the apostles go by in a circle, the 3 patron saints of Czech who shake their head symbolic of their disapproval of time going by and then a skeleton shaking his head yes in approval of time passing. Then a trumpet player sticks his head out of the top of the clock tower and plays a tune. It was pretty impressive for the 12th century. So since we were pretty much done sightseeing in Prague and the weather wasn`t great we caught an earlier train to Vienna which turned out well as it was a 5 hour train ride. We got to our hostel in Vienna, which is a single room with a double bed. Sweet!! It was nice to have some privacy and we have it for a few nights. Only one person hot and smelly beside you and we can be messy and at home. Yeah! So we had a night in with popcorn and wine oh yes and television. MTV and CNN only!! So we got caught up on the world and the popular music world. Great day!

Prague castle

2010-07-28T07:03:00.000-07:00

Thursday, July 22, 2010
Got up this morning and headed straight to the market. It was a huge flea market right by our hostel on our way into town so we stopped to take a peak. We really enjoyed the bartering and looking around but it was much too hot to stay for long. We wanted to go on a castle tour at 2 anyhow so we headed back to the city centre. The day we arrived, we had met a married couple in our room who are from Australia doing a yearlong world tour. They started in Asia, are in Europe, move onto Africa next and finish in North America. Pretty amazing we think!!! Anyhow, we were meeting up with them to all go on the walking tour together. To our surprise, our new Aussie friends from the pub crawl were there too. Good times!! The castle tour was slightly disappointing, the tour did a lot of the same things from the walking tour the day before and stories were definitely repeated. We were also taken to the spots we discovered on our own the day before. The castle was only about 30 mins of a 2 and a half hour “castle” tour. The guide was good as she was Czech and was able to give some personal and historical information that we may not have otherwise gotten. A lot of folklore and interesting tales. When it was over, we were craving sushi and went to a place that Barbora (the guide) heard was good. So off we went with Ari and Andrew (Aussie couple) to Mr. Sushi only to find the most expensive sushi ever. We said forget that, and Heather and I went to a cafe in the square and Ari and Andrew went and got something else. It was a really cute spot for dinner, in a quiet alleyway and was an Italian restaurant. It was our “traditional Czech” dinner. Haha! Afterwards, it was time to head back and plan the next leg of our trip. We booked 3 nights in Wien (Vienna, Austria) followed by 3 nights in Strazburg, Austria and 3 in Budapest, Hungary. It feels pretty good to have the next 9 days all planned out. Our hostel in Budapest was ridiculously cheap and we are pretty excited for that! Then from there we will be heading to Croatia, probably have a little boat ride down to Dubrovnik and from there hopefully get a cheap flight to Greece!! We spent the rest of the night, chatting with Andrew and Ari and Heather skype`d with Caitlin for a bit. Tomorrow we are going to go to the Jewish museum and head on to Austria.

Praha with the Aussie's!!!

2010-07-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, July 21, 2010
First day in Prague we decided to start it out with the free walking tour. It was really good and we had a good look at Prague. It was much better to do the tour and then go to whatever interests us again after. We really liked the Jewish neighbourhood and wanted to go back to the museum, memorial and cemetery. It is supposed to be a really good site and we were told both by our guide in Berlin and the Prague one that if we have time to definitely go. After the walking tour, we went over the bridge to see the John Lennon Wall and the Charles Bridge. It was funny because the Charles bridge is a) made with eggs to make the cement more sturdy and b) is lined with statues, one of which is good luck to rub one side but not the other, so we sat there and watched people rub the back luck side. HAHA! It was pretty hilarious! We also found out that the movie Eurotrip (of which we had just watched) was mostly filmed in Prague and saw a bunch of the sites that filming took place. Pretty funny! The building used to film the Louvre was actually an Opera house and not nearly as grand and impressive as the actual Louvre. Later that day we went to the supermarket which we haven’t done in awhile, and got dinner to take back before we got ready for our pub crawl. This was a new pub crawl run by a new company but sponsored by Sandeman’s (company who does the walking tour and pub crawls in the other European cities). It started at 830 and from when you arrived until 11, it was unlimited beer, vodka, rum, shots and to our pleasant surprise, Sangria!!! It was awesome! The night was pretty good, met a few weirdo’s but every crowd has them. We met some Aussie’s who were staying at our hostel who we stuck with so we could share a cab. Our hostel was too far out of city centre to have a tram at night and we were told not to take a cab or we may get robbed. We were supposed to get the tour guides to call us a reputable cab and we were definitely better off with men. So that worked out really well, plus they were a lot of fun too. All in all, a great first day in Prague and looking forward to day 2!

The big, the wonderful...Dresdan!!!

2010-07-28T06:58:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Wake up was 930 that morning!! Not fun! However, we needed to go see Dresdan in all of it’s glory. We started out looking for something to eat and did a little shopping. We just wondered around Dresdan, which isn’t very big, thank goodness! We didn’t see a whole lot in Dresdan but did see the sights that were there. The day pretty much consisted of shopping and walking the town. Afterwards we hit the train station to head to Praha!!! Onto to Czech we go!! We arrived in Prague at around 8pm and met our roommates, had dinner and went to bed. Not a big day, but a good travel day. I skyped my family that night and got to see Campbell!!! Well Mom, Dad, Brandon and Chantelle too but most importantly, CAMPBELL!!! She’s getting so big and still as beautiful as ever!!

Train jumping

2010-07-28T06:56:00.002-07:00

Monday, July 19, 2010
We checked out this morning and headed to the Hauptbahnhof (central station) to put our bags away and doing the free walking tour of Berlin. We had been just getting on the subway and not buying tickets. Our rail pass says we get free travel in major German cities for the underground. I am sure we are still supposed to get a ticket but nobody checks so we have just been going with it. Of course on our last day, a guy comes around and we don’t have a ticket. So we jumped off the train at the wrong stop and waited the few minutes for the next one. Hehe. We are tired of waiting in lines and not always making headway. Anyhow, we made it to the tour meeting spot just in time and were off to see Berlin. What an amazing city. We saw the Brandenburg gate (we are seeing an ongoing trend that Napolean likes to steal statues and monuments), the jewish holocaust memorial, Hitler’s bunker, the berlin wall, checkpoint Charlie, the SS headquarters, museum island and more. It made us want to stay longer and see so much more. However, there is simply no time. We had already booked our next hostels in Dresdan and Prague. We definitely want to come back at the end of the trip if there is time before Munich. We are coming back to Germany anyhow, so we shall see. So much more history and holocaust museums that we would like to check out. Anyhow, we are off to Dresdan for the night. We arrived, took a short train ride to the Kangaroo stop (that’s the name of the hostel) and checked in. It was a really quiet spot with a really cool vibe. The bathroom was hippie flowers and earthy while the common room had hammocks and comfy furniture. We met a couple of people in the hostel from Australia, Canada and the US. So we were chatting and whatever and decided to probably check out the town that night. We were starving and really wanted our sauerkraut...so we went to this local spot and had sausage and sauerkraut. It’s funny, German’s are kind of particular about their sauerkraut...they will not let you put it on just anything. They only had bockwurst not bratwurst so he didn’t want us to put sauerkraut on it but did give us a side of sauerkraut. Perfect!!! Esquisito (in Spanish)!! Anyhow, afterwards we grabbed a few beers headed back to the hostel and started to get ready. Heather and I had our first group shower with one other non-english speaking girl. It was a new experience that is for sure!!! So we went back into the quiet room and hung out with our new buddies. Everyone was quite chill and most of us had only one night in Dresdan. We all decided to go out to the local hot spots and they played really good music and had cheap beer. It was a crazy late night but a whole lot of fun. We didn’t get in and to bed until 5ish. We even went to the big lebowski bar...pretty hilarious!!! Next day, check out Dresdan!!

Sachsenhausen

2010-07-28T06:56:00.001-07:00

Sunday, July 18, 2010
We had decided the previous day that we would go on a free tour to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. It was about 40 mins north of Berlin city centre and we took the train up. It was a really good tour. The camp was actually a work camp, then concentration camp and was used during the holocaust for political prisoners, homosexuals, gypsies and Jews and also used by the soviets later. It was the model camp and although wasn’t a death camp, was a really good experience. It was one of the first camps built using the triangle design that was later used all over Germany and Poland through the Holocaust. The tour had a lot of history and was really well done. It was a long journey since we had to travel so far but was a really humbling experience. We got back around 730 and went to explore a bit of a different area of Berlin for dinner. We accidentally came across a squat area for local artists. It was kind of sketchy was we had a quick peak (looking for shoes) and were off to dinner. Another traditional German meal...Thai haha!! We had then planned to go back to our hostel and go to a “world renowned club”. The dress code is strict so we were looking for some flat shoes instead of our flip flops. However, when we got back to the hostel, we discovered that the club isn’t open on Sunday’s. Bummer!! We decided to stay in instead and catch up on blogs, pictures and family. Heather skype’d with her family and we ended the night watching the movie Eurotrip in bed. Haha funny!! The next day we were heading to Dresdan later in the day.

Berlin Day 1

2010-07-28T06:54:00.000-07:00

Saturday, July 17, 2010
Today we went to see Hamburg, which draws most in the harbour area of town. It did however, have a few markets and walking areas that we went to check out first. The first thing we saw once we got off of the subway was a triathlon finish line. So the streets were pretty busy and lots of cheering so we just wondered around for awhile and walked in the general direction of the harbour. Once we arrived at the harbour, it was a pretty dodgy area of town, we found a beach bar that overlooked the harbour to sit and grab a drink at (No worries it was 11am by then). The bar had sand and lounge chairs and we got to see the boats coming and going from the harbour. The next big attraction in Hamburg is a building shaped like a ship. It comes to a point at the front of the building like a ship and had balcony’s that we supposed to look like decks. The building was pretty disappointing to say the least. It vaguely looked like a ship but was in the middle of nowhere (merchant’s district) and wasn’t very exciting. It was kind of a letdown. Needless to say Hamburg didn’t have a whole lot to see although we didn’t do the free walking tour here so we probably missed a few things but all in all was just pretty chill. We had noticed that a lot of people were dressed up all day and there were a lot of 70’s costumes and luau gear. So we grabbed someone to ask what was going on...it was Hamburg Day!!! Ahaha...well not really...but it was a major German holiday and Hamburg is famous for their celebration. Too bad we were leaving for Berlin but oh well...can’t win them all. We were pretty amped about heading to Berlin though so we got ourselves to the train station and off we went. Berlin here we come!!! We arrived around 7 or so to our hostel (again just on the edge of central Berlin) had a shower, got dressed, grabbed some pamphlets and were ready to paint the town. We decided to grab a quite bite to eat and hit the pub crawl. We found this outdoor restaurant with German food and sauerkraut (which is not easy to find) so we sat down and asked for an English menu, decided and the server came to take our order. So he had said something to us in German and I asked I am sorry what does that mean in English. He didn’t understand what I said so asked me to repeat it. So I did, and with a confused look just asked “food or drink” of which Heather responded with “both”. AND THAT WAS IT!! He stormed off and was mad about something. We weren’t sure what happened and thought we may be grabbing someone else to come talk to us as we couldn’t understand each other. Oh no!! He just walked away and completely ignored us. We tried to wave him down a few times but it became clear that he was angry about something or perhaps we somehow offended him. Who knows? So we decided to leave and eat elsewhere. Anyways, back to the pub crawl... Berlin had an alternative pub crawl though that took you to more local spots and different bars than the typical club pub crawls. We decided to do something different and give it a try. Why not? We started at a hippy bar, with mushrooms on the ceiling, and 70’s tunes and was just a strange decor, but the beer was cheap !! We met some Irish boys and one from L.A. that we ended up hanging out with the rest of the night. Next we went to a “goth” bar that was playing Bryan Adams when we arrived...hehe. The decor was definitely goth and the music did get a little more rock with some Motley Crue but that was the extent of that. We also met some girls originally from Vancouver and now teaching overseas in Cairo, South East Asia and Germany. They were pretty chill. The next bar and the most unusual was the Ping pong bar. HILARIOUS!! It’s a round robin game of ping pong, so you walk around and hit the ball on your turn and once out leave until the game has been won. Then it starts again! It was pretty fun although we weren’t great with our coordination! A lot of locals were pretty into it but we still had a good time. The next place was pretty chill, not sure what kind of bar is was, pub like I guess. This is where the drunk L.A. guy broke his glass into Heather’s glass. That was about the time we lost him and presumed he went home. Oh well! We had a dance party at the next bar with crazy lights and some good tunes and finished at a “club” which was half Karaoke. The karaoke was a hit, the club, not so much! It was a ton of fun though and definitely not your typical night out. All in all, a good first night in Berlin!

Koln and Hamburg

2010-07-20T01:19:00.001-07:00

Friday, July 16, 2010
Woke up refreshed and ready to explore! We had the morning in Köln and got to see the cathedral (or the free part anyhow) and did a bit of shopping. We got a few new things at H&M (our store) and were off to Hamburg. Hamburg is a harbour town so we thought best to do it during the day, plus the hostel was on the opposite side of town from where we wanted to go. So, we skype’d a little with Jax which was nice and we got to catch up on life, had a few beers and had a low key night. I was feeling the need to do another “ditch” of clothing so I threw out some shirts (a few of which somehow got bleach stains in the laundry) and my really faded pants and my runners of which I have yet to wear. It was a sad day to see it all go haha no it was great to get rid of some more weight. I now have a one in, one out policy. So I will not pile up my clothes any longer. So we had another lazy night and had tomorrow to see Hamburg.

Bye Bye Amsterdam :(

2010-07-20T01:17:00.000-07:00

Thursday, July 15, 2010
We cannot believe it has been a full month since we have left. It seems like only yesterday we were on our way to the airport with our bags overpacked and full of excitement. It seems like the time has gone by so quickly yet we cannot believe how much we have done and seen in such a short period of time. Germany here we come! We had decided to take the 1230 train to Cologne, Germany so we had a bit of time to grab some breakfast and just relax this morning. It was kind of nice. We have eaten a lot of fast food or quick grab items because we have been on the go the whole time we have been in Amsterdam. Anyhow, we arrived at the train station well before our train was due to leave with lots of time to make sure our train times and platforms were correct. We sat and waited and were sure we had the right platform when it was announced that the train would be late, taking a longer route and full. We were told yesterday that we wouldn`t need a reservation but due to the rain yesterday, the trains weren’t able to get through certain areas and would be redirected. Here we go again! Since we didn’t have a reservation, we had to play the seat game. Sit in seats that are reserved and hope that nobody asks you to move. It works well if you are lucky and/or listen to the announcements. So while everyone is fighting to get a seat we were gold. We got one that nobody occupied from Amsterdam and one of the stops was cancelled and therefore nobody from there would be getting on.  Perfect!! We can only imagine what a 3 hour train ride would be like standing. Good news is we got on the correct train!! We have a new motto, “just get on the train”. We have decided when in doubt just get on...who cares where we end up...part of the adventure we think! So we arrived in Cologne (Köln) and navigated our way to our hostel with ease (we are getting quite good at it) and we checked in and in the room by 630ish. This hostel was really big and quite nice. It’s exciting when they are bigger because they are typically newer and have a more modern look. The small ones are quite nice too if they are like the one in Vianden. We decided to go to a beerhall and get some local beer and eats. We had a good German meal! Meat and potatoes pretty much. We were pretty tired and not feeling too well so we decided to call it an early night after dinner and see Köln in the morning.

The Day After Amsterdam Day!!

2010-07-20T01:16:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, July 14, 2010
This morning was the roughest!! We didn`t get out of bed until early afternoon and decided to make something out of our day and go on a free walking tour. It started at 1:15 so we grabbed something to eat and made it there just in time. Our tour guide was super enthusiastic and was a lot of fun. We found out some pretty interesting things about Amsterdam and had a good time on the tour. After the tour was over, we went to go tour the city a bit more, primarily the Anne Frank house. It was really a bust. We walked in the pouring rain without our jackets to a modern building and a huge line. Yah right! We weren’t really impressed with it so we didn`t even bother to stay. We did however go back to the hostel to try and figure out the rest of our journey. We were going to the train station as well to see when we could get to Germany and if we needed reservations. So off we were to the train station. We got the time for the train tomorrow going to Cologne and would have to do the rest of the booking from Germany. We decided to have a dutch dinner so we went to a place that was again suggested by our trusty guidebook. It was a kind of cafeteria. It had a lot of meat and different things. We had a small bite to eat, heather grabbed some fries and I had some stirfry. It was a pretty quiet night for us. We were doing some planning and internet time until late and then decided to go back up to bed. As a little aside, the Dutch buildings are very narrow and tall. They used to have to pay based on the width of the house so many of them are quite narrow with steep, long staircases. We were the on the 3rd floor up and had a really steep set of stairs followed by 2 winding spiral staircases. Not the safest thing in the world and even scarier coming down with our packs but we survived with no casualties. We met our new Spanish friends upstairs and ended up talking and hanging out with them until really late. They had an early train but they still stayed up until the wee hours of the morning. Young and resilient!!

Amsterdam Day!!

2010-07-20T01:14:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, July 13, 2010
We got up and went on a search for pancakes!! The book recommended this pancake joint and dutch pancakes are different from home so we decided to check them out. En route, which was awhile because we were going the wrong direction for a bit, we noticed that everyone was wearing orange. It was everywhere!! E verybody was in a Netherlands jerseys or orange colours. We finally asked someone what was going on and what the big street party was about. Apparently, the team was coming home from South Africa and they were having a huge party to celebrate. There was a parade that was going to happen this afternoon through the canals and the team would ride down the canal. There was also a huge concert and celebration to happen afterwards. So we grabbed a quick pancake, some beer and headed to the canal to get a good spot. The streets were packed full of people and there were even portable urinals in the street set up. The parade came by around 4 o`clock but people had started partying that morning. It was pretty crazy when the team did arrive. The streets were wild, people jumped into the canal to swim...just hilarious. We then decided that we needed some orange t-shirts for the rest of the party. So we went and got some jerseys and went to grab dinner and join a pub crawl. The first pub crawl advertised that the first 10 girls at 8 got free entry. We didn’t want to be late so we made it there for 8 sharp to find out that it’s only on Friday and Saturday. We decided to go to another pub crawl...they were pretty sketchy. The pub crawl that we did join up with was a red light district pub crawl...pretty cool. Prostitutes and beer!!! Haha! It was a good time, we met some cool people from the U.S, Oz, Sweden and some Canadians. It was tonight that we really got to know the Spanish guys that we shared a room with. They were hilarious...spoke amazing English and we learned some new Spanish words too. They were a bit messy and we had some flies camping out in the room but whatever, we only slept there. The guys were 19-22 and were definite partiers!! One of them was a D.J too so he was mixin some tunes for us at all hours. Good day in Amsterdam!

More Transport Troubles on our way to Amsterdam!!

2010-07-20T01:13:00.000-07:00

Monday, July 12, 2010
We started off the day with a great breakfast included in the hostel. So we grabbed a quick bite and headed down the mountain to the bus stop. The bus was late but we thankfully had a lot of time before our train left. When we arrived at the train station (Gare) we found our platform and were ready to go. Ettelbrook is a small place and the train station was pretty minimal. We are used to the trains being labelled so we know what train is what. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case so we had to ask the conductors. We waited until 941 when our train was due to arrive, and when it finally did arrive right at 940, we couldn’t find anyone to ask to make sure this was our train. But, we figured it was and the previous people told us it would be the next train so we jumped on and asked straight away. This passanger that we had asked said it was going to Luxembourg (the opposite direction from Liege) and we quickly tried to turn around and get off. The train door shut and we were stuck on this train to Luxembourg. Damn!! So we found the conductor (who spoke only French and Luxembourg) and asked her for some help finding a new route. She didn’t really understand where we wanted to go and we had a lot of difficulty communicating with her. So we took it upon ourselves to figure it out whilst sitting in first class . Here come the critical thinking and problem solving skills that Nursing has so wonderfully taught us. Haha. So we found out we could catch a train from Luxembourg to Brussells and then Brussells to Amsterdam. The trains left every hour or so which was great and we didn’t need a reservation. We only had 2 minutes when we got into Luxembourg to switch trains to avoid waiting an hour so we ran our butts off, found the platform number and got on that train. Phew! So we were off to Brussells and very excited to have figured it out and not have another Mont-St-Michel “incident”. Luxembourg to Brussells was about a 3 hour train ride but it was still early and we had only one change to make until we arrived in Amsterdam. Well, about an hour south of Brussells, our train stops in a small station called Citey (small town Belgium). We were told that we had to get off the train as this one wasn’t able to get through. After some asking around and some scary translating skills, we discovered that there was a huge storm in Belgium and there were trees blocking the tracks. So, we were told that buses would soon be arriving to take us to somewhere closer to Brussels and then we would have to figure something else out. We were also told that there were no trains running in Belgium and we were stuck until further notice. We met a few people (2 germans going to Amsterdam so we stuck together, 1 aussie trying to get to London, and an American trying to get to Brussells). So we tried to figure out a way to get to Brussells and didn’t have any luck. About an hour later, 1 bus arrived for about 200 people. Haha it was mayhem. The street was blocked, the bus was surrounded with people and only a few got on. We were not one of the “lucky” ones to get on the bus. However, the bus did a U-turn around the block and kicked everyone off. At this point there was news that the train would in fact run and we all got on the train. There were so many people that we decided to not fight the crowds and just go sit in first class again and play dumb if we were told otherwise. Worked like a charm. So after a few minutes the train stopped at another station and we were all told to get off and wait for further instruction. A new train then showed up, and we all rushed onto this one. There were several announcements about where you were seated and that some cars were added but you couldn’t get off at certain stops from these cars etc. It was really quite hectic. Anyways, we were finally on our way to Brussels. When we arrived, there was a train due to Amsterdam in about 30 mins so we took this opportunity to grab some dinner and drinks. We got this train and it was a “Harry Potter train.” We had taken one of these trains before but only for a short distance. They were the trains with the cabins and six seats in each. It was fun to ride in but it had a real 70’s decor going on. It was groovy! So as if our day hadn’t been crazy enough, when the conductor came around to check our tickets, he told us that our rail passes hadn’t been activated and that they were not valid. He was saying that it was 12.50 fine each to activate and was really giving us a hard time. We tried to explain that in Belfast we had asked about activation and were told it was fine and it didn’t have to be stamped. He didn’t take too well to this and was getting kind of mad at us. He ended up letting it go and saying that we had to get it activated in Amsterdam before we travelled again. It’s funny, we try and plan and do everything right and still get screwed over. Oh well! Kavorcka mama, Kavorcka! Anyhow, at about half 8, we arrived in Amsterdam!!! Yeah!!! We were so excited to get here and only have a short walk to the hostel. So we walked to our hostel which just so happens to be right in the middle of the action, one block from the red light district. So we got checked in and to our pleasant surprise it was nicer than we had anticipated. The reviews online were really poor and we didn’t expect much but our options were limited as everything else was booked. So we decided to go check out the town a bit. We grabbed our tourist map and were off. We stopped in at a coffeeshop for a bit and just looked at what there was to do and where it was on the map. Not feeling overly ambitious we just walked around near our hostel and checked out the red light district. It’s funny because it is super busy and not as weird as you would imagine. O.K. its strange to have prostitutes in windows propositioning people but its where everyone hangs out and party’s. It was cool to see anyhow. We went back to our hostel and went to bed.

Luxembourg is a country...not a German city!!!

2010-07-13T03:30:00.000-07:00

Sunday, July 11, 2010
Off to Luxembourg this morning. We took the 830 train direct to Luxembourg. We had booked our hostel outside of Luxembourg City in Vianden. We arrived early in Luxembourg so we decided to spend a bit of time there before proceeding to Vianden. It is a really small country and its only like 80 km long so the city of Luxembourg was small too. The scenery was really nice and because it was Sunday, many of the shops and local attractions were closed. So we wondered around the city and just took it all in. It didn’t take long to see everything we had read about/wanted to see. So we grabbed some lunch at ChiChi’s (yes we needed a little variety) and were back to the train station. We took a short train to Ettelbrook and then a local bus into Vianden. We were forewarned that the hostel was a 1km walk up a hill but I suppose we weren’t really ready for what we encountered. The small town is built on the side of a mountain and at the top is a castle. Our hostel was right beside the hostel...so it was a workout to get up to the top. It was another really hot day and we were glad to get to the top. This hostel was however, in an amazing location and was really nice. It is our favourite hostel so far! It was pretty dead too. I think we were the only ones staying there besides another couple who arrived when we did. So it was great to have our own room again with clean sheets and nice beds. It was really well kept and modern looking. So we had some much needed showers, put on our Sunday dresses, had a bottle of wine and went out on the town! Well we went to a local pub and watched the world cup final and had some spaghetti. GO ESPANA GO!!! The culture in Luxembourg is kind of funny! They speak their own language that sounds much like German but is not and they also speak French. So we had to continue to try to communicate in French or use our favourite line...”Parlez vous Anglais?” It was a really cute town though and the people were very friendly. It was just so nice to walk around and be in the mountains. A nice break after Paris but we are ready for Amsterdam.

Our last day in Paris

2010-07-13T03:29:00.000-07:00

Saturday, July 10, 2010
Woke up drenched in sweat!! It is super hot and muggy in our hostel and in Paris in general. So needless to say we showered, even though we started sweating immediately after, and made it to breakfast. French hostel breakfast isn’t unlike the other countries but instead of toast you get a baguette. Hehe. It was kind of funny to see a basket of baguettes and everyone having one for breakfast. Anyhow, we had some planning to do today so instead of paying for WiFi at the hostel, we wanted to go to an internet café and get it for free. So we followed the directions that the girl gave us and didn`t see anything so we stopped in at the Holiday Inn for directions. Apparently, the place for WiFi is McDonald`s!! So we went with the intention of having to buy something (sundaes and milkshakes of course) and found out not only that we didn`t have to buy anything but that ice cream isn`t available at 10am at French McDonalds...ridiculous! So we grabbed our juice and espresso and got to it. In the process we found out that Luxembourg is a country, not a city in Germany and that we could make it there in a few hours and head to Amsterdam the following day. We learned in Roscoff though that reservations are often necessary and to book trains ahead of time. So we planned our train route online so we had an idea and booked a hostel in Vianden (just outside of Luxembourg City) and three nights in Amsterdam. So after we were finished at McDonalds, we headed to the train station to reserve our tickets and get on with our day. Almost two hours later, we had our tickets and our train schedule. It was a combination of the huge line that people ignored and bypassed, and the lack of knowledge of the person working there. We got it all figured out in the end so we were just happy to have it all straightened out and booked. Next stop, we were headed for a bike tour of Paris. It was a small company that we saw an ad for and decided to check it out. So we had 3.5 hours of a guided tour through central Paris on bikes. It was really neat. We got to see probably a lot more this way than a walking tour and it was cooler and overcast so it wasn`t absolutely intolerable heat. We got to see Notre Dame, the Bastille, Jim Morrison`s death place, Victor Hugo`s house, some WWI and WWII memorial spots and a bunch more. It was really interesting. The guy who owns the company is a Kiwi (not quite an Aussie) and he jokingly said he would take the commonwealth countries on his tour while trying to split us up in two groups and it actually worked. So we toured with some Aussie`s and Kiwi`s and then of course us two, the Canadians. Pretty funny!! We also saw a Ferrari that caught on fire in the middle of the road, or what was left of it anyhow. So after the tour our guide, Paul, gave us a list of things to do in Paris and his favourite hotspots for food and entertainment. Since it was our last night in Paris, we figured we should go have a nice dinner before we head to climb the Eiffel Tower. So we chose a quaint little spot in the Latin Quarters that was a small little restaurant with some outdoor seating. (I should mention outdoor seating in Paris is either a patio or it is literally the sidewalk, and in the old part of town, it was the sidewalk). So we chose this really French spot where the menu was even in French. We did get an English translation (good thing) but pretty much just ordered the dishes that the waitress suggested. The house red wine went down nicely and we thoroughly enjoyed our meal. Heather started with the Ratatouille and then had sausage and aligot (cheesy mashed potatoes) and I had the French onion soup (which both of us were in love with) and then I had `calamari` with rice. It was kind of strange but still good. The French onion soup was topped with gruyere cheese...mmm....we need some more of that!! Anyhow, we were enjoying our romantic dinner for two when we were approached by a 40 something guy who was having his bachelor party that night. He needed two girls to come sing him a song. So after much debate we decided to sing All you need is love by the Beatles...it didn`t last long as you could imagine. There are probably 15 French guys who don`t know the words but are trying to sing along. Haha It was hilarious!! We hung out for awhile, had some wine with them, got a hat as a thank you (pictures to come soon) and were off to the Eiffel Tower. We booked it to the Eiffel Tower. It was like 10pm now and the tower closes at midnight and it`s of course Saturday night. So we got there to discover that the top was closed due to congestion. So we paid a discounted rate to climb to the top but normally from there, you would get a lift to the very, very top. It was still really cool from the altitude that we made it to. We hung out (and caught our breath) and took it all in. We had an interesting experience up there though, we met this girl from Australia who has terminal cancer and has been travelling for the past four months. It was kind of an eye opener for us. Here she was, in a dress and stiletto`s no less, enjoying the last bit of time she has (by herself). She was such an amazing young girl and it was inspiring for us and really made us think about how fortunate we are. We are doing this with the intention of returning to these countries some day to see more and here was this girl, living it up for as long as she could. Mind you, she looked fantastic and we weren`t really sure how much time she had left but really, really inspiring. She was so happy to have made it up and didn`t get to go to the very top, she was disappointed but got over it quickly. She was more happy to be off to run with the bulls the next day. So cool, and why not? Anyhow, we finished our night on a fantastic note, meeting her was definitely the coolest part of the day and getting to talk to her. So tomorrow, Luxembourg and then to Amsterdam!!!!

Paris, paris and more Paris!!!

2010-07-13T03:28:00.000-07:00

Friday, July 9, 2010
We are in Paris...and it is amazing!!! We slept in today...since we had a hotel and it was fabulous, we had to take advantage of the fact that we had clean bodies and a nice bed. What we didn’t have however, was clean laundry. We found a lavarie and did one massive load of laundry between the two of us. It was great...but again so hot out! We couldn’t believe hot it got over night...but here we were, wandering the streets of paris with our bags and looking for our hostel. Since we are masters at public transport we got back on the subway and made it fairly easily to our hostel. We were in a pretty sketchy part of town but were comforted by the fact that the building was large, we were close to the metro station and we were high up in the building. No worries! So after we got checked in, we went adventuring in Paris. It was late afternoon by now and we didn’t really have much planned but we had a few ideas. First we went to see Pont Neuf and see what is was all about. It is a bridge that separates mainland Paris from the island that Notre Dame and a lot of the judicial and government buildings are. It was nice but not all that exciting. It did however, lead us to a cute café right on the waterfront. We sat down and had a nice light dinner. We had escargot (very French of us, we know!) and each had a delicious salad. Heather had an “everything salad” it had tuna, lettuce, egg, anchovies, peppers etc. While I had goats cheese on toasted bread which lay on top of a salad with roasted walnuts and a Dijon sauce. It was really good! We of course had bread with the meal and they served us Dijon mustard which was really good but definitely had some horseradish in it and gave us a bit of a jolt. We had a Kronenberg as well...while in France, you have to drink the local stuff. Anyhow, after supper we wondered over to the Louvre as there is free admission for anyone under 26 after 6pm on Fridays. Just our luck!!! So we got to go exploring in the Louvre and of course saw the Mona Lisa. Really hyped small piece of art on a massive wall and covered in glass. It was really cool because it is a piece of history and such a well recognized piece of art however, it wasn’t very glamorous. So after the Louvre we headed over to the Eiffel Tower. It is still stinking hot out and we are walking around Paris but we soon enough found a convenience store to get some water and beer. We arrived at the Eiffel tower and it was a huge party on the lawn. People were picnicking, drinking, playing sports, hanging out, playing music etc. It was kind of a cool vibe and everyone, tourists and locals alike were just sitting by this massive structure. So since it was getting late and we weren’t able to bring our beer with us up the Eiffel Tower, we decided to hang out on the grass and take it all in. The tower was lit up when we got there but every hour in the evening they have a lights display. So there are flashing lights going off on the Eiffel Tower for a few minutes. Really cool!!! We stayed there until pretty late before we hoped back on the metro to get back to the hostel. I should also mention too, that Heather in her infinite wisdom, decided to try and use her metro ticket more than once and on several occasions it worked. So our single fair tickets often turned into day passes. Working the system!!!

Viva la Paris!!!

2010-07-10T02:46:00.002-07:00

Thursday, July 8, 2010
Alarm didn`t go off this morning but my internal one did so we woke up in good time for our ferry...thank goodness!! The ferry left promptly at 8am and we were due to arrive in Roscoff, France at 1445 local time. We are now 6 hours ahead of Ontario so skype date times may have to change. Anyhow, we got to Roscoff on time went to the info desk to get to the train info and make our way to Mont-st-michel. We ended up waiting for a bus that never came and took a taxi to the train station. Roscoff is a very small town and the train station even smaller. After a struggled attempt to speak to the man at the train station (our French is poor and his English minimal) we discovered that we could not get to Mont-St-Michel tonight and we would lose our money from the hostel we booked. That was a big downer. We had to originally book a private for Mont-st-michel because that was all that was available and private rooms do not come cheap. Tensions were high as we had to made a quick decision so we didn`t miss the train out of Roscoff. So we could either go to Rennes for the night and then Mont-St-Michel tomorrow or we could just go to Paris tonight. We chose the latter of the two options...decided to make life easier and just get to Paris. We didn`t have a clear plan for Mont-St-Michel anyhow and were just going because we were told that it`s beautiful. So the guy at the counter was super amazing and booked us in a hotel for the night in Paris and got our train schedule organized so we would arrive at 10pm tonight. He actually called the hostel we had booked for tomorrow and the next night but they could only accommodate one of us. He also gave us directions on how to get to the hotel and hostel tomorrow via the subway. This will probably come in very handy once we are in Paris. So on we went to Morlaix to go further to Rennes to connect to Paris. We had about an hour wait in Morlaix so Heather went on a wine mission. We were right in town and how hard could wine be to find in France? Well after about 30 minutes I was starting to get worried and in she strolls sweating (because it’s finally warm now that we are in France) with two bottles of wine. The town was a huge hill and she had to walk down and back up again in the name of wine! Mission accomplished! So we grabbed our wine and our huge baguette sandwich and headed back onto the train. We made all of our connections on the train today!!! Hooray!! First time in awhile...that`s for sure! So we arrived in Paris at 1015 and had to navigate our way across the lovely city. The man from Roscoff who booked all of our trains and hotel also gave us directions on the tube for when we arrived. Our hotel for tonight also happens to be close (or near) the hostel that we will be staying at. So our transfer tomorrow shouldn`t be too bad. So we got our tickets (because the self serve screens can be in English) and headed to our first subway, with only one transfer to make. No problems on the tube (we`ve had lots of practice in London) and landed in the neighbourhood with only an address and no map. Thankfully we found our bearings on a bus map and had some help from a lady who approached us. It took only 10-15 minutes to arrive to a hotel...yes a HOTEL not a hostel. We have our own room and bathroom with towels and check out isn`t until noon. Sweet! This is definitely how to boost morale and a fantastic start in Paris. I think however, we are catching up to Waterloo weather. When we arrived at the hotel we were drenched with sweat from walking with warmer clothes on and our packs but we had a clean, private shower and 2 bottles of wine to celebrate.

We bathed in Bath!!!

2010-07-10T02:46:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Off to see the Roman baths today!! We were there for opening and got in straight away. It was really cool to have a hot spring/roman baths in the middle of a town. It was another self guided tour but it had audio guides so it was neat to follow along and get some history well we at it. Needless to say at the end we were in a little information overload. Although we really, really enjoyed it! Afterwards, we were on the hunt for some creamed tea. It was our mission of the day and was highly recommended by Heather’s family. So, we found a cute little tea shop with an outdoor patio and ordered two creamed teas with scones. Probably the best scone we have ever had in our life. It was hot and came with whipped butter and blackberry jam. It was soo amazing!! Then our second mission of the day was to find yet another camera strap for Heather`s camera. This one ``just broke`` according to Heather. The worst part was, that we had only the same option of camera store companies that we did in Belfast so she had to buy the exact same camera strap. Maybe she`ll have better luck with this one. Here`s to hoping!! We then headed off back to the train station to get ourselves to Plymouth for the night. We were expected to arrive early (4 o`clock) or so and we planned to make dinner, relax and just plan for France. YEAH, FRANCE!!! So tonight was deemed poutine night. We went to the only attraction in town which is the Mayflower steps and then went and got food to cook. We bought fresh chips, babybel cheese (as a sub for curds) and made our swiss chalet sauce for the most incredible poutine ever!! It was amazing...we then grilled up some beef and veggies to balance out the meal.  Along with a cold pint sized can of beer or two we had a fantastic night of relaxing and planning France. Being the worldly people that we are, we bought stewing beef for our stirfry...it was a bit chewy but no worries it didn`t spoil our fantastic meal. I also got to skype with my parents and Heather with Caitlin for a bit so that was a really nice addition to the night. So we take the 8am ferry to Rosscoff then off to Mont-St-Michel...or so we thought...

Chocolate bars and Keith Richards!!!!

2010-07-10T02:45:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Wexford was another hole. It was a super small coastal town with one hostel...so I guess once we did ask for directions they had only one place to send us. It was kind of nice though, we had a room to ourselves so we could spread out our stuff and just chill out. We had an early morning ferry over to Pembroke in England...and it was just that...BROKE! It was really small and the train station was even worse. It had no ticket machine or attendant and we had no idea where we were to go...other than get the heck out of there. We found the train station and called the info line and got the directions we needed. It was much further than we had anticipated...there was a small little restaurant though that we sat down at for lunch/dinner. It was a massive but delicious meal. Heather had chicken tikka and I had the lasagne. Mmm...anyhow, we got on our way to Bath shortly after 3. It was another long day of travel especially since the train we were on to get to Cardiff, was late and caused us to miss our connection. Oh well. We had chocolate bars at the station for dinner and had we have made our connection we wouldn’t have seen Keith Richards circa 1980. I swear it was him...he was a spitting image of him...well in his younger days. I even made Heather walk over his way and get a really good look at him so I could show her photos later. Hehe. Anyhow, we got into Bath around 930, made our way to our hostel and just had another chill night in. Bath is known for it’s roman baths and we will have some time to adventure tomorrow morning. Heather had a credit card scare today also but her Mom had activated her new one and once we found this out, she was good to go. In the process, she got to have a short Skype date with her parents and they were happy to see her alive and well. And just to clarify, my foot is A o.k!!! It is like 99% healed. Mostly pain free and only has a small bruise left. Hooray!! Tragedy avoided!

We finally have the "Gift of the gab"

2010-07-06T14:49:00.000-07:00

Monday, July 5, 2010
Early, early morning...man oh man it was not a fun experience waking up this early...we do have a big travel day ahead though so it isn’t so bad. We had to catch the 750 train back into cork so we could kiss the blarney stone. By 1030 after 2 trains and 1 bus, we were at the Blarney castle. We did indeed kiss the Blarney stone...yeah...we now have the gift of the gab...as if we needed it. The stone was pretty uneventful, they make it interesting by labelling the different areas of the castle and have little write ups but in general it was pretty quick and not the most thrilling castle ever. So now that we have been blessed with the gift of the gab, we went for a stroll through the grounds. The surrounding area around the castle is gorgeous and there are some neat landscaped areas with gardens and rock figures and little tales about the areas. It was neat to see and it was well worth the 3rd attempt to get to Blarney...what’s a visit to Ireland without seeing Blarney castle? We made the executive decision yesterday to skip over the Cliffs of Moher...call it the "Irish Skye" but it was a hastle to get there and would have added at least a day and a half to our Ireland time. We went with Blarney instead and didn’t want to tempt our Irish luck. Anyhow, now its time to do some serious travelling...we are off to catch the train from Cork back into Dublin so we can catch a different train to Wexford. We are heading back to England tomorrow and will probably start in Bath and see a few places before we head to France. We really need a pit stop somewhere nice and relaxing for a few days just to catch up on some sleep and recharge for the next leg of the trip. Staying in tonight and getting ready for tomorrow.

Killarney

2010-07-06T14:48:00.000-07:00

Sunday, July 4, 2010
Early night last night! Had to catch up on some sleep...again. This partying business is hard work! We had big plans for the day. We started out renting some bikes around 9am from a local bike shop to tour around the Killarney National Park. The park was massive and there was no way we could even attempt to do it all. We only had about 3 hours to tour so we first went to the Ross castle which is on the edge of the park and along the water so it was a nice tour around there. We didn’t make it into the castle but it was nice just around the castle and along the river’s edge. The next stop was the Torc waterfall...unfortunately we couldn’t find any signage and didn’t have a good trail map so once again we got lost. We toured around the park for about half an hour before finally stopping to ask for directions. We got tired of being lost in the rain and had a time limit. So we found our way down the main road and worked our way back into the park and the waterfall was amazing!! It was pretty secluded but tranquil and just gorgeous. We only had a few minutes at the spot but we enjoyed the time we had there. We then rode back into town to try and catch a train back to cork...yes, cork! Although we didn’t have a good experience with cork, we were willing to give it another go. However, we had missed the train and the next one wasn’t for several hours. We wouldn’t get to see Blarney castle again today. Anyhow, it wasn’t a total loss as we had found our earlier that there was a local Gaelic football match in town and it was the big final game. The town was crazy with green and gold and the whole town was either at the match or at the pub. It was pretty cool to see and experience. We had been told earlier that if we got the chance, we should watch a game and see what it is all about. We were in for a treat! The game is a cross between footy and American football with a basketball element too, oh ya and its super violent. So you can either bounce or kick the ball to yourself while running down the field or pass or throw or kick to another player. If you score in the net (soccer net) you get 3 points and if you throw/kick it through the field goal posts than you receive 1 point for your team. The penalties are a joke...pretty much they only call personal penalties if you tackle someone to the ground or you are “pulling too much” but they were grabbing, pushing and pulling all of the time. Needless to say, our team Kerry or Ciarrai (in gaelic) won!!! Yeah!! It was insane...the crowd went absolutely wild and the party continued in the streets. We were dirty and burnt so we decided to go back to the hostel and clean up a bit before the night. We met some people in the hostel and one of them was a guy from Boston who was starting a pub crawl in Killarney and offered to take us out for free...sweet...saving 20 euro, we’re in! So we quickly grabbed some fish, chips and curry as it was all that was open and had a few brews before we took off for yet another pub crawl. To our surprise, we were 2 of 5 people including the organizer. Oh well, free drinks and a tour guide of the pubs. It turned out to be a pretty good night. The people were nice and it was fun to get out and dance and party with the locals. Heather and I had our first Irish car bomb in Ireland. I forgot how nasty they are...blah! We also ran into some friends we met in Derry, they are travelling on a weeklong paddywagon tour and just so happened to be in Killarney last night. It was friggin hilarious when they recognized us and we all had a good laugh. We ended the night around 1...earlier than the pubcrawl organizer anticipated but we had a 630 wakeup call and couldn’t miss our last chance for Blarney.

Cork...rather CRAP!!!

2010-07-06T14:47:00.000-07:00

Saturday, July 3, 2010
So this morning was a rough start...we slept in and therefore missed two of the trains that we should have been on. We headed to cork anyhow and were going to head on down to Blarney and see the castle. We missed one bus by like 2 mins and the other was not until 330 and then we would get less than an hour at the castle...so instead, we thought we should see what Cork has to offer. Failte a Cork! We officially hate Cork and now refer to it as crap. Nothing seemed to go our way in Cork and it was a struggle as we wondered the streets looking for something to eat that wasn’t 20-30 Euro each and this proved to be quite difficult. We had decided that we would spend a little more money at this one pub that had a fantastic set menu. However, they advertised a rooftop garden that was a rooftop hole. It was terrible and the lady who worked there directed us how to get up there...there were no table or anything...it was literally a small empty porch. The unbearable heat inside this place along with their proven helpfulness (haha) made us think twice and carry on our search for somewhere to sit and eat. It wasn’t until we had almost given up that we found a great little bagel place that had salads...yeah salad!!! So we stopped in this little joint and grabbed some lunch/supper. We were still so exhausted and there really wasn’t much to see and do in Cork so we went shopping along the streets. We have been on a hunt for a watch for the longest time...neither of us brought one and it drives me nuts not knowing what time it is so we again were on the prowl. Success we found a watch for 2.50 euro. We also had a little stop in Primark (or Penny’s in Ireland) to replace some broken flip flops and see what was new in store. We then made our way back to the bus/train station to head to Killarney. We had had enough of Cork and were ready to head on to somewhere new! Killarney is just a short hour train ride away and immediately we liked it much better than Cork. It is lively with people out in the city and an apparent vibrant nightlife...which will have to wait for tomorrow night. We are still super exhausted and our packs are heavier now that we are carrying the leftover 24 of beer...ahhH!! Can’t wait to get rid of that nonsense. Anyhow we found our hostel with no trouble, checked in and are heading to bed really early tonight. We are going to start the day fresh tomorrow with a good nights sleep and a more positive outlook after today’s troubles...Heather did however, just inform me that Killarney has a supermac’s...hehe Irish supermac tour here we come!!!

Dublin day 2

2010-07-06T14:46:00.000-07:00

Friday, July 2, 2010
9am wake up for breakfast and we were heading on the free walking tour. These tours are available in most major cities in Europe and the UK but we have always just done our own walking tour. But, we thought we would give it a try. It was really cool. We met up at city hall and a girl named Fiona took us on a 3.5 hr tour through central Dublin. We got a lot of history and got to see some really neat things that we probably wouldn’t have otherwise. We also had some Irish stew. YUM! After the tour, the girls went back for a nap etc and we ventured down to the Guinness brewery. It was self-guided so it took quite awhile to get through the tour but at the end we got to pour our own proper pint of Guinness and enjoy it in the lounge area. We had decided earlier in the day that since we enjoyed our walking tour so much, that we would go to the pub crawl held by the same group. So it was now 615 and we had to meet up with Steph and Emily at 7. So we took a ridiculously expensive cab back to the hostel, grabbed the most expensive little slice of pizza ever and frantically showered and got ready for the night. We had to meet up with the group by 8 but between 730 and 8, you could drink all the beer you could handle for free. We didn’t want to be late...free beer in the most expensive place ever....ummm yes please!! So we got there in good time and were able to throw back 3 pints in a half hour...and met some new friends. The night consisted of 5 bars and the second of which we were not only allowed but encouraged to play drinking games. Also, with every drink we bought, we got a free shot at all of the bars...trouble!! In true Canadian fashion we chose to play flip cup and were actually destroyed by AUSSIES!!! So embarrassing!! We had a weak link on our team...this Canadian from out west. She was terrible...The Aussies were also only chugging half the amount of beer we were. Friggin criminals!!! It was all good fun! Anyhow, the night continued in some dodgy bars and we finished at the starting pub which turned into a night club later in the night. It was here that Heather broke her flip flop and had to walk like a gimp all the way home. Nonetheless, we danced and sang and finished the night at supermac’s...again!!! Good times but we were super exhausted and had an early wake up in the morning...going to be a struggle!!!!

Canada day in Dublin!!!

2010-07-06T14:45:00.000-07:00

Thursday, July 1, 2010
Woke up around 8, got some breakfast and was walking the streets of Derry in the pouring rain...our luck with weather has ended. We only had a few hours to explore Derry as it was a long train ride back to Belfast and on to Dublin and we wanted to get into Dublin at a good hour so we could celebrate Canada day in style. We were told that if we can see only one thing in Derry, it’s the bogside. There is a free museum there where the murals surround. It was very much like the “troubles” in Belfast and there were more murals to commemorate. It was pretty cool but by the time we got indoors the rain had ceased. So we decided to “walk the walls”. Derry is also a walled city and there are paths to walk...super cool! We headed around there and explored a bit of the city until...we found a Primark. Our ability to resist has ended. We wanted to get some red and white shirts or something for Canada Day. Primark as per expectations, did not disappoint. We both got a red and white striped shirt, red sunglasses, red nail polish and a red hairband. Along with our banners, Canada flags and tattoo’s should make for awesome outfits. We then headed back down to Tesco’s to grab some food and beer for our journey to Dublin. We grabbed our bags, loaded up a taxi and were off to the train station. We bought some vodka and orange juice and decided to take a little “roadie” for the train. What we didn’t realize was the bottle of juice that we bought was concentrated and super sweet. It was a 1L bottle of juice that was to be mixed with 4 additional litres of water!!! What were we to do but tough it up and not waste the vodka. It was probably the worst tasting drink ever!! Blah! It took us the entire day to get it down but we did. Anyhow, on the train back to Belfast, we met our guard from the other day and the conductor. Both, were really nice guys and were chatting with us about snow and how cold it got in Canada. The conductor told us -5 was their worst and couldn’t imagine anything colder. Hehe. We are tough cookies, us Canadians. Anyhow, we arrived in Dublin around 6pm, loaded down with beer and Primark purchases and were on a frantic search for our hostel so we could put our things down. It was a short walk once we got our bearings and easy to find since we were staying right along the Liffy River. Our hostel was cute and fairly modern but didn’t seem to have a lot happening. The girl told us we weren’t actually aloud alcohol in the hostel (of course!) but didn’t mind so long as we didn’t go crazy. Deal!! So we got ready in our Canada Day get up and went looking for people in our hostel. The common room was empty and there was nobody young and fun to hang with...or so we thought! We were sitting down in the little courtyard, enjoying our beers when two girls from Ottawa and Toronto (Emily and Steph) came down and said they saw us from their window and wondered what our plans were for Canada Day. We convinced them to come out to the Woolshed, an Aussie bar, as they were having a Canada day party. We headed out, looking ridiculous and arrived to an even more ridiculous party. It was crazy!!! The bar had 3 levels and everyone was decked out in Canada Day garb whether they were Canadian or not! There were shooter girls giving out shots, there were Canadian beers, karaoke, competitions etc. We took part in a little of everything. After the four of us tried our hand at a little Canadian karaoke (Bryan Adams) we sung the Canadian national anthem, partook in a chugging competition against some Irish boys and nearly won, and just danced the night away. For our efforts in the chugging competition we won a Moosehead hat and t-shirt and best of all...Swiss chalet sauce!!! Oooooohhhh yeahhhh!!!! We have big plans for making poutine in the very near future. Once we had enough of the dancing and drinking, it was time for the midnight snacks. We asked around and came upon a supermac’s, not a supermarket and not macdonalds, but a supermac’s! It was super good! Heather and I had a chicken sandwich and...CURRY AND CHIPS!!! They were really good too! It was definitely time to call it a night so we headed to bed and made plans to meet up with Emily and Steph for breakfast.

Derry...moo!

2010-07-06T14:44:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Ahhh, not a pleasant morning...good thing we had a greasy full English breakfast to prepare us for the day. Today we took another walking tour (self guided) after we of course found a camera shop and replacement camera strap for Heather. We decided to take a walk into the West end of town where there is continuing political unrest between the Catholics and the Protestants. We were assured that it is in fact safe in that area of town but we were on guard and kept to ourselves. It was a pretty sketchy part of town anyhow. Along the route that the lady at the tourist centre told us to take, we were able to see and take pictures of these huge murals painted by local artists. The murals were all different but were a dedication to the unrest and troubles that have plagued Belfast for many years. It was really cool to see and we got a bit of an explanation from Neil at the hostel after we returned about what really went on and what it`s like today. Very interesting!!! We wandered around Belfast for a little while, grabbed some food from our new favourite grocer (TESCO`S)!!! We then stopped into the Crown pub for a pint and caught a bit of Tennis on the tele. Haha. The Crown bar is one of Belfast`s oldest pubs and is a traditional style pub with really neat stained glass throughout and booths around the bar that were like little rooms. It was also a really neat place. It was here that we came to the conclusion that there is a good chance that my left foot has been broken. The story for this one starts back in Edinburgh, on the pub crawl, we ended at some club that was really neat. It had different areas that were cave like and the end one had ``old school`` music like Aqua and hanson and backstreet boys, which ended up being our favourite. So during one song that everyone was particularly enjoying, some really drunk girl in heels was jumping and just so happened to land on the top of my foot...TWICE before I was able to shove her off. It really wasn`t too bad and did get a pretty nasty bruise but didn’t think much of it. I clearly wasn`t thinking properly because for the following few days, I was getting what I thought were `cramps’ in my feet nearing the end of the day and having to stretch them without much relief. So it dawns on Heather today that maybe the cramping is actually pain and it`s not my arches that are hurting but rather my `broken foot`. I am thinking that she is probably correct in this thought as the bruise is still as blue and big as ever and after walking all day, my left foot does get really sore. So I suppose we will have to see what comes of it but if it is in fact a broken bone or two in my foot, it will not likely heal too quickly of at all as we have no plans of taking it easy and staying off of it. Great!! Oh well on we went to pick up our packs and head for our first train ride. Our Eurorail passes are finally coming in handy and we can use this really expensive piece of paper instead of paying for buses. Tonight we are heading into Derry, just for a quick visit before we head to Dublin tomorrow for CANADA DAY!!! Woot!! We have been warned to collect alcohol in Derry before heading to Dublin as the prices in Dublin are ridiculous. Pints of beer cost 7 or 8 euro...good thing the economy isn`t booming right now or that would be way worse than it already is.
Wednesday evening...
We arrived in Derry and again didn’t have a set plan of how we were going to get to our hostel. Google maps couldn’t locate the train station for us to get directions so I got directions from city centre, hoping it was close to the train station. It’s a really good thing that Irish people are so friendly and helpful. The guard at the train station, put us on a bus for free to bring us into town, where another traveller (a middle aged man from Derry) overheard our situation and offered to help us get to where we needed to be. The kind man walked 10 minutes in the opposite direction and took us right to the doorstep of our hostel. It was amazing!!! We had read in our handy travel books that Irish people don’t give directions, instead they will take you where you need to be. Well we got a fully guided walking tour of Derry on our way to Paddy’s Palace (hostel). When we arrived there was a lot going on, a bbq, lots of people checking in, there was a tour group there etc. So although we were exhausted and planned on having a quiet night, we headed down to tesco’s to grab a few beers before heading to the pub. A group of us headed, in the rain, to Fodder’s pub where a local Irish band was playing. It was a really good vibe yet pretty small. We met 3 Irishmen who were out celebrating their mates birthday. They were something else!!! After a few pints and well after midnight, we headed back for some much needed sleep. I should mention we had our first passport scare. The guys that we met at the pub said Paddy’s Palace had a reputation for things going missing...that freaked us out a bit but thought nothing of it. When we got back though we thought we better make sure our things were untouched. MY PASSPORT AND MONEY WAS GONE!!!! We left it locked up in our room and it was nowhere. So I am unpacking my bags, (and heathers) frantically looking for it and low and behold it fell out of my pack and was under Heather’s bag sort of tucked under the bed. Phew!!! It was a lesson in keeping your valuables safe, that’s for sure!!! So off to bed we went and tomorrow was Derry day or more importantly, Canada Day!!!

Belfast

2010-06-30T13:32:00.001-07:00

Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Woke up with some energy and excitement this morning!! We knew breakfast was included in the price of our hostel but we were expecting the standard toast and cereal. Oh wow, we were in for a treat! We had a full English breakfast which included, toast, eggs, back bacon, sausage and beans...sooo good!!! After we were loaded with all of our “essential vitamins” we were off on yet another adventure, this one was planned and guided though so how much trouble could we get into??? So we started the day meeting our bus driver Ian, who was this enthusiastic old Irishman. He was very chatty and we enjoyed his love for his job! Throughout the day we made several stops at castles and scenic areas and drove along the Northern coast of Ireland which has some fantastic views. We also stopped at the Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge which was really neat. It was about a 1km walk to the bridge where you crossed, took some pictures and ended up having to run back to the bus so we weren’t left behind. Next stop was “the big show”, the Giant’s causeway which is the 8th wonder of the world. It was really neat to climb along the rocks and we have a lot of pictures of the area and of course, us!! Our final stop of the day was at Bushmills Distillery, it was a really quick stop so we didn’t really get to see or do anything and decided not to taste the Irish Whiskey. After a long day, we were headed back to Belfast with a long night ahead of us! We stopped for a bite to eat at a local pub that the hostel endorsed and gave us 10% off of. It was here that we first enjoyed a pint of Irish Guinness...it is far better than the motor oil they pass off as Guinness at home. It’s much lighter and just plain yummy. We then went and got a couple of bottles of vino to enjoy while we changed and got ready for our night on the town. We were greeted back at the hostel by the owner who is a 40 something South African fellow named Willem (pronounced William), with a taste of “the good stuff”. We were drinking some Irish Whiskey and coke with a few of the guys who worked at the hostel but weren’t on duty. We also met a couple girls from Edmonton who turned out to be turbo Debbie downers...oy vei!!! Anywho, Willem took us girls and Mark (or Laura Ferry Bell /Tinkerbell) to Fibber McGee’s for some traditional Irish music, pints of Guinness and some good times. Willem decided to take a cab instead of our plan of walking, so we all piled into the cab and headed to the pub. When we arrived, the cab driver opened the sliding van door and out falls Meghan. We are still unsure how this even happened because it was some time after he opened the door and I more so fell straight down on my bum instead of my usual tuck and roll. Oh well, no harm, no foul! So we headed in, grabbed some drinks and started dancing to the music. We had some girls up highland dancing, we danced a jig with Willem and Tinkerbell as well as getting drinks from the 60+ crowd!! Good times! Next stop, since the band ended their set and we had already met them as the bar was shutting down, was to Thompsons. What a dead place! It was more of a dance club than anything and was the only place open after midnight. We were just a short walk from our hostel and had a handy map to guide us back, HOWEVER, because we had some angry whiskey on board, Heather decided she is going to find the way eventhough we were nicely headed in the proper direction. Lets just say it ended with a ripped up map, us falling to the ground on top of each other and a broken camera strap...which was the end of Heather`s life!!! Haha she was pretty broken up inside about the death of her camera strap. We were able to cheer her up with some za and chips and curry. Mmm...the curry and chips was way better than Onesti`s, we even got fake roses from the creepy owners. We then headed home (mapless) but with good direction and headed to bed.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Ahhh, not a pleasant morning...good thing we had a greasy full English breakfast to prepare us for the day. Today we took another walking tour (self guided) after we of course found a camera shop and replacement camera strap for Heather. We decided to take a walk into the West end of town where there is continuing political unrest between the Catholics and the Protestants. We were assured that it is in fact safe in that area of town but we were on guard and kept to ourselves. It was a pretty sketchy part of town anyhow. Along the route that the lady at the tourist centre told us to take, we were able to see and take pictures of these huge murals painted by local artists. The murals were all different but were a dedication to the unrest and troubles that have plagued Belfast for many years. It was really cool to see and we got a bit of an explanation from Neil at the hostel after we returned about what really went on and what it`s like today. Very interesting!!! We wandered around Belfast for a little while, grabbed some food from our new favourite grocer (TESCO`S)!!! We then stopped into the Crown pub for a pint and caught a bit of Tennis on the tele. Haha. The Crown bar is one of Belfast`s oldest pubs and is a traditional style pub with really neat stained glass throughout and booths around the bar that were like little rooms. It was also a really neat place. It was here that we came to the conclusion that there is a good chance that my left foot has been broken. The story for this one starts back in Edinburgh, on the pub crawl, we ended at some club that was really neat. It had different areas that were cave like and the end one had ``old school`` music like Aqua and hanson and backstreet boys, which ended up being our favourite. So during one song that everyone was particularly enjoying, some really drunk girl in heels was jumping and just so happened to land on the top of my foot...TWICE before I was able to shove her off. It really wasn`t too bad and did get a pretty nasty bruise but didn’t think much of it. I clearly wasn`t thinking properly because for the following few days, I was getting what I thought were `cramps’ in my feet nearing the end of the day and having to stretch them without much relief. So it dawns on Heather today that maybe the cramping is actually pain and it`s not my arches that are hurting but rather my `broken foot`. I am thinking that she is probably correct in this thought as the bruise is still as blue and big as ever and after walking all day, my left foot does get really sore. So I suppose we will have to see what comes of it but if it is in fact a broken bone or two in my foot, it will not likely heal too quickly of at all as we have no plans of taking it easy and staying off of it. Great!! Oh well on we went to pick up our packs and head for our first train ride. Our Eurorail passes are finally coming in handy and we can use this really expensive piece of paper instead of paying for buses. Tonight we are heading into Derry, just for a quick visit before we head to Dublin tomorrow for CANADA DAY!!! Woot!! We have been warned to collect alcohol in Derry before heading to Dublin as the prices in Dublin are ridiculous. Pints of beer cost 7 or 8 euro...good thing the economy isn`t booming right now or that would be way worse than it already is.

The Return to Motherwell

2010-06-30T13:31:00.000-07:00

Monday, June 28th
The conclusion was made long ago by both of us that we WAY over packed...it was difficult because it is sooo bloody cold in the UK and we will be entering some really hot weather in Europe in a few weeks. So essentially we had to pack for all weathers. However, today we decided it was time to cut out some things...we had to be ruthless and just get rid of the excess. The shipments are en route...not too expensive either!! Anyhow, we went into Motherwell and shipped our treasured goods back to Canada, picked up some essentials (food, converters, gravol) and were headed back to Motherwell. Just as an aside...we must tell you how difficult our search for Gravol was. I had gotten nauseated on the bus the other day and usually I bring Gravol to sedate myself on plane rides but I was running low and only had one Gravol left. So, we decided that while we were near a drugstore we should pick up an anti-nauseant. Being as worldly and culturally competent as we are, we figured that we may not have luck asking for Gravol but rather ask what they take for nausea...we were greeted with blank looks and jaws we had to pick up off the floor. haha. The lady looked absolutely blankly at us as if we were not speaking English. We tried to ask what they took for nausea and for some suggestions...we were told Gavisgon or antacids which are pretty much useless for nausea. When we asked Carol Ann and Margaret, they had no idea either...apparently Scots don’t have nausea...or in their words, they just throw up. Moving on...we went back home and made stir fry which was a nice treat to be able to make something that wasn’t pre-packaged and had some good flavour. We also made a pizza that we ate cold on the bus at night. While I was showering and packing, Heather went to her Aunt Jana’s for a quick visit. They had a nice time and got some pictures together to show the family back home. Francis, Clare, Orla, and Kiera also came by to say farwell and to meet us as well. Francis came by himself the other times and we wanted to meet Clare and the girls. So Aunt Margaret hurried us off to the bus stop so we didn’t miss our bus. Off to Ireland!! We had pre-booked a bus to the ferry, the ferry ride and figured we would take a taxi to the hostel as it was late at night and as I am sure you are all aware of, our navigational skills are touch and go. So we get to the bus terminal and don’t you know it, the bus goes to Belfast, so once we got across on the ferry, we could have picked up back on the bus and got into Belfast...oh well you win some and you lose some. So we had the worst bus ride so far, of course being as it is our last. The bus was full!! Heather and I had a great system working where we could sleep if we had our own two seats and could ride comfortably. Also, we had figured out from previous experiences that the middle to front of the bus is best as the bathroom usually smells pretty foul by the time you get to your destination. EW!!! Anyhow, small price to pay...the ferry was really nice though! We got on the 8pm ferry from Stranraer to Belfast and enjoyed a cappuccino and some tunes. Once we got to Belfast we easily found a taxi and actually shared it with a couple of Scottish girls who were living and working in Belfast. We arrived at our hostel and were greeted by a cute young Irish boy who was just started working there and it was his first night working and he was on his own. He did really well and gave us the low down on what to see and do while in Belfast. We packed it in for the night pretty early as we had decided to do the Giant’s causeway tour the following day.

Fort William and Oban

2010-06-26T14:51:00.000-07:00

June 25th continued...
So we went to Hootananny's pub last night in Inverness...super cool. It was a two storey bar and the main floor had a Scottish band playing and was a pretty mellow vibe but upstairs is where the action was. The second floor had a Ska band called Bombskare from Edinburgh playing. They were super cool and not sure the last time we had heard any Ska bands but it was a nice treat! We headed there with Colleen from California and Daniel from Germany. It was good times had by all!!! Tons of dancing and signing!!

Saturday, June 26th
Got the 1045 bus to Fort William this morning...both of us not feeling great with waves of nausea on the bus ride. Meghan was certain she was going to be sick but we made it!!! Feeling much better when we got some fresh Fort William air and a bit of lunch in us. Fort William is pretty small and not a whole lot going on but it does have some great scenery and Ben Nevis...the highest point in Scotland!! It is some 2400 ft to the top. We were a little intimidated by its height...it puts Arthur's seat to shame!! Needless to say we did not even attempt to climb it with the few hours we had in Fort William. We did however, do some adventure seeking...we headed to the Glen Nevis centre which is the starting point for the climb up big benny!! It was absolutely gorgeous...the hills/mountains are so overwhelming and just amazing to be so close to. The stream that ran along side was cool too. It was pretty rocky with some rapids and wildlife. We took a walk along the river path and adventured in for some neat scenery. We even stopped to touch the wishing rock...a little luck never hurts!! In no time we had made it back into town, grabbed a bite to eat and were back on the bus, this time heading to Oban. It was a short bus ride and we arrived at a small fishing town on the West coast of Scotland. Oban is small and quaint and just like the rest of Scotland, has long, long days!!! The sun doesn't set till midnight and is back up by 4ish. It makes it difficult to sleep in but who needs sleep when you are on an adventure!!!! We'll sleep when we're dead!!!

Sunday, June 27th
Early start in Oban, grabbed some breaky at the hostel and was off to make the 0955 ferry to Isle of Mull. In true Heather and Meghan fashion, they were calling final boarding as we showed up and therefore missed it. OOps!! So we had a couple of hours to kill before the noon ferry so we went to the tower at the top of the hill in Oban. It was a stone colluseum looking structure overlooking Oban and the water and was a memorial for the McCaig family built in 1897. It was pretty cool but Oban isn't teaming with things to do and see...so we hit up the war museum. For lunch we grabbed a seafood cup from a truck vendor. Oban is Scotland's seafood capital so it was only fitting that we had mussels, shrimp, lobster, and cockle's...mmm...so we had a 45 minute ferry ride to Isle of Mull and only had about 2 hours on the island. So more adventuring to be had...we didn't have enough time to go into the town of Tobermory or to make it over to Duart castle either, so we took a nature walk along the coast. There was a path that led us to a smaller castle that could only be viewed from the outside. We could however see Duart castle from the woods...pretty amazing even from afar. We met an older couple along our walk and they told us that there was a train to go back to the ferry. So we ventured along the path a bit further and found a 'mini train' and mini it was!!! It was a coal operated train that ran along the coast line. It was neat to take that back and we got some pretty hilarious photo's to boot. Then came the rain...lol we have had amazing weather "knock wood" the entire trip...until now!! We got poured on from the short walk from the train to the ferry and it continued off and on for the rest of the night. Back in Oban we grabbed our things and headed for dinner. We once again thought, if we are in the seafood capital of Scotland, seafood it shall be! The chowder was amazing and the fish was pretty good...just greasy is all! We had a bus to catch after that so we grabbed our things and headed to the bus station. Off to Glasgow...again! :) Carol Ann and Margaret kindly picked us up from the bus station again and family reunion part 2 commenced. Frances, Derek, Ashley and Jared all came over to say hi once again. We had roasted cheese...Heather wasn't kidding...soooooo good!!!! It was essentially melted cheese on a piece of bread but as heather puts it..."its the fattiness of the cheese and the thin bread that makes it taste so good". Anyhow, we headed to bed shortly after and had a jam packed day ahead!

2010-06-25T14:52:00.000-07:00

Edinburgh and Inverness

2010-06-25T10:44:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, June 23rd
Early morning wake up in Motherwell. Uncle John was picking us up in Motherwell at "745 and we "know what Uncle John is like if you're late" or so we were told!!! So an early morning start to Peebles where he and Aunt Helen live. They have a beautiful view of the mountains and countryside. It's about 20 mins from Edinburgh. They live on sheep and chicken farmland...the views were incredible. Uncle John made us a hearty breakfast and took us on a tour of the chicken farm. It was really neat to see the egg harvesting process...the last thing we thought we would do in Scotland would be to hang on a farm. lol. John and Helen were kind to drive us into Edinburgh. Another adventure to be had when we were dropped off at Waverley stn. The thing about Edinburgh that we soon discovered is that the streets are not level and have steep inclines and declines. It was a hike up and down no matter where you were heading. So touristy us, are following our map and end up on the 'high' streets instead of the 'low' ones where our hostel is located. It didn't take us long to realize our error and get back on the right path...we were greeted with about 100 stairs though that we never had to take!!! Packs and stairs are not a good combination but we are definately getting our exercise and getting a good sweat on (SWODY). We arrived at our hostel at about 1245 and were glad to see that our room was ready and we could officially check in. Cute little hostel with a lot of common rooms and 'chill out' spaces. We settled in and did some more planning for the coming weeks. We are now booked up until July 1st, CANADA DAY, in Dublin. So we wanted to see a bit of Edinburgh before dark and get an authentic Scottish dinner. We wanted to go to Holyrood Park and climbed up to Arthur's seat which is the highest point of the hills in Holyrood and is 820 feet. It was amazing!!! We could see all of Edinburgh and had amazing views of beyond the city. After a few whipe out's and a very windy top, we were headed out for supper. We used our handy dandy Europe guide (thanks grandma and grandpa Wilson)and found a quaint little place called the Monster Mash just up from our hostel (and yes it was literally up, crazy Edinburgh streets). We decided that we couldn't go to Scotland and not try some Haggis so we had Haggis and Shepard's pie. The haggis was surprisingly good and was just like ground beef with spices and was served with mash and turnip or neeps.
Since it was our only night in Edinburgh we had decided that we should go out and get out on the town. The hostel that we were staying at had a pub crawl everynight and was led by the employees. So we thought it would be a great and cheap way to see the town and a great way to meet people at the hostel. So at 9pm we meet in the lobby and surprise, surprise, DJ Alex, our guide is Australian. I don't think anyone else works in the UK. So we met some friends from all over, Orangeville, Quebec City, France, and of course Australia. It was a really cool night. We went to an Oz bar first and the Australia-Serbia game was playing...needless to say it was BUSY!!! Next stop was an Irish pub and they had a great little band who played a lot of Irish tunes but to our great surprise they played Barrett's Privateer...you better believe we sang and danced along. We then went to some metal bar...slightly sketchy but they had really cheap drinks...mixed drinks were a pound each. Final stop was a dance club that was more like a sauna, but we had a great time anyhow.

Thursday, June 24
Edinburgh adventuring day. We set out for Mary King's close which is the underground city that was build on top of. It was really neat to be down in the old city but they have a lot of ghost stories and such...a little eerie but also very corny. Next we were off to Edinburgh castle...wow what a huge thing that is to see...there is so much history that you cannot possibly take it all in, in just one day. It was really cool to see though and learn a bit of the history. We were then on the move again...this time we were heading to Inverness. We said fairwell to our Edinburgh mates and to the highlands we go!!! We hopped on the bus and away we went!! We arrived in Inverness just shortly after 9 and we found the hostel in no time. It really did help that it was a stones throw away from the bus station...you can literally see the hostel from the bus station!! Came in, was greeted by yet another Australian working at the hostel and settled in. I then had the chance to Skype with my Mom, Dad and Max which was really cool!!! The common room did start to fill up and get pretty noisy. The hostel has a guitar, piano and didge that were all being played so it was a quick but good skype. We met a few other people staying at the hostel and ended up heading out to the pub with them...so much for a quiet night in! We went to a really small place that had a live band but was for the most part locals only. To our surprise we were sitting amoung a local celebrity. Duncan was a young Invernesion who recently was filmed in the Robin Hood movie. It was cool to hear about filming and he actually had a battle wound...they didn't find out till much later though as his screaming appeared as acting amoungst the battle scene. We then headed back to our hostel for an impromptu jam session...Heather and I were vocalists...:)!!!bahaha!

Friday, June 25
Slept in a bit today but got out of bed and ready for about lunch time. We had mentioned that we have not yet had pizza, which is a staple for an afterbar snack, but everything closes early that it just hasn't happened. So, for "brunch" today we ordered a pizza and were in heaven!!!! We decided that today was the day we had to hunt for 'Nessie'. So we booked a cruise to Loch Ness that ended at Urquhart castle. It was a really nice boat ride on the water and we found nessie beached on the coast (pictures to come soon). Hooray, we saw nessie!!! Thought that would never happen!! hehe Urquhart was really neat although it was ruins from the bombing of the castle. There was even a wedding there today...Heather was right in the action photographing the bagpiper (don't worry Mom, I didn't crash another wedding). We then headed back home to grab some dinner and beer (have I mentioned how cheap beers are here?). Tonight we are heading out to Hootananny's (sp?)an Scotish pub here in Inverness!!! But for now we are just chillin out watching the Spain and Chile game with a ton of Spanards...should be entertaining!!! Tomorrow we are off to Fort William and Oban...lets hope for continued good weather and good times!!!!

Glasgow and Motherwell

2010-06-22T07:37:00.001-07:00

So we made it alive to Glasgow! We were greeted at the bus station by Heather's Aunt Margaret and cousin Carol Ann in the beemer! lol. It was just a short drive to Motherwell where we set up shop in her beautiful home. We were so glad to have a warm bed and not have to sleep with or lock up our valuables...the things we take for granted! We are able to call back home and talk to our family for a few minutes to check in and wish our Fausher's a Happy Father's Day...although Heather did have to email after as she forgot to wish her dad a good father's day. After a marvelous sleep in our own double bed...we were off to Glasgow. We took the local express bus into town (as we have now honed in on our navigation skills we felt confident hopin on a bus). We had some lunch at a pub and started our shopping and adventuring. We went to George's square, central station, there are lots of walking streets with good shopping, walked along the Clyde (river), found the tall ships, walked up to Glasgow University and found a patio to settle for Supper. The shopping in Glasgow was great and I (Meghan) did give in and make my first purchase...I should mention though that I justified my purchase by the fact that a) it was a gift and b) that it was size 6-12 mos so was small enough to fit in my overpacked bag. After supper we were then going to go out on the town till about 11 as thats when the last train leaves for Motherwell, but everything closed at 6 and we were bored. So, instead we grabbed some beers (super cheap booze fyi) and headed back to book more legs of our trip. So after much debate and planning we have now booked Edinburgh, Inverness, Fort William, Oban and then back to Glasgow to depart for Stranraer ferry to Belfast on Monday. VERY EXCITING!!!
Jan 22
Lazy day in Motherwell. We slept in today and then headed into Motherwell for the famous lunch at Onesti's!! Chips and curry was our mission and was not disappointed. We then checked out the town and library for some printing!! If anything we have had amazing weather!!! KNOCK WOOD!!! It has rained only once while we were in London and and it was for only 30 mins and we were indoors watching Football anyhow. Today the weather is beautiful sunny summer weather!! So we are drinking some cold beers and relaxing at the house. The family came over tonight and had dinner and a good visit. We had Indian food (soooo good) and we bought non-alcoholic Becks haha soooo not like us. We thought we were getting a really good deal...haha we were definately in for a surprise. Next stop Edinburgh!!!

Bye, bye London, Hellooooo Scotland!!!

2010-06-20T16:39:00.000-07:00

Our last night in London included a visit from an old friend of Heather’s, Heather Macdonald. She is living in the southshore of England, about a 2 hr train ride to London. She met up with us and stayed at the hostel with us. We didn’t get into too much exciting that night but it was great for Heather and Heather to catch up and to get to meet her.
June 19th, last day in London
We had a late wake up this morning but were successfully packed up just in time for lunch. We had our very first meal of fish and chips in the UK. It was a place recommended by an Australian friend who has been living in London. It was really good haddock but also very filling. We said our goodbyes to our new friends at the hostel and the three of us headed to Victoria station where we then parted from Heather Macdonald. We were off to Manchester and really excited to be on the move again. We ended up driving through London and down Abbey road. I got to see Abbey Road studios which was disappointing but exciting none the less. The outside has a concrete wall around the base of it that is covered in spray paint and although you can see the front of it, had no write up or anything interesting to see. Anyhow back on the bus, we were exhausted and glad to have a 5 hour bus ride ahead of us. The bus ride has some beautiful scenery (thanks Jax!) and the countryside was a really nice route. When we arrived in Manchester, we were once again directionally challenged and unsure of where we were heading. We did soon figure it out and arrived at the “Hilton” hostel in no time. It was a really nice hostel and very clean but it was no Hilton. It was nice to know that we were in an 8 bed room tonight though and would definitely have some much needed beauty sleep. It was pretty late when we had gotten settled and everything closes early in England and dinner choices were quite limited. We did however, find a yummy kebab stand to have donner’s and salad at. Then we headed back to the hostel and met some of our roommates. We met a girl from Vancouver who worked for Simon Fraser University and her job is to set up international exchanges so she was there on business (sounds like a really cool job) and a 40 something Indian man from Glasgow who was a performer and quite popular from what we gathered in Asian and middle eastern television. He was getting ready for his big show tonight so us girls naturally had some input on his outfit and makeup. After we got everything organized for the following day we were tucked in and sleeping soundly.
June 20th, Fathers day (and also a very interesting holiday)
We woke up this morning with not much planned but eager to see Manchester. Our first stop was the Manchester Cathedral which was large and nice looking from the street but after seeing St. Paul’s in London we weren’t quite as intrigued. We did however stay for mass! Shopping time!! The biggest disappointment yet! The shopping was so great and cheap and we had nowhere to put anything...I think I was the most disappointed but Heather did find some gems too. Oh well, next time!!! Next we used our newly found public transit knowledge to take the tram down to Old Trafford stadium in the southwest part of town. It was quite industrial and not much to look at however, the cricket stadium and Manchester United stadium was cool to see. I (Meghan) took a picture of some random Thompson footy players name hoping that he was the Thompson in my history that did play for Manchester...we shall see...:)! On our way back into town, we noticed a sign for Manchester day, wouldn’t you know it, it was Manchester day today!! Heather and I thought that today would be pretty dull and not much to see/do in Manchester since it is a Sunday but instead we watched the Manchester Day parade. It was really neat and quite the production. There were some lavish floats and some interesting performances. It was definitely the highlight of Heather’s day, it probably didn’t hurt that they were playing the bagpipes too. After the parade and a quick bite to eat it was time to grab our packs and head to the coach station for our next journey to Glasgow. We got in touch with Heather’s aunt Margaret who so kindly agreed to meet us at the coach station. So we are spending tonight in Motherwell, just outside of Glasgow and will be spending a few days in and around Glasgow. We are on the coach currently and having a nice tour through the lake district for another nice scenic route through the countryside. It is absolutely beautiful...excited for Scotland and visiting family. We will try to post pictures soon seeing as we are pretty camera happy it may be awhile. Now wish us luck as we brave the Scots and seek out some Haggis and chips of course!!!

2010-06-18T11:50:00.000-07:00

London

So we made it alive...barely but we did! Our flight was great and we got a few little perks...it was long but good! Not surprisingly, we met a nurse on the flight who sat with us!!! We had an "interesting experience" at customs. Apparantly they don't like when Canadians show up with no visa or prospect of working and don't have a return flight...oops!!! The lady also asked me (Meghan) if Heather was my partner or just my friend...we had a good chuckle. We made it through though and we off to see England. We took our first train from Gatwick to Victoria stn in central London loaded down and already regretting packing those extras. We got into London with no clue where we were going but knowing our hostel was an 8 minute walk from the station and the address. Apparantly its not a well known street and our maps cut off the street. We circled around for like 90mins hating life with sore backs. Finally we found out that the street names change and we walked right by it. We made it and were definately ready for a brew...conveniently, the pub is the hostel. We instantly met up with some Aussies (one of whom works there) and had a "quiet" night in...we did however, squeeze in a trip to Battersea Park (gorgeous)!! The boys grabbed some brews and had a little "roadie" in the park.

930am Thursday we were up at on the town. The heather and meghan walking tour of London. Our Aussie friends Ben and Jake came along and we discovered that our navigation skills need some fine tuning but we accomplished a lot. We saw Oxford circus, trafalger square, covent gardern, and finally St. Paul's cathedral. St. Paul's was so amazing and we climbed the 500+ stairs to the look out and definately didn't regret it (thanks for the tip Bran). We also walked over the millenium bridge and hung out on the Thames. After St. Paul's it was time to take the tube across London to the cricket match!! hehe. The aussies know their cricket and were stoked! The best part about the brits is that you can bring a bottle of wine in the stadium with you!! BONUS! So we learned the game of cricket and enjoyed some vino...next stop...aussie bar!! lol. We finished the night singing and dancing with new friends that we met at the match (also aussies).
Friday the 18th...
Nice little sleep in this morning. We made it for the changing of the guards at buckingham palace...pretty cool!! It was crazy busy but neat to see...good thing we are tall :)!! The queen was home so we were hoping to see her little head "pokin out" but no such luck! She must not have known we were in town otherwise we would have been there heads out the window...we do hear she is coming to Wloo to meet Basili and Lazaradus. Must catch her back home. Next stop as per Heather's only request...THE LONDON EYE...what a view, however the best part was the free 4D video in the beginning. Following the eye, we hit up big ben...or rather we walked over Westminster bridge and waved to Benny!! I then had to hit up Abbey Rd. The tourist maps don't actually show it so we went on an "adventure"!!! We took the tube...which I should mention that we can now do without our lame tourist maps. So we didn't know where we were...other than Abbey Rd...we definately went the complete opposite was of Abbey rd studios when we were maybe 200ft to the left of it...majorly disappointing when we walked for 40 mins in the opposite direction. Oh well...next time in london!! Lol. It's apparantly a big disappointment. Anyhow, we made our way back after another few hours being completely lost. The people are very helpful and friendly and really know their tube system. So we came home and saw the big game tonight...London was a bit crazy and the brits are PASSIONATE about their footy.
Anyhow, we are just finishin up for the night and we are heading to Manchester for the night tomorrow. Having a blast and meeting great people. Will keep you updated as we go and sorry for such a delayed post.
p.s. I should mention the angry brits who were less than impressed when we blew the circuit with our laptop that was also connected to the screen half hour before the game started...hehe...I thought we were going to be departed...all is well...we just tripped the breaker and all is good.
Hope all is well at home and we'll catch up soon!!
Love,

H&M

2010-06-14T16:37:00.000-07:00

Hey,
This is our travel blog for all of our family and friends to stay in contact and follow our adventures through Europe for the next 4 months. We leave tomorrow June 15th and will begin our fun in London, England early Wednesday morning!! Please provide feedback and any sweet spots or must sees along the way. See you soon!!!
H&M