we have spent two lazy days in rome now, and its been very nice. lisa decided that we had not slept in in a while so we went for it yesterday, all out. we got up at 2, grabbed some pizza and took the metro and a city bus to the appian way, an ancient roman empire road south of rome. it is outside of the city walls, and there are catacombs all along it, so we went on a tour of the san sebastiano catacombs - 7 miles of undergound tunnels! we didnt se them all. some emperor built a church on top of the tombs, and there is still a church there with the relics of saint sebastian inside! wow! for those of you who may have forgotten, saint sebastian is the protector against plague and pestilance. he was a martyr for the churcn at the end of the 3rd century, and he survived a barrage of arrows from a firing squad while tied to a tree!
the tombs closed at 5 and we went for a nice leisurely walk down the old road until we had had enough and turned around. there are ruins everywhere! we caught a bus back to town and had a very slow but nice dinner on a sidewalk patio.
today we were awoken (lisa says its woken) by construction in our hotel. boo! it was like 8 in the morning and that was not fun. anyways, we finally dragged ourselves up and went on a walk around rome to see some of the great monuments and squares and fountains, and the pantheon. it is nice! and lisa bought a beautiful dress today, so that was exciting too!
we are going to go on a pub crawl tonight, so hopefully we can find our way home afterwards! this is probably my last post from europe, woah!
see you on the other side! (of the atlantic)
simon
Friday, August 17, 2007
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
i'm not gonna lie, rome is pretty great
howdy y'all
lisa and i are in rome today! it is about 10 at night and we are just about to go home for dinner. we are going to have bread, crackers, cheese and some spicy spread, along with a bottle of italian wine, on our 3rd floor balcony. hopefully it will be as nice as it sounds. its kind of late but we had a big and kind of weird day. i will get to that later.
we got here on monday afternoon, and since we were pretty hot, we hung out in our air conditioned room for a while. our hotel is cute and nice and small, and we really like the people who run it, they are very nice! the only sketchy part is that occasionally there are people sleeping on benches outside of the locked gates... hmmm. its not overly boiling here, but its like summer-in-ontario-temperature, so at 2 o clock in the afternoon, you will sweat just standing around. gross! anyways, by the time we were functional, it was around 5 and we wanted to explore, so we walked past the train station, down the street, and saw RUINS! yay! the ruins are cool, and they are definitely the most ruined ruins that we have seen so far. some buildings have a lot left remaining, but sometimes there is just a foundation, or half of a pillar. the magnitude and number and variety of arches is spectacular! they used arches to hold EVERYTHING up, its so cool. i wonder if they would have ever discovered tension if the roman empire kept going forever. its not like they seemed to need it. (sorry for that nerdy aside)
we climbed a hill and looked out over the ruins and got our fill (for now), before walking back up the street a little ways for dinner. after dinner we went to the other end of the ruins to look at the coliseum. now, we thought that the amphitheatre in arles was big, but this one deserves its awesome reputation! its so spectacular, 4 stories of round, and you can look on it all at once and from far enough away that you can take it all in. i love it! the sun was starting to go down, so we experimented with camera settings for a while and then got tea and coffee at an appropriately overpriced cafe where we could see the coliseum. we sat there and breathed it all in for about an hour. at that point we looked in the seafood display next to us and a lobster was wriggling around so we took off pretty fast and went back to our hotel.
the next morning, we got up for a delicious breakfast at our hotel. three cheers for nutella! lisa and i decided to get all of the churches out of the way at the beginning, and although we fell short of our ambitious goal of 5, we feel like we saw the 2 best ones, 2 of the best in the world i'm sure. we went to San Giovanni in the morning, a gorgeous church that is apparently the home of the church in Rome. there was marble and gold and statues everywhere, it was mindblowing!
next we went to vatican city. we waited for 40 minutes in line next to a huge city wall to get into the spectacular vatican museums. i can't even describe the stuff thats in there. i dont know if i should try.... okay i will. hmm. its like the church has so much treasure and they don't know what to do with it all, so they store some of it in long hallways that are painted incredibly beautiful by the best painters, because who would turn down an invitation to paint a big room in the vatican? not raphael, and certainly not michaelangelo. his sistine chapel is nice!
after about an hour of looking at all of this stuff our minds were blown so we wandered through the rest of it like zombies and got a couple of drinks. then we went to st. peters basilica, passing a bunch of people in a fenced off area who were not clothed appropriately enough to get in. haha! we thought that san giovanni was awesome, but this was at a totally different level. its huge, its ornate, there is gold and awesome marble everywhere, and all kinds of huge statues. we spent about an hour in there, just staring.
then we went home and showered before going to see an ENGLISH MOVIE! wooo! its been a long time coming, but its unfortunate that the only one that we could find was the new fantastic 4 movie. i still can't believe its a movie. if you haven't seen it, dont. cheeeeeese!
today we dedicated the morning to ruins. we went down to the floor of the ruins and got up close and personal with some pretty old stuff! its funny how they have every block catalogued, even random chunks of marble that fell off who-knows-what. we wandered to the end and went into the coliseum, which we explored for about an hour. its pretty impressive, and even more impressive that its so intact after 2000 years!
we took some groceries up to the top of a hill with lots of ruins on it and had a nice picnic underneath some trees. we explored the ruins on top of the hill until lisa fought a ruin and lost. lol. she tripped a little and the ruin sliced her toe open, so we had to do some serious first aid. lisa sat on block # 378265 while i tended to her wound. we took the subway home and before we knew it we had had a nap and it was 5:30.
we intended to visit the pantheon today but apparently it was closed due to some national holiday that is today. oh well, we will do it later. instead we went to a nice little market and had dessert on the bank of the tiber river. we are just on our way home from that now, and i am hungry so i am going now!
ciao!
simon
lisa and i are in rome today! it is about 10 at night and we are just about to go home for dinner. we are going to have bread, crackers, cheese and some spicy spread, along with a bottle of italian wine, on our 3rd floor balcony. hopefully it will be as nice as it sounds. its kind of late but we had a big and kind of weird day. i will get to that later.
we got here on monday afternoon, and since we were pretty hot, we hung out in our air conditioned room for a while. our hotel is cute and nice and small, and we really like the people who run it, they are very nice! the only sketchy part is that occasionally there are people sleeping on benches outside of the locked gates... hmmm. its not overly boiling here, but its like summer-in-ontario-temperature, so at 2 o clock in the afternoon, you will sweat just standing around. gross! anyways, by the time we were functional, it was around 5 and we wanted to explore, so we walked past the train station, down the street, and saw RUINS! yay! the ruins are cool, and they are definitely the most ruined ruins that we have seen so far. some buildings have a lot left remaining, but sometimes there is just a foundation, or half of a pillar. the magnitude and number and variety of arches is spectacular! they used arches to hold EVERYTHING up, its so cool. i wonder if they would have ever discovered tension if the roman empire kept going forever. its not like they seemed to need it. (sorry for that nerdy aside)
we climbed a hill and looked out over the ruins and got our fill (for now), before walking back up the street a little ways for dinner. after dinner we went to the other end of the ruins to look at the coliseum. now, we thought that the amphitheatre in arles was big, but this one deserves its awesome reputation! its so spectacular, 4 stories of round, and you can look on it all at once and from far enough away that you can take it all in. i love it! the sun was starting to go down, so we experimented with camera settings for a while and then got tea and coffee at an appropriately overpriced cafe where we could see the coliseum. we sat there and breathed it all in for about an hour. at that point we looked in the seafood display next to us and a lobster was wriggling around so we took off pretty fast and went back to our hotel.
the next morning, we got up for a delicious breakfast at our hotel. three cheers for nutella! lisa and i decided to get all of the churches out of the way at the beginning, and although we fell short of our ambitious goal of 5, we feel like we saw the 2 best ones, 2 of the best in the world i'm sure. we went to San Giovanni in the morning, a gorgeous church that is apparently the home of the church in Rome. there was marble and gold and statues everywhere, it was mindblowing!
next we went to vatican city. we waited for 40 minutes in line next to a huge city wall to get into the spectacular vatican museums. i can't even describe the stuff thats in there. i dont know if i should try.... okay i will. hmm. its like the church has so much treasure and they don't know what to do with it all, so they store some of it in long hallways that are painted incredibly beautiful by the best painters, because who would turn down an invitation to paint a big room in the vatican? not raphael, and certainly not michaelangelo. his sistine chapel is nice!
after about an hour of looking at all of this stuff our minds were blown so we wandered through the rest of it like zombies and got a couple of drinks. then we went to st. peters basilica, passing a bunch of people in a fenced off area who were not clothed appropriately enough to get in. haha! we thought that san giovanni was awesome, but this was at a totally different level. its huge, its ornate, there is gold and awesome marble everywhere, and all kinds of huge statues. we spent about an hour in there, just staring.
then we went home and showered before going to see an ENGLISH MOVIE! wooo! its been a long time coming, but its unfortunate that the only one that we could find was the new fantastic 4 movie. i still can't believe its a movie. if you haven't seen it, dont. cheeeeeese!
today we dedicated the morning to ruins. we went down to the floor of the ruins and got up close and personal with some pretty old stuff! its funny how they have every block catalogued, even random chunks of marble that fell off who-knows-what. we wandered to the end and went into the coliseum, which we explored for about an hour. its pretty impressive, and even more impressive that its so intact after 2000 years!
we took some groceries up to the top of a hill with lots of ruins on it and had a nice picnic underneath some trees. we explored the ruins on top of the hill until lisa fought a ruin and lost. lol. she tripped a little and the ruin sliced her toe open, so we had to do some serious first aid. lisa sat on block # 378265 while i tended to her wound. we took the subway home and before we knew it we had had a nap and it was 5:30.
we intended to visit the pantheon today but apparently it was closed due to some national holiday that is today. oh well, we will do it later. instead we went to a nice little market and had dessert on the bank of the tiber river. we are just on our way home from that now, and i am hungry so i am going now!
ciao!
simon
Monday, August 13, 2007
florence
hey hey
i will be on my way home in a week. woah! but for now, i am in italy and italy is awesome! it's kind of funny that lisa and i went to milan first and were kind of disillusioned with how great it was going to be in this country, but venice and then florence made us love this place.
when i left off we were in venice about to go for an afternoon boat ride. well, we did that, and it was nice, and once we got on the boat lisa had a nice little nap. the boat was pertty busy so it was lucky to get a seat, but we cruised through the venice lagoon to another island that is mostly city called burano. it is the "lacemaker's island"... apparently it is famous for lace. another of the islands, murano, is famous for glass, and throughout venice there are beautiful glass things and jewellery, some of which are pretty tacky because they're so huge and colourful.
we spent 3 or 4 hours on the boats and burano before heading to a grocery store to pick up some limoncello, a liquor that is made with lemons and is about 30%. we got 2 bottles, although since we are now lightweights one would have been enough. we grabbed a quick dinner and enjoyed the bottle of limoncello (we mixed with sprite, i dunno if this is what people do or not) and then we went out to a nightclub in venice at around midnight. we met an american sailor there who didnt seem too impressed with venice and maintained that it was the only place to go there. good thing we found it!
we woke up at 11 the next day hungover and unprepared to carry our backpacks to florence. somehow we got ourselves on the vaporetto and onto the train, and found our hostel in florence easily. then we crashed for a nap until it was dark. ohh yeah.
florence is beautiful, everywhere. we went for a walk that night and made our way through the medieval streets until we came to the main piazza that is lit up and filled with monderful renaissance statues, like (a replica of) michangelo's david (which was moved inside).
we went to bed early and got up at 7:30 to go to the uffizi gallery. we found out too late that you can reserve tickets, so we waited in line with the other foolish tourists until after 11 before we finally got in. inside it was pretty nice, although i am getting a little tired of paintings of all of the same religious scenes. you can only look at so many similar interpretations of baby jesus on mary's lap with a bunch of people standing around before it all looks the same (to me anyways).
we grabbed a quick lunch after the gallery and then went to the leonardo museum, which was one of the coolest so far because we got to TOUCH things! some people got together and built a bunch of the machines from leonardo da vinci's notebooks, so they were all in a big room in this museum. flying machines, bicycle (350 years before they existed), armoured tank, hydraulic saw, odometer, and many more war machines and useful things. it was pretty awesome!
once we were finished there we went back to our hotel because we were tired and our feet hurt. we tried going out at night to wander but we only got far enough to grab dinner.
ahh i'm running out of time again!
okay, yesterday we woke up late and visited 2 churches in the afternoon. we were going to go to a renissance garden but it was 9 euros so we didnt. instead we sat on a patio in a square and had a few beers before climbing a giant hill and watching the sun go down over florence as the lights of the night came on. it was pretty spectacular.
today we are going to rome!
bye bye!
simon
i will be on my way home in a week. woah! but for now, i am in italy and italy is awesome! it's kind of funny that lisa and i went to milan first and were kind of disillusioned with how great it was going to be in this country, but venice and then florence made us love this place.
when i left off we were in venice about to go for an afternoon boat ride. well, we did that, and it was nice, and once we got on the boat lisa had a nice little nap. the boat was pertty busy so it was lucky to get a seat, but we cruised through the venice lagoon to another island that is mostly city called burano. it is the "lacemaker's island"... apparently it is famous for lace. another of the islands, murano, is famous for glass, and throughout venice there are beautiful glass things and jewellery, some of which are pretty tacky because they're so huge and colourful.
we spent 3 or 4 hours on the boats and burano before heading to a grocery store to pick up some limoncello, a liquor that is made with lemons and is about 30%. we got 2 bottles, although since we are now lightweights one would have been enough. we grabbed a quick dinner and enjoyed the bottle of limoncello (we mixed with sprite, i dunno if this is what people do or not) and then we went out to a nightclub in venice at around midnight. we met an american sailor there who didnt seem too impressed with venice and maintained that it was the only place to go there. good thing we found it!
we woke up at 11 the next day hungover and unprepared to carry our backpacks to florence. somehow we got ourselves on the vaporetto and onto the train, and found our hostel in florence easily. then we crashed for a nap until it was dark. ohh yeah.
florence is beautiful, everywhere. we went for a walk that night and made our way through the medieval streets until we came to the main piazza that is lit up and filled with monderful renaissance statues, like (a replica of) michangelo's david (which was moved inside).
we went to bed early and got up at 7:30 to go to the uffizi gallery. we found out too late that you can reserve tickets, so we waited in line with the other foolish tourists until after 11 before we finally got in. inside it was pretty nice, although i am getting a little tired of paintings of all of the same religious scenes. you can only look at so many similar interpretations of baby jesus on mary's lap with a bunch of people standing around before it all looks the same (to me anyways).
we grabbed a quick lunch after the gallery and then went to the leonardo museum, which was one of the coolest so far because we got to TOUCH things! some people got together and built a bunch of the machines from leonardo da vinci's notebooks, so they were all in a big room in this museum. flying machines, bicycle (350 years before they existed), armoured tank, hydraulic saw, odometer, and many more war machines and useful things. it was pretty awesome!
once we were finished there we went back to our hotel because we were tired and our feet hurt. we tried going out at night to wander but we only got far enough to grab dinner.
ahh i'm running out of time again!
okay, yesterday we woke up late and visited 2 churches in the afternoon. we were going to go to a renissance garden but it was 9 euros so we didnt. instead we sat on a patio in a square and had a few beers before climbing a giant hill and watching the sun go down over florence as the lights of the night came on. it was pretty spectacular.
today we are going to rome!
bye bye!
simon
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Venice doesn't smell!
hey
i have 8 minutes and 41 seconds to do this post. vite!!
Lisa and I are in Venice today. we got here 2 days ago, on tuesday, after 2 nights in milan. the train ride from nice to milan was so ghetto. we were in this non-ac box with 4 other people, one of whom gave lisa consistent stink-eye, and it was so hot and 5 hours long. we finally got to milan and although the train station itself is beautiful, the surrounding area could have been scarborough. weird, after all of these beautiful european cities. our hotel was very nice and the people in it were great, pointing us in the right direction.
unfortunately, our lone day in milan was on a monday in august, so almost everything was closed, and you need to wear pants and cover your shoulders to see churches, and you need to book tickets to see leonardo's the last supper. oops, oops and oops.
instead off all that stuff, we walked around, went to mcdonalds, ate gelato and went shopping! yay!
at night we went to a delicious indian restaurant, and left the next morning for a 2.5 hour train to venice that was a lot nicer than our last train.
getting to venice is so cool. there is a causeway that connects the main island to the mainland and its skinny and long and there are boats going to and fro all around. we walked out of the train station and right ahead of us was the grand canal! we got on the vaporetto (vaporizer, according to lisa (and me now)) and got off at the stop closest to where we thought our hotel was. our hotel was not in the spot where mother google said it would be so we were kind of in trouble, because venice is a maze if nothing else, with lots of dead ends that are unbridged water. we looked around for a long time, asked people where our street was (theyd never heard of it) and finally zeroed in on it. we had to go through a tunnel into a little courtyard and our hotel was there. anyways, once we found the place it is pretty great (except the internet is perma-down, i am at an internet cafe). we spent the first day wandering aroudn the streets, which seems like by far the best thing to do in venice! its so cool! and it doesn't smell at all! and its not even that hot!
yesterday we went to piazza san marco in the morning and saw the spectacular Byzantine church there, and in the afternoon we went to a modern art gallery and then the rialto markets (awesome - the market anyways). we went out for a nice many-course italian dinner too!
today we went to the old art gallery and this afternoon we are going to ride the vaporizers and get off wherever we feel like it! woo!
40 seconds left, gotta go!
simon
i have 8 minutes and 41 seconds to do this post. vite!!
Lisa and I are in Venice today. we got here 2 days ago, on tuesday, after 2 nights in milan. the train ride from nice to milan was so ghetto. we were in this non-ac box with 4 other people, one of whom gave lisa consistent stink-eye, and it was so hot and 5 hours long. we finally got to milan and although the train station itself is beautiful, the surrounding area could have been scarborough. weird, after all of these beautiful european cities. our hotel was very nice and the people in it were great, pointing us in the right direction.
unfortunately, our lone day in milan was on a monday in august, so almost everything was closed, and you need to wear pants and cover your shoulders to see churches, and you need to book tickets to see leonardo's the last supper. oops, oops and oops.
instead off all that stuff, we walked around, went to mcdonalds, ate gelato and went shopping! yay!
at night we went to a delicious indian restaurant, and left the next morning for a 2.5 hour train to venice that was a lot nicer than our last train.
getting to venice is so cool. there is a causeway that connects the main island to the mainland and its skinny and long and there are boats going to and fro all around. we walked out of the train station and right ahead of us was the grand canal! we got on the vaporetto (vaporizer, according to lisa (and me now)) and got off at the stop closest to where we thought our hotel was. our hotel was not in the spot where mother google said it would be so we were kind of in trouble, because venice is a maze if nothing else, with lots of dead ends that are unbridged water. we looked around for a long time, asked people where our street was (theyd never heard of it) and finally zeroed in on it. we had to go through a tunnel into a little courtyard and our hotel was there. anyways, once we found the place it is pretty great (except the internet is perma-down, i am at an internet cafe). we spent the first day wandering aroudn the streets, which seems like by far the best thing to do in venice! its so cool! and it doesn't smell at all! and its not even that hot!
yesterday we went to piazza san marco in the morning and saw the spectacular Byzantine church there, and in the afternoon we went to a modern art gallery and then the rialto markets (awesome - the market anyways). we went out for a nice many-course italian dinner too!
today we went to the old art gallery and this afternoon we are going to ride the vaporizers and get off wherever we feel like it! woo!
40 seconds left, gotta go!
simon
Sunday, August 5, 2007
today we are going to italy!
hey hey
marseille has come and gone, and we are leaving Nice in about an hour, but before that i figured i'd catch up a little with this.
lisa and i both liked marseille a lot and thought it was very pretty! i will grant that there are a lot of sketchy areas, and i definitely would not want to go there alone if i was a girl (all along the streets men just hang out and oogle and theres usually no girls around except for other ones walking by... its creepy even for me), but the scenery is amazing and they have a lovely old port area, some nice beaches, and cool islands in the port area.
we visited the two islands on an awesome ferry boat, Ile d'If (known for the fortress/prison on it) and Ile Frioul (we went to a beach in a little cove) and had a nice day doing that, followed by a night of beers and laundry. go us!
the next day we went to the city beach because the lovely calanques close at 11 in the morning to keep the crowds off (and we definitely slept past 11). after that, i took lisa on a wild goose chase up a mountain, down the other side, and up another mountain to reach a church that is perched on top of a 150m mountain overlooking the old port area and all of marseille really. the view was spectacular, and i'm glad we walked even though it was so hot out.
at night we went to see transformers, assuming incorrectly that it would be english with subtitles like the other 2 movies we saw in foreign places. its a good thing it was an action movie or else it would have been pretty boring, but we follozed along pretty well and the giant robots are sweet! "MOI, OPTIMUS PRIME!" haha!
we took the train to nice on thursday and got here in the early afternoon. we had a pretty slow day, just lunging around and wandering a bit and checking out the beach. the next day we went to the beach and tried to keep the momentum going to go out at night but i had to take a nap at 7 and once i woke up i was a total zombie, so even though we split a bottle of wine and went out it was subpar. on saturday we took a train to monte carlo and checked out the glorious riches of the wealthiest country in the world... the scene outside of the casino there is pretty ridiculous! there are the sweetest cars you would ever want to see... and where else could you see two ferraris pass each other in a hairpin turn? je ne sais pas.
i hate to be cliché but the best zord to describe Nice is that its nice. there is a nice beach, nice pedestrian streets and nice cafes and restaurants everywhere! our hotel turned out to be really nice (i love AC), 100m from the beach and in between the Armani and Louis Vuitton stores, and across the street from Chanel. that made lisa happy!
when we got back from monaco yesterday lisa went shopping while i found internet and tried to figure out my tuition for the fall. it is confusing! then, we got ready to go out, drank the beer that was chilling in our private fridge, and found a cool little club in old nice playing some good beats. we managed to get 2 for 1 coronas and free t shirts! go us!
today we are not hungover (yay!) and we just had a picnic lunch in a park by the beach. in about 3 minutes we're going to go back to our hotel, grab our stuff and then hop on a train to Milan! we are going to be over our heads with italian but it's been done before so i'm sure the language thing won't be too big of a problem.
au revoir! only 2 weeks left for me, woah!
simon
marseille has come and gone, and we are leaving Nice in about an hour, but before that i figured i'd catch up a little with this.
lisa and i both liked marseille a lot and thought it was very pretty! i will grant that there are a lot of sketchy areas, and i definitely would not want to go there alone if i was a girl (all along the streets men just hang out and oogle and theres usually no girls around except for other ones walking by... its creepy even for me), but the scenery is amazing and they have a lovely old port area, some nice beaches, and cool islands in the port area.
we visited the two islands on an awesome ferry boat, Ile d'If (known for the fortress/prison on it) and Ile Frioul (we went to a beach in a little cove) and had a nice day doing that, followed by a night of beers and laundry. go us!
the next day we went to the city beach because the lovely calanques close at 11 in the morning to keep the crowds off (and we definitely slept past 11). after that, i took lisa on a wild goose chase up a mountain, down the other side, and up another mountain to reach a church that is perched on top of a 150m mountain overlooking the old port area and all of marseille really. the view was spectacular, and i'm glad we walked even though it was so hot out.
at night we went to see transformers, assuming incorrectly that it would be english with subtitles like the other 2 movies we saw in foreign places. its a good thing it was an action movie or else it would have been pretty boring, but we follozed along pretty well and the giant robots are sweet! "MOI, OPTIMUS PRIME!" haha!
we took the train to nice on thursday and got here in the early afternoon. we had a pretty slow day, just lunging around and wandering a bit and checking out the beach. the next day we went to the beach and tried to keep the momentum going to go out at night but i had to take a nap at 7 and once i woke up i was a total zombie, so even though we split a bottle of wine and went out it was subpar. on saturday we took a train to monte carlo and checked out the glorious riches of the wealthiest country in the world... the scene outside of the casino there is pretty ridiculous! there are the sweetest cars you would ever want to see... and where else could you see two ferraris pass each other in a hairpin turn? je ne sais pas.
i hate to be cliché but the best zord to describe Nice is that its nice. there is a nice beach, nice pedestrian streets and nice cafes and restaurants everywhere! our hotel turned out to be really nice (i love AC), 100m from the beach and in between the Armani and Louis Vuitton stores, and across the street from Chanel. that made lisa happy!
when we got back from monaco yesterday lisa went shopping while i found internet and tried to figure out my tuition for the fall. it is confusing! then, we got ready to go out, drank the beer that was chilling in our private fridge, and found a cool little club in old nice playing some good beats. we managed to get 2 for 1 coronas and free t shirts! go us!
today we are not hungover (yay!) and we just had a picnic lunch in a park by the beach. in about 3 minutes we're going to go back to our hotel, grab our stuff and then hop on a train to Milan! we are going to be over our heads with italian but it's been done before so i'm sure the language thing won't be too big of a problem.
au revoir! only 2 weeks left for me, woah!
simon
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
skip ahead to marseille!
hey! we are in marseille now, and spain is long gone.
on our last day in spain, we went to sagrada familia and went inside and it was marvellous! it is so tall and the tallest parts arent even finished yet. there is a museum about the construction underneath the church and its cool to see the 1/10 models of everything and follow the progress. again the towers were closed but thats not such a big deal. we attempted to go to the picasso museum but the lineup was way too long for the desire that we had to visit it so we left and instead went to the barcelona aquarium! their big thing is that they have 3 pretty big sharks floating around in an enormous tank with a bunch of fish that i dont know why they dont eat. but the coolest things, for us, were their THREE octopuses! they also had a fish that crawled around the bottom on legs and ther crazy looking animals! it was fun. we had an easy night of chinese food followed by a light and music show at the fountains in front of the art gallery that shot water jets up to 45 feet high!
the next day we had a long travel day, taking 3 separate trains from barcelona to arles. it was pretty uneventful but we were very happy to finally arrive. arles is a pretty small town in the south of france that has some old roman stuff. apparently when the romans owned gaul (francem spain & britain) arles was the capital of gaul. they have a 2 story coliseum that is over 100m in diameter and is still used for bullfights, very cool.
on our first day in arles, we left arles to go to pont du gard via avignon. pont du gard is a 2000 year old aqueduct that is 48 meters tall and is pretty spectacular! it took us over 2 hours to get there and get back via train and bu, but i think it was worth it. we were so so tired after that and totally crashed for a nap before dinner. we ate at a nice looking cafe that night, and things were lovely until they brought lisa's shrimps out with heads still on and in a really gross sauce. oops. we forgot that here you have to order shrimps without heads if you dont want the heads to still be on.
the next day we wandered around arles and went into the coliseum and then spent the rest of the day finding me new sunglasses because mine broke. we left arles for marseille by train and spent last night exploring the beautiful boaty old port. today i got my hair cut, and soon we will be taking a ferry to some of the islands in the harbour.
its kind of a relief to be back in a country where we can communicate. when we were planning the trip i underestimated how much more comfortable it is when you can speak the language.
bye for now!
simon
on our last day in spain, we went to sagrada familia and went inside and it was marvellous! it is so tall and the tallest parts arent even finished yet. there is a museum about the construction underneath the church and its cool to see the 1/10 models of everything and follow the progress. again the towers were closed but thats not such a big deal. we attempted to go to the picasso museum but the lineup was way too long for the desire that we had to visit it so we left and instead went to the barcelona aquarium! their big thing is that they have 3 pretty big sharks floating around in an enormous tank with a bunch of fish that i dont know why they dont eat. but the coolest things, for us, were their THREE octopuses! they also had a fish that crawled around the bottom on legs and ther crazy looking animals! it was fun. we had an easy night of chinese food followed by a light and music show at the fountains in front of the art gallery that shot water jets up to 45 feet high!
the next day we had a long travel day, taking 3 separate trains from barcelona to arles. it was pretty uneventful but we were very happy to finally arrive. arles is a pretty small town in the south of france that has some old roman stuff. apparently when the romans owned gaul (francem spain & britain) arles was the capital of gaul. they have a 2 story coliseum that is over 100m in diameter and is still used for bullfights, very cool.
on our first day in arles, we left arles to go to pont du gard via avignon. pont du gard is a 2000 year old aqueduct that is 48 meters tall and is pretty spectacular! it took us over 2 hours to get there and get back via train and bu, but i think it was worth it. we were so so tired after that and totally crashed for a nap before dinner. we ate at a nice looking cafe that night, and things were lovely until they brought lisa's shrimps out with heads still on and in a really gross sauce. oops. we forgot that here you have to order shrimps without heads if you dont want the heads to still be on.
the next day we wandered around arles and went into the coliseum and then spent the rest of the day finding me new sunglasses because mine broke. we left arles for marseille by train and spent last night exploring the beautiful boaty old port. today i got my hair cut, and soon we will be taking a ferry to some of the islands in the harbour.
its kind of a relief to be back in a country where we can communicate. when we were planning the trip i underestimated how much more comfortable it is when you can speak the language.
bye for now!
simon
Thursday, July 26, 2007
second stint in barcelona
today marks a week since we have been in spain. coincidentally it has not rained during the last week... hmmm... it seems like a very long time ago that lisa and i were moaning and groaning about cold and rain and never getting any sunshine. right now there are no clouds and it would be really weird if it was less than 25 during the day. so nice!
we flew back to barcelona from mallorca yesterday on our first delayed flight of the trip - good thing we didnt have anything to do except be on vacation. it was an hour or so late, funny because the flight is only 30 mins or so.
we found our new hostel and they were expecting us as usual. we are staying in a 3 bed room this time with an american guy named john who is nice. (liz, he does not seem like a psycho killer, dont worry). once we had checked in we went out in search of chinese food and sagrada familia. the first was hard to find, the second is huge, so not so much. once we found a place to eat asian food we had our first point-at-the-menu-and-hope-for-the-best experience. the meal turned out pretty good but not what we expected. it was fun.
http://titan.iwu.edu/~business/iwubts/barcelona.html - if you have not seen pics of sagrada familia take a quick look. its not like any church you have seen. its unreal! it is still under construction and expected to be completed in around 2020. unfortunately when we got there the tower was closed due to high winds (weird) and so we decided to leave it for later. instead, we went to parc guell, another gaudi creation. by the way, if i havent mentioned it so far, antoni gaudi is a barcelonan architect who created all sorts of cool 'modernista' type stuff all over barcelona. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaudà i stole a pic from the internet of the view from the terrace in the park. we had to take escalators to get there! ive seen stairways that counted as roads, but never escalator roads. cool!
when we got home from the park we hung out for a while before going out again in search of something asian. we wandered and wandered and finally found some indian food, so we ate that alongside a pitcher of sangria! lisa decided to go slow on the sangria which means that i drank most of it, to her amusement. she had her fun and we got to bed early because we had big plans for today.
lisa has been dying to go to a waterpark, so last night she looked it up, found the biggest one in europe near barcelona, and figured out how to get there. we set our alarm clock for 8:30 today, woke up at 11:45 and went on our way lol. i dunno how we missed the alarm. oh well.
we took their go-train equivalent out of the city for about half an hour, got off at the stop they said to get off at, and didnt see the waterpark anywhere. just then, an accordian bus came up with an ad for it on the side, so we got on and to our utmost pleasure it took us right there! we got to the waterpark at 1:45 and waited until 2:00 to save 6 euros on admission. and we werent the only ones doing that, it was kind of funny.
the waterpark was so much fun! we spent all day going up stairs and down slides! unfortunately they did not have a lazy river, but that is a small deal! so much fun!! http://www.illafantasia.com/eng/index.htm
and it was nice change to be in chlorine water instead of salt water.
tonight we are going to go out for dinner and drinks with some people from the hostel. hopefully it will be fun! lisa is having a nap, she is all tuckered out from a big day of sliding and being silly!
tomorrow we are going to try the church again, and then go to the beach or to the picaso museum, depending on how hungover lis... i mean 'we' are.
adios!
simon
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
mallorca
on saturday night, lisa and i flew to mallorca and quickly found our hotel and got settled in and everything. the next day, we slept in and spent all day on the beach and swimming in the ocean. we had 3 days in mallorca and that more or less sums up all of them.
see, we thought that 9 weeks of travelling would be tiring and draining so we went on a vacation from our vacation halfway through. smart move! we are now recharged and ready to go back to barcelona tomorrow. after being sun-starved in the north of europe for a month we are loving roasting our bodies in the sun.
mallorca is an island off the coast of spain, one of the baleric islands (ibiza is our neighbour). i think its about 200 km from barcelona. we are staying about a 5 minute drive outside of the main city, Palma.
mallorca is famous for partying, so its too bad that we didnt come for a friday or saturday night. having said that, lisa and i went out last night and partied and it was still pretty busy and a lot of fun. we went to a place called Tito's which was way too cool for us, but i guess since it was a monday night it didnt matter too much. There is a main street that has bars for blocks, its wild! they don't really get going until about 1 or 1:30 and the party goes until 5 or 6 (for some people). i managed to not metronome, but we didnt make it to the sunrise or anything.
we went out for dinner before partying and had some tapas and light meals. tapas are like appetizers and people here will supposedly go out for a dinner of just a variety of tapas. one of our tapas was OCTOPUS! oooh... it was tasty!
more to come later. we didnt really explore much of mallorca, but that was the goal, and we had an awesome time just hanging out!
ttyl
simon
see, we thought that 9 weeks of travelling would be tiring and draining so we went on a vacation from our vacation halfway through. smart move! we are now recharged and ready to go back to barcelona tomorrow. after being sun-starved in the north of europe for a month we are loving roasting our bodies in the sun.
mallorca is an island off the coast of spain, one of the baleric islands (ibiza is our neighbour). i think its about 200 km from barcelona. we are staying about a 5 minute drive outside of the main city, Palma.
mallorca is famous for partying, so its too bad that we didnt come for a friday or saturday night. having said that, lisa and i went out last night and partied and it was still pretty busy and a lot of fun. we went to a place called Tito's which was way too cool for us, but i guess since it was a monday night it didnt matter too much. There is a main street that has bars for blocks, its wild! they don't really get going until about 1 or 1:30 and the party goes until 5 or 6 (for some people). i managed to not metronome, but we didnt make it to the sunrise or anything.
we went out for dinner before partying and had some tapas and light meals. tapas are like appetizers and people here will supposedly go out for a dinner of just a variety of tapas. one of our tapas was OCTOPUS! oooh... it was tasty!
more to come later. we didnt really explore much of mallorca, but that was the goal, and we had an awesome time just hanging out!
ttyl
simon
harry potter
lisa and i have been counting down to july 21 for weeks and weeks, because we are that nerdy and that obsessed. finally, the day was here! we woke up early and took the subway to the bookstore, and got there right as it opened. we picked up our harry potters and metroed back to the beach, where we set up our towels and went to work. i will overlook the minor details about eating and getting ourselves to the airport but 13 hours later we were both finished, minds blown. well done JK. and that was what we did on july 21. there are no pictures, we were far too busy.
hehe
simon
hehe
simon
Friday, July 20, 2007
and now for a quick actual post
i'm not sure where i left off but i know that i havent talked about the last bit of paris or of barcelona yet. lisa and i had a busy last couple of days in paris and saw musee de louvre and d'orsay, and spoke canadian french to some skeptical parisians. all in all it was a fun time. And, more importantly, we bought mini speakers for the ipod so we now have music!!
one of the last nights in paris we went out with dave to a very random and rogue little bar and drank til it closed and then took a taxi home. it was fun, but then we slept in the next day, because thats what we do.
we managed to get ourselves to the airport the day after and took off to barcelona on vueling airlines, which were very impressive. we are flying to mallorca and back with them too, leaving tomorrow.
barcelona is awesome. if stockholm was warm it might be better than barcelona... but its not. there is city and beach and palm trees and wonderful things everywhere! i think that spain was designed for adolescents from around the world. everything is closed until like 10 in the morning, lunch is late and long, dinner is not until 9 or 10 and everyone stays up late because theres nothing to do the next morning until 10. its great!
today we strolled around at a leisurely pace and did some shopping and lisa got her hair done, in spanish, which was a fun adventure for her. she looks great though, dont worry anyone. although, if she didnt theres not much we could do. this is the first place where most people dont speak english and we dont speak their language, so we are in prety deep. but as long as we stick to fairly touristly places, my 'resort spanish' (quattro cervezas senor, por favor!!) and lisa's one term of spanish should get us by.
we also saw some of gaudi's crazy architecture today which was pretty cool to stare at in real life. this evening we might go to the beach before dinner. i am excited to swim and can't believe i havent gone yet.
tomorrow we are going to get up early and go to the bookstore and get harry potter and the deathly hallows and we are going to read it until we are done! we are way too obsessed...
bye bye!
simon
one of the last nights in paris we went out with dave to a very random and rogue little bar and drank til it closed and then took a taxi home. it was fun, but then we slept in the next day, because thats what we do.
we managed to get ourselves to the airport the day after and took off to barcelona on vueling airlines, which were very impressive. we are flying to mallorca and back with them too, leaving tomorrow.
barcelona is awesome. if stockholm was warm it might be better than barcelona... but its not. there is city and beach and palm trees and wonderful things everywhere! i think that spain was designed for adolescents from around the world. everything is closed until like 10 in the morning, lunch is late and long, dinner is not until 9 or 10 and everyone stays up late because theres nothing to do the next morning until 10. its great!
today we strolled around at a leisurely pace and did some shopping and lisa got her hair done, in spanish, which was a fun adventure for her. she looks great though, dont worry anyone. although, if she didnt theres not much we could do. this is the first place where most people dont speak english and we dont speak their language, so we are in prety deep. but as long as we stick to fairly touristly places, my 'resort spanish' (quattro cervezas senor, por favor!!) and lisa's one term of spanish should get us by.
we also saw some of gaudi's crazy architecture today which was pretty cool to stare at in real life. this evening we might go to the beach before dinner. i am excited to swim and can't believe i havent gone yet.
tomorrow we are going to get up early and go to the bookstore and get harry potter and the deathly hallows and we are going to read it until we are done! we are way too obsessed...
bye bye!
simon
les photos!! (3)
Lisa in one of the tubes of the Atomium in Brussels. All of our good pics from brussels are sideways, so this is all you get. but its nice anyways because it has lisa in it. awww ;)
Lisa and I outside of the Tower of London. It's too bad that our random photographer put her finger in the corner. oops!
Lisa on the Millenium Bridge in London. The little white building behind her and to the right is Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. We were on our way there to see a play!
Lisa at Windsor Castle, just outside of London. This is where the Queen likes to spend some of her weekends. This is where Lisa likes to spend some of her vacations.
Me with Sarah & Julien in front of the Eiffel Tower on the night that we got to Paris.
Lisa and I on the hill in front of Scare-Coeur in Montmartre in Paris (that city behind us)
Bastille day! What a party! L-R: Lisa, Me, Julien's sister (I'm so good with names), Jason, Behrang. Here we are outside the carousel. Behind the photographer is the eiffel tower! Wine did mean things to us.
les photos!! (2)
This is me and lisa overlooking a canal in Amsterdam. After being in stockholm, amsterdam seemed like a bit of a dump. but you would never know that from this picture.
this is me outside of the sweet castle in Gent!
this is lisa with perry (far right) and his two friends that we met up with on Canada Day in Amsterdam.
i am leaning on an old bridge that crosses a canal in Gent. Gent is about 30 mins from Brussels, in Belgium.
this is me outside of the sweet castle in Gent!
les photos!! (1)
Lisa and her friend Alison in a 'Late Night Pub' in Dublin. I think that Alison is keeping a close eye on the PDA couple on the couch beside us. Seriously, they were gross! There are no pics of actual Dublin because Nicole has these on a CD for us; we deleted them to make room for new pics so we don't have them with us anymore.
Me in one of the many random beautiful parks in Copenhagen. This one had a bridge! oooh!
Here is lisa drinking a 1L carlsberg in copenhagen haha
This is what stockholm looked like at 11:30 at night, after we got home from seeing the Arctic Monkeys at the Globen! I couldn't believe how light it was!!
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
petit aside
hey
this has to be short, i have 4 mins of internet left! so sunday lisa and i went to a park to relax after sleeping the day half-away after an awesome time at bastille day at the eiffel tower. i got out the camera to take her picture, and... it said 'memory card cannot be read'. so for the rest of the day we tried not to think about the possibility that pics from half our trip could be gone, but we couldn't help it.
the good news is that they are not gone - i don't know what is up with the memory card. we found out that they are alive and well when we got them put onto CDs. so, the even better news is that if i can remember the CDs the next time i post, then there will be pictures of our trip that should brighten up this monochrome blog a little bit!
ttyl
simon
this has to be short, i have 4 mins of internet left! so sunday lisa and i went to a park to relax after sleeping the day half-away after an awesome time at bastille day at the eiffel tower. i got out the camera to take her picture, and... it said 'memory card cannot be read'. so for the rest of the day we tried not to think about the possibility that pics from half our trip could be gone, but we couldn't help it.
the good news is that they are not gone - i don't know what is up with the memory card. we found out that they are alive and well when we got them put onto CDs. so, the even better news is that if i can remember the CDs the next time i post, then there will be pictures of our trip that should brighten up this monochrome blog a little bit!
ttyl
simon
Sunday, July 15, 2007
bastille day!
good afternoon everyone
lisa and i are in paris now. we are staying in a little hotel that is good so far. it's cozy and it's nice to have our own washroom complete with shower once again! and, we are there for - nights so its very nice not to have to pack for almost a week.
we arrived on the eurostar high speed train from london that goes through the chunnel on friday afternoon. going through the chunnel is dark and boring but its cool to think that you are under ocean. there was zero difficulty getting into france which was quite welcome. we arrived at our hotel and bumped into sarah and julien (lisa's friend sarah from high school & her boyfriend) a couple of hours later in our hotel lobby as they were staying at the same place. they left this morning, too bad, but it was fun to have some friends around for a couple days.
on friday night we had dinner and then took the metro to the eiffel tower and sat on the lawn in front of it and freaked out a little because its a pretty awesome thing to be doing at night! i was concerned that the ,etro would stop running but it didnt. we got back on at around 1 and took it all the way... to the wrong end of the city, finally realizing our error just before we hit the end of the line. thankfully there were still trains running so we jumped on going the other way and went 27 stops back to our hotel. oops! my first big navigational mistake!
yesterday we slept in a bit and went to pere lachaise cemetery where famous people are buried. then we took a train to monmartre and climbed up the billion steps to the sacre-coeur church on top of a big hill that gives a monumental view of the city of paris. OH!!!! i almost forgot the most exciting part! paris is HOT! like 30 degrees hot! after ".( weeks of hoping for something over 20 the sun and the hot is most welcome, even though i feel like i am melting.
anyways, we hung out for a while on top of the hill before descending and going back to our hotel to relax before going out at night. july 14 is bastille day so there were fireworks planned at the eiffel tower at 10:30 (which were awesome).
i found out on thursday that jason was in paris and on friday i got a message from dave that he and behrang were here too. yay! we tried to figure out a way to meet up by only using internet which was slow and painful but then, walking to pere lachaise cemetery we bumped into them in the street! random!
i will post now because i'm not sure when my time will expire. more to follow later if my time is up.
cheers! simon
lisa and i are in paris now. we are staying in a little hotel that is good so far. it's cozy and it's nice to have our own washroom complete with shower once again! and, we are there for - nights so its very nice not to have to pack for almost a week.
we arrived on the eurostar high speed train from london that goes through the chunnel on friday afternoon. going through the chunnel is dark and boring but its cool to think that you are under ocean. there was zero difficulty getting into france which was quite welcome. we arrived at our hotel and bumped into sarah and julien (lisa's friend sarah from high school & her boyfriend) a couple of hours later in our hotel lobby as they were staying at the same place. they left this morning, too bad, but it was fun to have some friends around for a couple days.
on friday night we had dinner and then took the metro to the eiffel tower and sat on the lawn in front of it and freaked out a little because its a pretty awesome thing to be doing at night! i was concerned that the ,etro would stop running but it didnt. we got back on at around 1 and took it all the way... to the wrong end of the city, finally realizing our error just before we hit the end of the line. thankfully there were still trains running so we jumped on going the other way and went 27 stops back to our hotel. oops! my first big navigational mistake!
yesterday we slept in a bit and went to pere lachaise cemetery where famous people are buried. then we took a train to monmartre and climbed up the billion steps to the sacre-coeur church on top of a big hill that gives a monumental view of the city of paris. OH!!!! i almost forgot the most exciting part! paris is HOT! like 30 degrees hot! after ".( weeks of hoping for something over 20 the sun and the hot is most welcome, even though i feel like i am melting.
anyways, we hung out for a while on top of the hill before descending and going back to our hotel to relax before going out at night. july 14 is bastille day so there were fireworks planned at the eiffel tower at 10:30 (which were awesome).
i found out on thursday that jason was in paris and on friday i got a message from dave that he and behrang were here too. yay! we tried to figure out a way to meet up by only using internet which was slow and painful but then, walking to pere lachaise cemetery we bumped into them in the street! random!
i will post now because i'm not sure when my time will expire. more to follow later if my time is up.
cheers! simon
Thursday, July 12, 2007
london is big
hey
lisa and i have been busy tourists in london, trying to see all that there is to see in 4 days. 4 days later, we are pretty wiped out and tired. wow. this place is big! the other cities that we have been have had city centres that we could walk all around and get to know, but the city centre here is so vast that we quickly figured out that its impossible to learn it all. we are a long way from ghent!
we met the first mean person of our trip in london: the customs agent that yelled at us for 10 minutes for... well, we're not exactly sure why. but he was pissed! in any case, he got distracted by something else and let us in. phew.
on tuesday we met the first person that would not give lisa a student price, at westminister abbey, because she forgot her card in canada. oh well, i guess the gravy train had to end sometime.
on monday we went to the tower of london. we thought that the other castles that we had seen were big and imposing, but this thing was ridiculous. its not so much a tower as it is 20 towers, connected by walls and dungeons and fortress and jewels. the crown jewels are so garish and crazy that its pretty funny. and there was no lineup so that was nice. lisa wants me to mention that there is a 530 carat diamond on one of the royal sceptres. crazy!
we went to the british museum in the afternoon and saw the rosetta stone (the thing they used to translate egyptian heiroglyphics into actual language) and some other nice old art. they had a preserved man that was like 5000 years old or something. wild! we went out afterwards for some london curry and ate too much and then couldnt move anymore. oops!
on tuesday we went to westminister abbey, which is a glorious church but also a weird graveyard building full of tombs of famous people and kings and queens and stuff. we tapped our iron rings on the gravestone of one rudyard kipling! woo!! (the guy who wrote the iron ring ceremony) next we went by trafalgar square and picadilly circus and buckingham palace. at the palace we think that the queen was having a party because there was a huge lineup of distinguished looking gentlemen and society ladies in funny hats of all sorts. we took pictures of them and laughed at their silly looking hats. but at the end of the day the joke was on us because they got to go in and we did not. boo!
lisa and i continued on and had our own tea party at Harrod's. it was quite lovely! we had scones and sandwiches and delicious desserts, and a qhole heap of nice tea. we pretended we were fancy! no wait, we ARE fancy. since i don't need nice pants anymore i ditched them after tea! anything to lighten the load!
that night we met up with dimoe in east london. he is there for 2 months doing some training for work. right before he met us at the tube stop he said there was a ridiculous street fight right outside his apartment! wrenches and baseball bats and everything! when we got there it was mostly cleared up but there was a car that was all smashed up. don't worry, london is safe if you are not in a gang that is fighting another gang with bats. we went out for drinks at an english pub and i tried the most awful beer i have ever tasted. it was served warm and gross and so i drank it as fast as i could to get it off the table. oh man. it made me miss ireland. and belgium.
yesterday we had a huge day. we visited kensington palace in hyde park in the morning and then went on a rowboat in hyde park in the afternoon. i REALLY wish that we could be uploading things, because we have an awesome video of a swan attacking another swan that we will have to youtube when we get back!
in the afternoon we went to visit covent gardens and watched some street buskers. we had fish and chips in an english pub (with some imported beers) and then went to shakespeare's globe theatre for a presentation of love's labours lost. it was really good! our tickets were 5 pounds because we were sitting in the rabble (we were "groundlings"), the people that stand in front of the stage while the play was going on. at the end of 3.5 hours our feet were dying, but it was a good play when we could figure out what the heck was going on. my feet still hurt today and so do lisa's.
but, we played through the pain anyways. today we went to windsor castle in the countryside, which is huge and is medieval like the tower of london but also impossibly decorated like versailles in paris. it looks just like you would expect and want a castle to look like.
we are all done our sightseeing now, and we can now relax. we're going to take it easy for a couple of hours, have some dinner, and then go out and see harry potter here on opening night! is it weird that we were more excited by this than by almost anything else in london? (yes) we went to a toy store to look for magic wands and capes to wear tonight but decided not to for 2 reasons: 1. it would have been 20£ each and 2. the capes were kids sizes... why can't we find an adult sized cape in this city?
tomorrow we are going to be taking a train through the chunnel into paris. we will eat baguettes, drink coffee and ride our bicycles, all at the same time!
some comments about london:
- the tube is vast and complicated but its not all that fast. there are often slow downs and with so many different trains using the same tracks they often have to wait for each other. its busy and hot. but its also impossible to live without, and with a city this big and this dense is an absolute must.
- our hostel was okay but we had to move around a couple of times in order to get the rooms that we wanted. it will be nice to stay in the same room for 6 days in paris!
- london is uber expensive but thats not a surprise to us, we had heard all about it. still, it hurts.
- bye bye english... this is our last day in an english speaking country. lisa will be my personal translator from now on. its so nice to have a linguist as a travelling companion! okay this wasnt really about london.
sorry it was long but there was a lot to say. london is a busy place!
au revoir!
simon
lisa and i have been busy tourists in london, trying to see all that there is to see in 4 days. 4 days later, we are pretty wiped out and tired. wow. this place is big! the other cities that we have been have had city centres that we could walk all around and get to know, but the city centre here is so vast that we quickly figured out that its impossible to learn it all. we are a long way from ghent!
we met the first mean person of our trip in london: the customs agent that yelled at us for 10 minutes for... well, we're not exactly sure why. but he was pissed! in any case, he got distracted by something else and let us in. phew.
on tuesday we met the first person that would not give lisa a student price, at westminister abbey, because she forgot her card in canada. oh well, i guess the gravy train had to end sometime.
on monday we went to the tower of london. we thought that the other castles that we had seen were big and imposing, but this thing was ridiculous. its not so much a tower as it is 20 towers, connected by walls and dungeons and fortress and jewels. the crown jewels are so garish and crazy that its pretty funny. and there was no lineup so that was nice. lisa wants me to mention that there is a 530 carat diamond on one of the royal sceptres. crazy!
we went to the british museum in the afternoon and saw the rosetta stone (the thing they used to translate egyptian heiroglyphics into actual language) and some other nice old art. they had a preserved man that was like 5000 years old or something. wild! we went out afterwards for some london curry and ate too much and then couldnt move anymore. oops!
on tuesday we went to westminister abbey, which is a glorious church but also a weird graveyard building full of tombs of famous people and kings and queens and stuff. we tapped our iron rings on the gravestone of one rudyard kipling! woo!! (the guy who wrote the iron ring ceremony) next we went by trafalgar square and picadilly circus and buckingham palace. at the palace we think that the queen was having a party because there was a huge lineup of distinguished looking gentlemen and society ladies in funny hats of all sorts. we took pictures of them and laughed at their silly looking hats. but at the end of the day the joke was on us because they got to go in and we did not. boo!
lisa and i continued on and had our own tea party at Harrod's. it was quite lovely! we had scones and sandwiches and delicious desserts, and a qhole heap of nice tea. we pretended we were fancy! no wait, we ARE fancy. since i don't need nice pants anymore i ditched them after tea! anything to lighten the load!
that night we met up with dimoe in east london. he is there for 2 months doing some training for work. right before he met us at the tube stop he said there was a ridiculous street fight right outside his apartment! wrenches and baseball bats and everything! when we got there it was mostly cleared up but there was a car that was all smashed up. don't worry, london is safe if you are not in a gang that is fighting another gang with bats. we went out for drinks at an english pub and i tried the most awful beer i have ever tasted. it was served warm and gross and so i drank it as fast as i could to get it off the table. oh man. it made me miss ireland. and belgium.
yesterday we had a huge day. we visited kensington palace in hyde park in the morning and then went on a rowboat in hyde park in the afternoon. i REALLY wish that we could be uploading things, because we have an awesome video of a swan attacking another swan that we will have to youtube when we get back!
in the afternoon we went to visit covent gardens and watched some street buskers. we had fish and chips in an english pub (with some imported beers) and then went to shakespeare's globe theatre for a presentation of love's labours lost. it was really good! our tickets were 5 pounds because we were sitting in the rabble (we were "groundlings"), the people that stand in front of the stage while the play was going on. at the end of 3.5 hours our feet were dying, but it was a good play when we could figure out what the heck was going on. my feet still hurt today and so do lisa's.
but, we played through the pain anyways. today we went to windsor castle in the countryside, which is huge and is medieval like the tower of london but also impossibly decorated like versailles in paris. it looks just like you would expect and want a castle to look like.
we are all done our sightseeing now, and we can now relax. we're going to take it easy for a couple of hours, have some dinner, and then go out and see harry potter here on opening night! is it weird that we were more excited by this than by almost anything else in london? (yes) we went to a toy store to look for magic wands and capes to wear tonight but decided not to for 2 reasons: 1. it would have been 20£ each and 2. the capes were kids sizes... why can't we find an adult sized cape in this city?
tomorrow we are going to be taking a train through the chunnel into paris. we will eat baguettes, drink coffee and ride our bicycles, all at the same time!
some comments about london:
- the tube is vast and complicated but its not all that fast. there are often slow downs and with so many different trains using the same tracks they often have to wait for each other. its busy and hot. but its also impossible to live without, and with a city this big and this dense is an absolute must.
- our hostel was okay but we had to move around a couple of times in order to get the rooms that we wanted. it will be nice to stay in the same room for 6 days in paris!
- london is uber expensive but thats not a surprise to us, we had heard all about it. still, it hurts.
- bye bye english... this is our last day in an english speaking country. lisa will be my personal translator from now on. its so nice to have a linguist as a travelling companion! okay this wasnt really about london.
sorry it was long but there was a lot to say. london is a busy place!
au revoir!
simon
Friday, July 6, 2007
belgian beers... and other belgian things
the first belgian beer that i tried was 11% and was served at 12°C. it was called kasteel. i chose it randomly. it was comme ci comme ca.
but to back things up
we got to belgium 2 days ago. we stayed in Gent on juliusz's recommendation, which was spot on. Gent is such a cool place, it's all medieval and stuff. as soon as we checked into our bed and breakfast we went straight to the castle there and explored around. it was awesome, i wish i could upload pics of it. then for the rest of the day we just explored and sat on patios when it wasn't raining and enjoyed delicious belgian beers like the one i wrote about already.
we were only in Gent for one night. yesterday we took the train to Brussels, which i keep on calling belgium. ohhh yeah. we are staying in a decent hostel a little ways away but close enough. qfter checking in yesterday we came downtown and got belgian waffles for a snack. i wish that they had those in canada on the street. but then again i wish that they had all of these crazy rando, street foods in canada also, like the french hot dogs in scandinavia. mmmm!
we couldn't go to the ,qin square, the grand place, last night because there was so,e kind of ,edieval fair going on last night there, with horses and people in medieval costumes and stuff. they had a little parade of the, and we danced around with the silly jesters in the street! silly us! we tried watching for a bit but it was a little boring so we left qnd strolled around a little more before retiring for the evening.
today we visited the atomium and stopped off at our favourite belgian vietthai restqurqnt for lunch. lekkar!!
brussels is fun but its a weird mix of international people and tourists and languages. it is the most bilingual (french and dutch) city i have been to. the 2 languages are on everything and no one really see,s to prefer or push one over the other.
i don't know what we are going to do for the rest of the day but i'm sure something fun will co,e along! we are going to london on sunday, and are going to try to see the new harry potter movie there!
that is all for today. hopefully we will be able to post ,ore often so that it doesn't take forever to do an update. sorry for being so verbose everyone.
adios!
simon
but to back things up
we got to belgium 2 days ago. we stayed in Gent on juliusz's recommendation, which was spot on. Gent is such a cool place, it's all medieval and stuff. as soon as we checked into our bed and breakfast we went straight to the castle there and explored around. it was awesome, i wish i could upload pics of it. then for the rest of the day we just explored and sat on patios when it wasn't raining and enjoyed delicious belgian beers like the one i wrote about already.
we were only in Gent for one night. yesterday we took the train to Brussels, which i keep on calling belgium. ohhh yeah. we are staying in a decent hostel a little ways away but close enough. qfter checking in yesterday we came downtown and got belgian waffles for a snack. i wish that they had those in canada on the street. but then again i wish that they had all of these crazy rando, street foods in canada also, like the french hot dogs in scandinavia. mmmm!
we couldn't go to the ,qin square, the grand place, last night because there was so,e kind of ,edieval fair going on last night there, with horses and people in medieval costumes and stuff. they had a little parade of the, and we danced around with the silly jesters in the street! silly us! we tried watching for a bit but it was a little boring so we left qnd strolled around a little more before retiring for the evening.
today we visited the atomium and stopped off at our favourite belgian vietthai restqurqnt for lunch. lekkar!!
brussels is fun but its a weird mix of international people and tourists and languages. it is the most bilingual (french and dutch) city i have been to. the 2 languages are on everything and no one really see,s to prefer or push one over the other.
i don't know what we are going to do for the rest of the day but i'm sure something fun will co,e along! we are going to london on sunday, and are going to try to see the new harry potter movie there!
that is all for today. hopefully we will be able to post ,ore often so that it doesn't take forever to do an update. sorry for being so verbose everyone.
adios!
simon
our huis in amsterdam
we landed in amsterdam's schipol airport on sunday and immediately our plane drove on a plane bridge over a highway. so right away, holland is more than okay in our books! we took a cheap nice and easy (and slow compared to the stockhol, airport train that had a spedo,eter on it and went to the airport at 204 kph!) train to downtown from the airport. we couldnt figure out how to use the tra,s right away so we walked the 20 minutes to our hostel and found it right away. lisa's friend perry and 2 of his friends were there waiting for us so that was nice. we threw our stuff in our room and went out for canada day!!
now, we had hoped to find a cool canadian bar full of canadians doing canadian things, but, well, we couldn't. so we just went to random places and told random people that our country turned 140 today. and then they suppressed a giggle. lol.
compared to stockholm and copenhagen, amsterdam is a bit of a dump. the water in the canals is dirty and there is actual garbage on the ground sometimes. once we got used to it though, we had a blast! there is so much to do in a,sterdam, more than lisa especially expected.
we wandered around for a while, tried fries with ,ayonnaise (way too much mayonnaise to be awesome, and ketchup is better), and explored the canals and the red light district. lisa at first thought it was everywhere but really its just a few blocks. however they are right downtown so a lot of the time you end up walking through it to go fro, place to place.
on monday night we caught a train to Utrecht to visit my cousin maggie, who is in school in the netherlands. Utrecht is about a half hour fro, a,sterdam. maggie treated us to dinner qnd drinks and showed us around a nice city with canals that is a lot more "dutch" than crazy amsterdam. i liked Utrecht and so did lisa. and it was a lot of fun to see my cousin! thanks maggie!
on tuesday we had what might have been our biggest day yet! we got up early, went to the van gogh museum, visited the heineken experience which is a pretty cool brewery tour, went on a boat cruise of amsterda*m's canals, and finished up at the anne frank huis. oh, and we ate fries for dinner :)
a,sterdam felt rushed because we arrived at night and left in the morning on wednesday for Gent, so even though we stayed 3 nights we weren't there for 3 days.
so far, this preplanning stuff is working out great! everything is going very s,oothly.
bye
bye
simon
now, we had hoped to find a cool canadian bar full of canadians doing canadian things, but, well, we couldn't. so we just went to random places and told random people that our country turned 140 today. and then they suppressed a giggle. lol.
compared to stockholm and copenhagen, amsterdam is a bit of a dump. the water in the canals is dirty and there is actual garbage on the ground sometimes. once we got used to it though, we had a blast! there is so much to do in a,sterdam, more than lisa especially expected.
we wandered around for a while, tried fries with ,ayonnaise (way too much mayonnaise to be awesome, and ketchup is better), and explored the canals and the red light district. lisa at first thought it was everywhere but really its just a few blocks. however they are right downtown so a lot of the time you end up walking through it to go fro, place to place.
on monday night we caught a train to Utrecht to visit my cousin maggie, who is in school in the netherlands. Utrecht is about a half hour fro, a,sterdam. maggie treated us to dinner qnd drinks and showed us around a nice city with canals that is a lot more "dutch" than crazy amsterdam. i liked Utrecht and so did lisa. and it was a lot of fun to see my cousin! thanks maggie!
on tuesday we had what might have been our biggest day yet! we got up early, went to the van gogh museum, visited the heineken experience which is a pretty cool brewery tour, went on a boat cruise of amsterda*m's canals, and finished up at the anne frank huis. oh, and we ate fries for dinner :)
a,sterdam felt rushed because we arrived at night and left in the morning on wednesday for Gent, so even though we stayed 3 nights we weren't there for 3 days.
so far, this preplanning stuff is working out great! everything is going very s,oothly.
bye
bye
simon
about stockholm...
it has been a while since i last blogged, and that is because i haven't had a big enough chunk of time. until now. i apologize ahead of time for any bizarre typos resulting from this belgian keyboard, most notably , instead of m and q instead of a.
so anyways, the day after i wrote the last blog was june 29 and that was the first, and to this date the only day sans rain for our whole trip. we went to stockholm's architectural museum for a little while and skansen, their outdoor park thing, in the afternoon. skansen is part pioneer village, part zoo and part the two of us being silly on a big hill in downtown stockholm. we especially liked the gooses. lisa fed them candy and touched a few of them! gross! i made her wash her hands before she touched ,e again.
that night we went out for a swedish dinner at a place called something like "zum frankenstein". it said it was stockholm's oldest restaurant, from 1421, but that's a maybe.
on saturday we saw ocean's 13 because it was raining. in sweden (and holland for that matter) movie theatres have assigned seats. crazy!
on sunday we went out and got some fruit for breakfast and ate it in the rain overlooking the city as our farewell. that afternoon we left and flew from stockholm to amsterdam!!
stockholm was pretty awesome overall. oh yeah, on saturday we went to a little beach in downtown stockholm and atte,pted to swim but it was WAY too cold! oops!
cheers! we hope it's raining in canada!
simon
so anyways, the day after i wrote the last blog was june 29 and that was the first, and to this date the only day sans rain for our whole trip. we went to stockholm's architectural museum for a little while and skansen, their outdoor park thing, in the afternoon. skansen is part pioneer village, part zoo and part the two of us being silly on a big hill in downtown stockholm. we especially liked the gooses. lisa fed them candy and touched a few of them! gross! i made her wash her hands before she touched ,e again.
that night we went out for a swedish dinner at a place called something like "zum frankenstein". it said it was stockholm's oldest restaurant, from 1421, but that's a maybe.
on saturday we saw ocean's 13 because it was raining. in sweden (and holland for that matter) movie theatres have assigned seats. crazy!
on sunday we went out and got some fruit for breakfast and ate it in the rain overlooking the city as our farewell. that afternoon we left and flew from stockholm to amsterdam!!
stockholm was pretty awesome overall. oh yeah, on saturday we went to a little beach in downtown stockholm and atte,pted to swim but it was WAY too cold! oops!
cheers! we hope it's raining in canada!
simon
Thursday, June 28, 2007
so whats the deal with rain?
hej all
so we are in stockholm right now, on the 10th day of our adventure, and coincidentally it is also the 10th day on which we have experienced RAIN! booo! i understand the rain in dublin, but come on. yesterday it was pouring when we woke up and it poured all day without letting up once, until we went to bed at night. on the plus side we watched old school before bed. :)
when we woke up this morning it was sunny and bright and there was not a cloud in the sky. so, we got overzealous and went outside in nothing but shorts and t-shirts and bright hopes. an hour and a half later it was raining and we were pretty cold. oops!
besides all of the rain, stockholm is a beautiful city. i know we keep on saying that about the places we are going without photographic evidence, but you will just have to trust us until we have the means to upload. stockholm is a fantastic archipalego of like 2000 islands, although there are maybe 5 or 6 that comprise downtown. we explored the old medieval city today, with narrow cobblestone streets - one of the streets is only 90 cm wide! crazy!
still, everywhere you go you have to cross a bridge, which can be inconveninent when you are trying to go in a straight line across the water but you have to walk 2km around to the nearest bridges. i think we stopped on every bridge to take pictures though, its just so cool. canada has nothing like this that i know of.
we went to vasamuseet today, which is the best museum i have been to in some time. there was a poorly engineered boat built in stockholm in 1628 and it sank less than 1.5 km into its maiden voyage... yeah. i know. so its kind of funny that this huge museum focuses on such a catastrophic failure. but anyways, the thing is wooden, 69m long and so incredible. it was salvaged in 1967. they pulled it out, emptied the mud out, and actually floated the thing into dry docks. now a museum is built around it, with really cool exhibits. AND, there are 2 other boats that you can go on and explore. lisa and i went on one from 1914 and i think we were the only people on it. it was wild! we went down into the engine room and crawled around all the pipes and gears and valves. so cool!
tomorrow we really hope that it is nice out, although by now we will assume at least some rain. we are going to go to an architectural museum and then we are going to explore the vast parklands near to downtown stockholm. should be fun.
OH YEAH!
i almost forgot!
on monday night, right after we got to our cozy and nice BOAT HOSTEL we went to the GLOBEN theatre (google it!) and saw the arctic monkeys play in a pretty small venue with the coolest swedish people we have ever seen! woo! so that was fun. lisa danced! and i danced!
i know that this one is getting long so sorry. its just exciting stuff.
lisa: "write that we have learned two words: ham and cheese". yes, its true. skinske and ost. lol.
okay i'll stop now. lisa is bugging me to stop. she thinks that people don't care about what i have to type. j/k, lol.
bye bye!
simon
so we are in stockholm right now, on the 10th day of our adventure, and coincidentally it is also the 10th day on which we have experienced RAIN! booo! i understand the rain in dublin, but come on. yesterday it was pouring when we woke up and it poured all day without letting up once, until we went to bed at night. on the plus side we watched old school before bed. :)
when we woke up this morning it was sunny and bright and there was not a cloud in the sky. so, we got overzealous and went outside in nothing but shorts and t-shirts and bright hopes. an hour and a half later it was raining and we were pretty cold. oops!
besides all of the rain, stockholm is a beautiful city. i know we keep on saying that about the places we are going without photographic evidence, but you will just have to trust us until we have the means to upload. stockholm is a fantastic archipalego of like 2000 islands, although there are maybe 5 or 6 that comprise downtown. we explored the old medieval city today, with narrow cobblestone streets - one of the streets is only 90 cm wide! crazy!
still, everywhere you go you have to cross a bridge, which can be inconveninent when you are trying to go in a straight line across the water but you have to walk 2km around to the nearest bridges. i think we stopped on every bridge to take pictures though, its just so cool. canada has nothing like this that i know of.
we went to vasamuseet today, which is the best museum i have been to in some time. there was a poorly engineered boat built in stockholm in 1628 and it sank less than 1.5 km into its maiden voyage... yeah. i know. so its kind of funny that this huge museum focuses on such a catastrophic failure. but anyways, the thing is wooden, 69m long and so incredible. it was salvaged in 1967. they pulled it out, emptied the mud out, and actually floated the thing into dry docks. now a museum is built around it, with really cool exhibits. AND, there are 2 other boats that you can go on and explore. lisa and i went on one from 1914 and i think we were the only people on it. it was wild! we went down into the engine room and crawled around all the pipes and gears and valves. so cool!
tomorrow we really hope that it is nice out, although by now we will assume at least some rain. we are going to go to an architectural museum and then we are going to explore the vast parklands near to downtown stockholm. should be fun.
OH YEAH!
i almost forgot!
on monday night, right after we got to our cozy and nice BOAT HOSTEL we went to the GLOBEN theatre (google it!) and saw the arctic monkeys play in a pretty small venue with the coolest swedish people we have ever seen! woo! so that was fun. lisa danced! and i danced!
i know that this one is getting long so sorry. its just exciting stuff.
lisa: "write that we have learned two words: ham and cheese". yes, its true. skinske and ost. lol.
okay i'll stop now. lisa is bugging me to stop. she thinks that people don't care about what i have to type. j/k, lol.
bye bye!
simon
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Copenhagen!
We are now in Copenhagen, the most beautiful city in the world. It is really gorgeous here. It is surrounded by canals and ocean and has beautiful buildings and cobblestone streets. Our first hostel is very nice. It is very clean and in a great location.
Copenhagen is full of danish people! they speak danish! we do not. it is confusing! luckily, everyone we have met has spoken english as well. this country is full of talented people... who have silly letters like ø and æ.
We arrived late last night and found our way okay on the train from the airport. As we were flying over the countryside we saw bonfires everywhere from the plane! it is midsummer's night here so all the danes went to the country and lit large bonfires! they celebrate because it is light for about 18 hours of the day right now. crazy!
on the train we met a man who gave us some key tips and pointed us in the right direction. we got up early today and went to a few museums and saw a lot of stuff! all of the museums are closed tomorrow so we had to get it all in today. tomorrow we will go up the tower and explore more, and go to one of the many parks for a picnic. we may even partake in a tuborg or two!
the day after tomorrow we are training to stockholm, so although the visit in copenhagen is short we are both very glad that we came because the city rocks!
oh yeah, and i should note that dave decided not to meet us afterall so it is just the two of us here. silly dave, you are missing a fun time!
we are writing our blog from the irish pub around the corner from the hostel. random. therefore there are no pics from today or from before. hopefully we will find a kick ass computer in sweden.
cheers!
lisa and simon
Copenhagen is full of danish people! they speak danish! we do not. it is confusing! luckily, everyone we have met has spoken english as well. this country is full of talented people... who have silly letters like ø and æ.
We arrived late last night and found our way okay on the train from the airport. As we were flying over the countryside we saw bonfires everywhere from the plane! it is midsummer's night here so all the danes went to the country and lit large bonfires! they celebrate because it is light for about 18 hours of the day right now. crazy!
on the train we met a man who gave us some key tips and pointed us in the right direction. we got up early today and went to a few museums and saw a lot of stuff! all of the museums are closed tomorrow so we had to get it all in today. tomorrow we will go up the tower and explore more, and go to one of the many parks for a picnic. we may even partake in a tuborg or two!
the day after tomorrow we are training to stockholm, so although the visit in copenhagen is short we are both very glad that we came because the city rocks!
oh yeah, and i should note that dave decided not to meet us afterall so it is just the two of us here. silly dave, you are missing a fun time!
we are writing our blog from the irish pub around the corner from the hostel. random. therefore there are no pics from today or from before. hopefully we will find a kick ass computer in sweden.
cheers!
lisa and simon
Thursday, June 21, 2007
An Photo Post
I'm pretty sure that An is irish for 'the'. But i could be wrong...
Before when I posted there were no pics on the computrice so here we go with a few to show just what has been going on. but they are not working, so strike that. i will try later.
(pic of lisa and i in the rain)
This pic is (suppost to be) of me and lisa in a field in the rain at glendalough, a nice site with a couple of lakes and some ruins of churches that were built in the 12th century! it rained all day today, but it was cool because of all the fog - you can't even see to the top of the Dublin mountains!
(pic of cool waterfall)
We arrived at the waterfall just as it stopped raining... so then we got even more soaked from the mist from the falls. they were pretty spectacular.
lisa and i both fell asleep on the way home with nicole. we're probably the worst passengers of all time but she puts up with us, what a sweetheart.
tomorrow we are going into the city on the bus with Nicole, who has to work tomorrow. we are going to tour around and then meet her after she is finished and go into temple bar at night, which is the buisness at night.
ttyl!
Before when I posted there were no pics on the computrice so here we go with a few to show just what has been going on. but they are not working, so strike that. i will try later.
(pic of lisa and i in the rain)
This pic is (suppost to be) of me and lisa in a field in the rain at glendalough, a nice site with a couple of lakes and some ruins of churches that were built in the 12th century! it rained all day today, but it was cool because of all the fog - you can't even see to the top of the Dublin mountains!
(pic of cool waterfall)
We arrived at the waterfall just as it stopped raining... so then we got even more soaked from the mist from the falls. they were pretty spectacular.
lisa and i both fell asleep on the way home with nicole. we're probably the worst passengers of all time but she puts up with us, what a sweetheart.
tomorrow we are going into the city on the bus with Nicole, who has to work tomorrow. we are going to tour around and then meet her after she is finished and go into temple bar at night, which is the buisness at night.
ttyl!
Okay so we got to europe
On Tuesday we landed in Ireland after a 6 and a half hour flight. we were picked up at the airport and chauffeured to our guesthouse, where we are staying with the nicest irish family ever! and, we know them! Nicole and the Egans have been just super at putting us up and showing us around. We have spent a couple days touring around and have learned a few things:
1. The Irish have a reputation for drinking... This is not an embellishment or an exaggeration. You can't walk more than a few steps without coming across a pub.
2. Ireland is incredibly green! Everything is so lush here, probably because...
3. It rains all the time. The 4 seasons can be experienced here in about 15 minutes... cold hot, rain, sun, wind, calm, everything. its wild!
4. Mom and Dad you were right about the roads... they are narrow, the speed limits are high and a lot of the time there are brick walls on both sides of the road. (there are brick walls everywhere! who had the time and the rocks needed to create all of these walls?) and when an 18 wheeler is coming at you you feel like you are about to die.
Lisa is having fun too.
Today we both had electric showers. Think about that one.
So to sum things up, we got to Ireland okay, had a nice flight, and are having a blast in Dublin and the surrounding areas!
Cheers,
Simon
1. The Irish have a reputation for drinking... This is not an embellishment or an exaggeration. You can't walk more than a few steps without coming across a pub.
2. Ireland is incredibly green! Everything is so lush here, probably because...
3. It rains all the time. The 4 seasons can be experienced here in about 15 minutes... cold hot, rain, sun, wind, calm, everything. its wild!
4. Mom and Dad you were right about the roads... they are narrow, the speed limits are high and a lot of the time there are brick walls on both sides of the road. (there are brick walls everywhere! who had the time and the rocks needed to create all of these walls?) and when an 18 wheeler is coming at you you feel like you are about to die.
Lisa is having fun too.
Today we both had electric showers. Think about that one.
So to sum things up, we got to Ireland okay, had a nice flight, and are having a blast in Dublin and the surrounding areas!
Cheers,
Simon
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Takeoff in 9 days!
So this is our blog. Interesting. Hopefully having this means that Lisa and I do not have to spam everyone while we are in europe and so if you are really that interested in what we are doing you can look it up here! So for this pre-europe post I guess I will just introduce the characters and let you know what's coming up.
This is Lisa.
This is Lisa.
She is 22 years old and likes llamas, uranium and Heroes. She is excited to go to cities that are called different things in English because it is confusing!
This is Simon.
Simon is 23 years old and likes pineapple, baseball and slinkys. He is excited to go to Perpignan because it is fun to say!
We have an itinerary because if we didn't we would be stressed out:
June 19 - 23 - Dublin
June 23 - 26 - Copenhagen
June 26 - July 1 - Stockholm
July 1 - July 4 - Amsterdam
July 4 - July 5 - Gent
July 5 - July 8 - Brussels
July 8 - July 13 - London
July 13 - July 19 - Paris
July 19 - July 21 - Barcelona
July 21 - July 25 - Mallorca
July 25 - July 28 - Barcelona
July 28 - July 30 - Arles
July 30 - Aug 2 - Marseille
Aug 2 - Aug 5 - Nice
Aug 5 - Aug 7 - Milan
Aug 7 - Aug 10 - Venica
Aug 10 - Aug 13 - Florence
Aug 13 - Aug 19 - Rome
At this point I am leaving Rome for home via London and Lisa is staying, and meeting up with her father and sister. Coincidence that they decided to arrive as I am leaving? I think not.
I would also like to say that we are very excited to visit with our gracious host Nicole in Dublin, and to meet up with Dave in Copenhagen and Sarah and Julian in Paris!
If you want to get in touch with us, email is the best (and probably only) way to do it. I think that all of the places that we are staying have internet.
Cheers!
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