Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in jennie42's LiveJournal:

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Sunday, April 12th, 2009
3:08 pm	I'm back. Again. Well, so much for my intention of keeping up with my blog! Am I allowed to have an Easter resolution? I'm not generally too big on fertility festivals or zombies, but I'm in a blogging mood and I hereby resolve to be a lot more active in my blogging. I'm not going to attempt to describe everything that has happened to me over the past few months. But I can write about a few things: I have a new blog. It is not a replacement of this one, which is a personal blog, mainly intended for my friends and family and whoever randomly happens to find this whilst googling madly. But after much urging from several people, I have launched my own atheist blog. It's small now, but it will grow. So feel free to check it out and leave a comment if you can! The blog is at: www.cheerfulatheist.ca In other news, I have been weirdly employed for several months now. Archaeology ended at the end of November and hasn't started up again yet. That's a long time to not have a regular paycheque, especially since I only had 4 months to save any money at all. Since archaeology ended for the winter, I briefly held a job as a street fundraiser. It was a fantastic company but also the most soul destroying job I have ever attempted. And that includes tree planting. I left after three weeks to save my sanity and love for humanity. After a nice relaxing Christmas and New Years, I wandered into a temp agency, expecting to get a job more or less instantly. The people that I have known who have used temp agencies have never had a problem and have had the same qualifications as I do. But no luck. I walked into the first one. They told me to email them. I emailed the second one, they didn't respond. I phoned and emailed the third one, they did not respond. I walked into the fourth one, they told me to email them. And so on. No jobs. Nothing. Getting a bit frustrated, I resorted to Craigslist again. After checking obsessively for several days, I somewhat spontaneously landed a job as a data entry assistant for a U of T grad student. Basically, I was just imputing the field journals into a database. It was an easy enough job, I actually almost enjoyed it. Brainless work, but I could work from home, play music while I worked and work whenever I felt like putting in the hours. It was part time though, at minimum wage, so my pride took a bit of a blow. Still, it has helped pay my bills for the past couple of months! I finished the job a couple of weeks ago, having completed all the data entry. I also posted an ad on Kijiji and suddenly became a tutor. I'm helping a 2nd year anthropology student with her end of the year essays. It's been interesting. I've edited other peoples essays for years but I have never gotten paid for it. But I think I am pretty good at it and I mostly enjoy it. It's just a few hours once in awhile, but it does help. In the midst of this, I moved into a really awesome basement bachelor apartment in the west end. I love the apartment, I love the neighborhood. It's a total win. After a couple of months of trying to live in Toronto while working part time, at minimum wage, after paying for first/last month rent along with moving expenses, I quickly realized that this was not sustainable. After watching my bank account dwindle rather more rapidly than I liked, I started desperately looking around for more work. But since I couldn't find a temp job and I couldn't in good conscience apply for a long term full time job knowing that I was going to leave in a couple months, I started looking at part time evening and weekend jobs. I figured that if the job was decent, I could keep doing it after going back to archaeology. So I got a job as an usher, working for the Blue Jays. I've worked 10 games now and I like the job. I hope I can keep it up when archaeology starts up again. The best news of all is that I got an offer to work on a site in Rome. It will be for a month, from the end of August to the end of September. They want me as a field supervisor, responsible for training the kids who are doing field work for the first time. The site is Ostia, a World Heritage class site. It is basically Rome's port city and is quite unique within archaeology because it wasn't lived in all that long and it was eventually abandoned and never settled again. So the preservation is pretty good and there is bound to be loads of neat stuff! So, I am excited. I'm spending a lot of my spare time reading about Ostia and learning about Roman construction techniques. I've also been studying Italian and I am really enjoying the experience. So, in summary, I am currently employed part time, I am dangerously low on money, I am happily living in my own apartment and looking forward to starting work again. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008
10:46 pm	Opps. I guess it has been awhile. Ah well, better late than never eh? Life is relatively normal. It's kind of hard to believe that I have been back in Canada for almost 4 months now. In some ways, it feels like I just got back, in other ways, it feels like I never left. I miss London. I find myself wishing for random things, like drinking Ribena or jumping onto a double decker red bus. I miss the friends I made there. I miss the occasionally cool archaeology I did there. I even miss doing those damn Harris Matrix's. It's kind of weird, in some ways, I keep forgetting that the last year happened. People will comment on something that happened "last summer" and my mind instantly goes to the summer of 2007. It's as if history in Canada does not exist unless I was here. I keep catching myself thinking like that, it's a bit strange! But I also sometimes find it hard to believe that I visited 11 countries last year. But I am also happy to be back here. In some ways, it has been nice doing Ontario archaeology again. We got a decent prehistoric Iroquoian cabin site and some cool stuff has come out of there. The work has been relative easy, the company has been enjoyable as always. So I've been happy. Thursday was our last day in the field, just got laid off for the winter. I haven't really decided what to do in the meantime. I've been somewhat obsessively checking job sites but not much has jumped out at me yet. I'm leaning towards taking December off and signing up with a temp agency in January. I could use some time to relax, do some of my own research, practice my magic. Still, the OSAP payments and my stupid wisdom teeth (which have been successfully removed, without much drama) have really eaten into my savings and I don't have much to spare at the moment. So I might end up working soon. I do have a few days worth of artifact washing to do, I'll decide what to do after I finish that up. I've greatly enjoyed living in the apartment I am currently in. Made some new friends, been having a good time. But I do need to find a new place for January, so I've started looking. It's a bit early now, most places will really start advertising in a couple of weeks. I'm sure I will find something cool! I've been practicing a lot lately. Mainly sponge ball stuff and also contact juggling. Especially contact juggling. I almost have a decent butterfly. Damn the freakishly hard to learn basic move. Soon.... Also, James Bond is cool. (Comment on this)
Monday, August 25th, 2008
7:38 pm	Back in Canada! Ok, so apparently I get lazy about blogging when I am in my own country. I have been back in Canada for a few weeks now and it has been hectic, but nice. I stressed out about finding a place for awhile but eventually found a decent one and I moved in yesterday. It is not exactly what I wanted but it is only temporary and the roommates seem great. Definitely a geek house. I'm not fully moved in yet though, crashing in the living room until the person in my room moves out this weekend. I am looking forward to having my own room again. I started work two weeks ago and it has been good. Tom left after a week and Alan is leaving in a week, so it will definitely be different soon but for awhile, it was just like old times. Within about three seconds, it was as if I had never left. It has been...strange....adapting to Canadian archaeology again. Everything seems so familiar, yet so alien at the same time. I keep getting reminded of how I have changed when I say an acronym that my co-workers don't understand or I mess up the bloody grid numbers because I had finally converted to the English way of doing things. I feel conflicted about my trowel. At first, I have been using my English trowel, believing it to be superior in all manners of archaeology, but I have begun to see it's limitations. It just doesn't do the job for some things and I may have to switch back. Maybe I will use both. I don't know. It probably seems like a silly conflict for most of you, but hey, it's my trowel! Definitely important. In general terms, Canada seems almost odd. I keep forgetting to add tax to all my purchases. Buildings seem so tall, roads are so wide. People are noticably friendly. I find that I convert all my purchases into British pounds (which, admittedly, usually makes me giggle at how cheap everything is here). So yeah, it's just been a bit weird getting back to normal. Also, I've been having problems with my teeth. I went to the dentist today and I need to have all four wisdom teeth removed. And since I have zilch insurance, it is going to cost me $1700. Boo. (Comment on this)
Friday, August 1st, 2008
9:52 am	London! I am back in London now and it feels kind of strange. Strange that my trip is almost over, strange that I am staying in a hostel in the city that I called home for 8 months! I am finished with Busabout now. If anyone is reading this and thinking about doing it, do it! Busabout is a fantastic company. It was a perfect way to travel around Europe, especially as a solo first time traveler. I am going to miss that bus and the people I met on it! I ended up taking a bus from Paris to London. It takes longer but hey, it is so much cheaper and I have had so many bus rides by this point, one more won't hurt! I eventually got into London. Interestingly, the bus takes almost the identical route that my bus took from my house into central London, so it was a very nostalgic bus trip! I am staying in a hostel near London Bridge, which puts me way more central than I was when I was living here. I went over to Kelly's place a couple of hours after I arrived, to chat and pick up my stuff that I have stored in her attic. We went to her local and had a couple of pints and a great meal. I managed to lug all my stuff back to my hostel, up the 4 flights of stairs, only to find that my key suddenly didn't work in the door. Reception is a couple of blocks away, so I had to abandon my stuff in the hallway and walk over to get my key fixed. I was really tired by then, it had been a long day. But I made it in eventually and crashed. I spent most of the day yesterday sorting through my stuff. It is really expensive to ship things from here so I am been attempting to fit everything into my two bags. After much trial and error, I think I may have managed it. I bet they are both overweight though. But it is probably cheaper to just pay excess baggage fees then to mail them back, so I might just do that. I met up with a bunch of people from work at the Horseshoe Pub, which was great. I am going to miss all my friends here. I also managed to close my bank account, so I am mostly ready to come home now. I may even have time to do some touristy things today. I just got a text from Alicia saying that there is a partial eclipse on right now. I have to go check that out. (Comment on this)
Monday, July 28th, 2008
11:03 pm	San Sebastian! Tours! Sorry for the delay, Tours did not have convienient Internet access. I am in Paris again, just for the night, before heading back to London tomorrow morning. Ok, San Sebastian, cont! After exploring every possible corner of the castle and accidently stumbling into a wedding (getting married in a castle = awesome), I headed back down the hill. I took my time, going down in a completely different direction than I had climbed. Found some more castle walls and coastline defensive forts, very cool. I eventually hit ground level and just kept wandering. I decided that since I had already climbed one mountain bordering the city, I might as well climb the other mountain bordering the other side of the city. Ok, I cheated, and took the funicular. The walk from the first mountain to the other side took about 40 minutes. I was about 5 minutes into it, following the path that hugs the coastline, before it occured to me that I could actually walk the coastline instead. So I jumped onto the beach, took off my sandles, and did the rest of the walk in the water. Perfect temperature for a leisurely stroll! The top of the mountain, which is higher than the first one, allows for some fantastic coastline views. And since it was bright and sunny by then, it was nice to just sit and look at everything. Oddly enough, there is a slightly spooky amusement park on the top of the mountain. It seems moderately haunted and mostly empty. Possbily because it is on top of the mountain. It did have a neat boat ride that hugged the edge of the clift, overlooking the awesome views, which is pretty cool, I guess. By the time I got down the mountain, it was getting pretty late. I tried a couple more tapas but was rather unlucky in my choices and was not particularly impressed with the scrambled fish paste. But hey, that;s what you get for randomly pointing at unlabelled food products! The next day, I got on the bus and got off at Tours. I was quite happy to get back in France. Not be able to speak the local language gets very tiring after awhile. You would not believe how conforting it is to be able to look at a sign, a menu, anything, and actually understand it. Tours is pretty cool. We got here around 4pm and since there are only a few of us that got off, we got to know each other. There aren;t very many hostels in Tours, so the recommended place is actually a hotel. I got a single room! With a bathroom! Pure luxury. All of us are longtimers by this point and when we went for dinner, we spent more time gushing over the luxury of actually having privacy, then any other topic of conversation. A few of us spent a couple of hours exploring the city and ended up sharing a litre of wine at an outdoor cafe bar. There was a band and a dance floor set up and we sat under a tree and just watched France around us. We ended up having a rather mediocre dinner at a cafe, then going to bed. The next day, we did a massive castle tour! Tours is all about the chateaux. There are a gazillion around here, spread all across the area, from all different time periods. We did four. We did a guided coach tour, which was rather expensive, but worth it because we jam packed our day and it was really nice to not have to think for awhile and just enjoy the day. All the castles were completely different from each other, which was cool. I will describe them more when I post the pictures. But one was the castle where Leonardo da Vinci is buried, inside Amboise, a really neat medieval town. The second one was actually built entirely on water. The third was a giant palace home that has been (and still in) in the same family for over 400 years). The fourth was a massive complex, the exterior of which was actually designed by Da Vinci himself, although he did not actually construct it. It was a full day, about 9am to 7pm and a lot of fun. We bought our dinner cheaply at the supermarket, splurged on a 2 euro bottle of wine, and hung out at the hotel the rest of the night. Today, the bus did not pick us up until 4:30pm, so we had most of the day to explore Tours. We found the Old part of town, and it was awesome! Perfectly preserved houses from the 17-18th century, made out of wood! Looks awesome and very cool to walk around. Apparently, most of the city used to look that like before being almost entirely destroyed during the war. But even having one of those still left is pretty amazing. We saw what we wanted to see by around 1pm, so we grabbed some lunch and just had a picnic by the river, reading our books, until it was time to head for the bus. It was over half an hour late but eventually arrived. About 5 hours later, we hit Paris! It was kind of cool to actually drive through the city, seeing again all the things I have seen, only two and a half months ago! I really like Paris. I am staying in the same hostel as I started in, which seems fitting, full circle and all that. It is too late to see any more Paris and I am going to catch a 10am bus to London tomorrow. I am staying in a hostel in London, right by London Bridge, which will be cool for a few days. I am looking forward to being back in London! And only 4 more sleeps until I am back in Canada! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, July 26th, 2008
1:42 pm	San Sebastian! San Sebastian is way better than Madrid. I am glad this is my last stop in Spain. I will be leaving the country on a high note instead of a low one! It is a really cute town, much smaller than the others I have visited, but absolutely crammed with people. But, it doesnt make it feel crowded, just atmospheric! The people are definitely friendlier than they were in Madrid, which is awesome. I said good bye to a few friends who moved on to Paris and since my new roommates dont speak English, I have mainly been on my own here. Still, it has been relaxing. I spent most of yesterday just wandering around. San Sebastian is a seafront city with tons of history. There are several large beaches, including one for surfers, and it seems like the entire city hangs out there. Way too crowded for my tastes but fun to look at. I walked most of the coast line, stopping whenever I saw a nice spot and spent most of the day just relaxing, reading my book. I randomly started walking up a large hill and found an absolutely awesome spot, in the shade, looking over the entire city. Very cool. I found a gelato place that sold the most massively huge gelatos I have ever seen, delicious, and cheap. Best combination ever. I think I need to go back there today. San Sebastian is famous for its food and I can certainly see why. Tapas bars are a fantastic idea, Canada needs to get some of these. Basically, you wander through the streets, where 90% of the stores are Tapas bars. You wander into one that appeals to you and ask for a plate. On the counter in front of you, there are trays and trays full of food, covering the entire bar. You pick and choose what you want, putting it on your plate. Then you find a bartender, show him your plate and he tells you how much to pay him. Then you eat! It is an interesting experience too because nothing is labelled or priced and no one speaks English. Since I was on my own, it took me a little while to get the courage to walk in one, but once I did, I was happy! My method is mainly to just pick a few things that look good and just try them out. So far, I have been mainly successful. This morning, I decided to walk up this one mountain, where there was a giant statue of Jesus. Not that I particularly wanted to see a giant statue of Jesus, but it was a mini mountain overlooking the city, which is bound to have some awesome panoramic view of the city. And, instead of just a giant statue, there was a massive 11th century castle! I seem to find castles everywhere! It is neat that this one is completely invisible from the ground though. It is very well preserved and, best of all, completely free to wander around! There is even an exhibit throughout some of the rooms, with cannons and cannon balls everywhere. Very cool. Also, fantastic view, I got some amazing pictures. Opps, someone wants this computer. More later. (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 24th, 2008
4:47 pm	Madrid! I just got to San Sebastian, finally escaping Madrid. None of us really liked Madrid. It was sort of...hostile. Locals hated tourists, it was really hot and the crime rate was staggering high. Not violent crime or anything, it is very safe, but in terms of pickpocketing and such, it was brutal. And that was the worst hostel I have stayed in so far. I have no idea why Busabout recommends it. I felt unsafe the entire time. It was basically within the Red Light District of Madrid, I had to walk by an entire street of hookers to get to my room. And the security was practically non existent. My door had been visibly opened by a crowbar at some point. Several people got their backpacks stolen from their rooms. I tried to find accommodation somewhere else, like almost everyone who got off the bus, but there was nothing within my price range. So yeah, not the greatest. If anyone is reading this and is busabouting, DO NOT STAY THERE! As a city in general though, it is relatively nice. I did a free walking tour on the first day, which was fun and learned a lot about Spanish history. I hung out most of the time with a couple of Kiwi couples I have known since Switzerland or Nice. Ate some good tapas. That night, we all met up and went to a Flamenco show. It is a very Spanish thing to do, one that does not involve the extended torture and death of an animal, so it was a win. It started out kind of sketchy, almost like cheesy ballet to CD music. We were all looking at each other, wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. But then a live band came out and it was brilliant! Strange mix of music, involving a guitar, a flute and clapping. The dancers were awesome, very personable. So I am glad that I went. The following day, it was so hot it felt dangerous to actually walk about, so I spent most of the day hanging out in the shade in a massive park. I met up with some friends later and we went to an awesome place called 100 Sandwiches. And it was a special 1 euro day. Everything in the place was one euro. So awesome. You basically get a list of sandwiches and check off how many you want of each and hand it in. Once they make them, they call you up and poof, a plate of little sandwiches! Very yummy, very cheap. Said goodbye to one set of friends, who are staying in Madrid a couple of more days and headed off this morning to San Sebastian. The hostel here is decent and the city looks great, I feel way more comfortable now. Three more nights in Spain, then back to France! I am looking forward to being in Tours. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008
4:33 pm	Madrid! Quick note. Internet is free here, but only in 30 minute segments. By the time I check my emails and such, I have very little time left for any decent blog entries. In brief: I am in Madrid, moving on to San Sebastian tomorrow. Madrid is ok but suffocatingly hot. No one really feels like doing anything. And there is no air conditioning, my hostel is sketchy and my roommates suck. So I am looking forward to moving on tomorrow. I have three minutes of time left! Tapas are yummy. I am hooked on spanish omlettes with garlic sauce. Yum. (Comment on this)
Sunday, July 20th, 2008
6:57 pm	Valencia! Ok, I like Spain. I really do. The food is yummy, everything is fairly cheap, the people are friendly. And siestas are strange but I could definitely get used to them. First of all, the movie night during my last night in Barcelona was awesome! I took the subway to the funicular to the middle of the mountain which is now a ginormous park. I was going to take the gondola up to the castle but it was almost 6 euros, one way, which is ridiculous. Plus, I had time and I am not lazy, so I started climbing. And it was easy, less than a 20 minute walk to the top. The castle up there overlooks the city, fantastic views. I could not actually go inside the castle itself because it is now a military museum but I could wander around the grounds for free. Eventually, I met up with some friends from the previous night and we got in line, waiting to be allowed into where the movie would play. Eventually, we bought our tickets (a whole 4 euro), picked up a reed mat, and plopped down on the grass in front of a giant movie screen, right up against the castle wall! How often do you have the chance to watch a movie on a 9th century castle wall?? I had bought a bunch of food from the supermarket and we had a real picnic going. It was great. And, luckily, the movie was actually in English, with catalonian subtitles. (They play movies from all different countries and languages, always subtitled, we just lucked out). It was Rattatouille of all movies, which I happen to like. A jazz band played for about an hour before the movie started (it doesnt get dark until past 10pm here) and they were really good! Making a lot of jokes that none of us understood but we happily cheered when everyone else did! There were so many people there too, at least 3000, possibly even more. All Catalonian. After the movie finished, there was only one staircase as a exit (well, it is a castle!) and when several thousand people attempt to use the same staircase, it is inevitably slow. Then we found out that not only is the gondola not working but the funicular as well. None of us knew where we were but we walked in the right general direction, knowing we would hit a metro stop eventually. We walked past a creepy street party showing a bizzare movie and there were so many people wandering about, very unique atmosphere. We eventually found the exact subway station we were looking for and headed home. Still, it was a late night, didnt get back until almost 2:30am and I had to get up at 6am. I also find it amusing that the lastest I have been out on my trip was due to a childrens cartoon. Anyways, I got up shortly after going to bed, grabbed my stuff and headed back into town to make it to the bus in time. One of the disadvantages of not being at the Busabout hostel! But I made it allright and arrived in Valencia a few hours later. Again, I couldnt get into the busabout one but I got into one only a couple blocks away and it is fine. I was still quite sleepy from the night before and didnt feel like doing much. I wandered about for a couple of hours though. Valencia is very pretty, lots of wide open streets along with small alleyways. Again, very laid back and they definitely take their siestas seriously. I bought some food at the supermarket and came back to the hostel and had a kickass dinner, then just hung out here before going to sleep. This morning, I got up decently early and headed off to the City of Arts and Sciences. It is basically a complex of museums-science centre type places. I did not have time to do all of them, so I ended up getting a ticket for the aquarium (apparently the largest in Europe) and an Imax film (why not?). I decided to have an aquatic day and chose the underwater film too. It was pretty good! The Imax theatre is not as big as the one in Toronto but in some ways was more effective because it covered my complete peripheral vision but was much closer to me. Very cool. Then I spent a couple of hours going through the aquarium. I have not visited an aquarium within my sentient memory, so it was neat! All the tanks are curved and perfectly clean in a way of making the fish appear to be literally in front of you. You could just reach out and grab one. They had giant sections involiving all different aquatic environments and thousands of species. I ended my trip with a dolphin show and it was cool! It is amazing what those things can do. The walk from my hostel to the aquarium is also cool. It is mainly within a giant park. Actually, the park used to be a river flowing through the city. It dried up and people had planned on putting in a freeway but the green movement latched onto it and now it is a giant park, going through the entire city. Very pretty. About halfway back, I stumbled across an amusement park that wasnt there when I walked by in the morning and happily walked through that for awhile but didnt actually do anything. I had tentative plans to meet up with people staying at the other hostel to go to a bull fight tonight but we never worked out the details and I have no way of contacting them. I might just do my own thing tonight, it is probably too late to get tickets now anways. I managed to book the rest of my trip, everything except for my trip from Paris to London, which I need a printer in front of me before I book it. But it is nice to know that I have a home every night until I get home. Which is in a surprisingly short period of time. I have one more night in Valencia, three in Madrid, three in San Sebastian, two in Tours, one in Paris, then three in London and I am on a plane. Crazy. (Comment on this)
Friday, July 18th, 2008
6:00 pm	Barcelona! Spain has surprised me. I dont know why, but I somehow didnt think that I would like Spain. I have not been looking forward to it as much as I have the others, but so far, I love it! Barcelona has such a...vibe....to it. No matter what street you walk down, it is amazing. Tons of wide open spaces but also tiny little alleyways and medieval buildings. Beautiful city, very clean, very friendly, laid back people. I like it. But I am getting ahead of myself! First of all, my French Riviera cruise. Sucked. Really disappointed in it. Not at all what I had been expecting. We didnt meet up until 1pm, so I had the morning to wander about some more. I finally ended up posting that poster I have been carting around for ages (mailed it to you guys, mom and dad! Hopefully you will get it in a couple of days or so). I spent about an hour trying to find an Internet place that does scanning but alas, I failed. You can never find something like that when you are looking for it. I will keep on trying. I helped one of my roommates mail a package home (she didnt speak french and the post office guys didnt speak English) and it was fun being a translator for awhile. At 1pm, a bus came and picked us up and we drove to our boat....two hours away. Now, I have nothing against long bus rides, I just was not expecting it. We got dropped off at a little rich places called Grimwald and had an hour or so to wander about. Then we got back on the bus, drove about 20 minutes, then finally got on the boat. There were tons of people, it was really hot and the free drinks were pretty crap. Everyone was just trying to get drunk as quickly as possible. The host was almost funny for being completely not funny. His jokes were dated to maybe the 50s and I doubt they would have been funny even then. Some people started laughing at his punchlines simply because there were none. He just rarely made any sense, it was so strange. He gossiped a lot about a bunch of rich people I have either not heard of or dont care about. We got to St. Tripel about an hour later and got a couple of hours to wander about. I went off on my own. After laughing at the prices of the restaurants on the seafront (35 euro for a beer), I walked further inland until it got a bit closer to real life. It was a nice place, tons of rich people but tons of normal people too. I found a park and watched a whole bunch of locals play bocce ball. Eventually had to go back to get on the boat and it only took 15 minutes to get back to our port and back on the bus. Then a 2 hour bus ride back to the hostel. So yeah, I was bored and disappointed. The next day was infinitely better! Got on the bus and headed to Barcelona! My first time in Spain and the last of my new countries to visit on this trip. It was a long bus ride, over 10 hours, but it was fine. This is also the first time that I was unable to get into the recommended hostel that the bus stops at, there was simply no room anywhere. I booked into a different place that ended up being way further outside of the central area than I thought but is actually one of the best hostels I have been at. I realized as soon as I got here that I have missed hostels. All of Italy was camping sites and hotels, not hostels. And it really changes the experience. As soon as I got here, I dropped my stuff off in my room, grabbed a drink, and plopped down on the couch with my book. Within 5 minutes, I was talking to three different people and we ended up going to a supermarket to pick up some ingredients and made an awesome dinner together. I was up till almost 2am just chatting and I have missed that. The next morning, I spent a couple of hours wandering about the main central area, then did a 4 hour bike tour. A lot of people from Busabout were there and I have now latched onto a new group of people, most of whom are doing Spain within the same schedule that I am, which is awesome. The bike tour was great, not too strenuous, some great sites I would not have seen otherwise. That night, we had all previous planned on doing a Spanish cooking class, which had been recommended to me by several others. And it was awesome!! We met up at a restaurant, walked to another one, then they took us to the back and we sat at a bunch of long tables with loads of ingredients in front of us. First, we learned how to make sangria! Then we had unlimited ingrdients for the rest of the evening to keep practicing, which is somewhat dangerous! Then we learned how to make a couple different tapas, which were yummy, then a main rice dish, which was also yummy. And easy to make too, I am definitely going to try it at home. But we did not do much actual cooking, most of it was just drinking sangria and happily chatting away. Eventually, we ate all the food and the class ended and we all just went across the hall and sat in the bar for a few more hours. One of my new friends found out that I do magic and begged me to do some. So, for the next hour or so, I did. I was so exhilerating. I have really slacked off ym magic lately and I have been missing it. And it went really well. They were all great audience members and loved my tricks. Then one guy, who was very drunk, came over and grabbed my cards and kept trying to do tricks, which invariably completely failed. I was getting really fed up with him but so were the others and eventually I go the cards back and did some good stuff. And now that everyone knows I do magic, I dont think I am going to have a peaceful bus ride again! :) This morning, I met up with a couple of friends and we went to the Picasso museum, which has about 3000 of his paintings laid out in chronological order. Pretty cool stuff. Then we went to the city museum, which has Barcelonas history for about 2000 years. The basement floor is actually all Roman buildings, very cool! We found an awesome food market that was actually very reasonably priced! All fresh food. I got a giant bowl of fresh fruit (strawberries, grapes, cantelope, passionfruit, figs - you name it, it was in there), a pinapple mint smoothie and a chicken shishkabob, all for 4 euro. Awesome. It was siesta time, so I walked around for a bit but then I got tired, so I headed back to the hostel. The Internet was actually free, so I hopped on to update you lot, but I am about to head out again. There is an 8th century castle on the top of a mountain here and, somewhat strangely, yet awesomely, they show movies there every week, projected on the castle wall. So I am going to buy some stuff for a picnic dinner and head up there soon. Adios! (Comment on this)
Monday, July 14th, 2008
11:13 pm	Nice! Happy Bastille Day! It also just so happens that I am in France. Although according to quite a few people here, Nice barely counts as France. It is true, the streets are not shut down due to rampant partying but it is still a public holiday! This key boa rd keeps adding spaces when I dont press the spacebar. Strange. Anyways, I spent most of the day wande ring around. I havent really met a new group of friends yet. I am going on a boat trip tomorrow with tons of Busabout people so I hope to meet some people then but for no w, I am on my own. In some wa ys, it has been quite nice. When I am not with a grou p of english speaking people, it is much easier to have nice conversati ons in French with locals. I am becoming more confident with my french, using it mu ch more often. I wandered down to Veille Nice, the old part of town, where there just happened to be a flea market. Mos tly antiques and tons of really strange odds and ends. I found a bunch of old English pennies, w hich I had been searching for in the past and happily bought them. After that, I walked along the coast line for awhile, just looking around. Nice is on the seafront, the French Riveria! Very pretty. I got bored after awhile, so I found the train station and hopped on the next train heading towards Monoco. It has got to be the first time I have bought a ticket to another country for under 10 dollars! Monoco is....strange. It is tiny, only a couple km, but every single inhabitant is a millionaire. Seriously. You cannot own property if you are not a citizen and the application fee for becoming a citizen is a million euro, non refundable. The entire country is paid for by the Monte Carlo casino. I wandered around the city for awhile, just taking in the ridiculously expensive houses. It is so strange walking down the streets. Everyone you walk by is a) a gawking tourist or b) a gazillionaire. Every other car that drove past seemed to be a Ferrari. I went into the Monte Carlo casino lobby but then chickened out and didnt go in the whole way. It costs 10 euro just to enter and I would probably fail the dress code anyways. I went into the casino next door, which was free, and promptly lost the 20 euros I gave myself to lose. But it was fun to be sitting at a roulette table, making 2 euro b ets, while the guy next to me was betting 25 000. Crazy. I got sick of Monoco quickly enough though. It has a creepy Disneyland type vibe to it. It was just so...fake. No one there has any idea what real life is like. I hopped on the train back to Nice, grabbed some food, then hung out on the beach for awhile, reading my book. A french guy eventually sat next to me, chatting me up to an almost hilarious level, before I managed to convince him, in a friendly way, that I was not interested. He eventually left and crowds of people s tarted to gather. I figured that there was going to be a beach party to celebrate Bastille day and I was right! As it got dark, everyone was sitting on the beach, staring out into the water. E v entually, there was a massive fi reworks show, r ight off a boat in the middle of the water! Very cool. After the fireworks, I slowly wandered back towards the hostel, stopping at several busker shows along the way. One musician was absolutely brilliant. I ac tu ally regret not buying his CD at this point. It was all instrumental, mostly a combination of pipes and ocarinas and such like . But it was utterly compelling. I am going on a river cruise tomorrow, to St. Topez! It was surprisingly well priced and should be a good way to meet some new people. It is an all day cruise on the French Riviera, what more could I ask for? (Comment on this)
Sunday, July 13th, 2008
7:43 pm	Lauterbrunnen! cont. When I woke up this morning, it was 10 degrees outside and torrential rain. Now, I am in Nice, France, it is 40 degrees outside and bright and sunny. I also passed through 4 countries today, driving through Switzerland, Italy, Monaco and France. Europe travel is so weird. Anyways, Switzerland! I am glad that I managed to get 5 nights in Lauterbrunnen. It was a long trip there, about 10 hours on the bus in total. But it was ok. A lot of us actually tend to like long travel days sometimes. A time to chill out, watch some movies and not think for awhile. It was also one of the most spectacular drives I have ever seen. We drove up through Italy, past Monaco and hugging the coast line for a good chunk of the time. Very pretty, tons of insanely expensive houses. But tons of green too, and mountains everywhere. But it just got nicer and nicer the closer we got to Switzerland. Everyone stopped watching the movie and were just staring outside the windows. Massive mountains and lakes and waterfalls. Nature at its best, really. And that was just what we could see from the bus! I knew this was going to be fantastic. I stayed in Lauterbrunnen, a little valley town with basically one street. Takes about a 10 minute walk to get into town and about 15 minutes to walk across the entire thing. But it is cute, the people are friendly and everyone speaks fluent English. I am in staying in a campground, in a cabin. It is nice and cool and makes a fantastic change from Italy. We were told about the one good restaurant in town and after a 10 hour bus ride, we were ready for some Swiss yummies. I still had a couple of friends from previous cities, so we headed down to the restaurant. It was full when we got there, but we were able to make a reservation for 30 minutes later. We wandered around town for awhile, checking out Swiss army knives and cows. Yep, definitely in Switzerland. We were starving by the time we finally sat down to eat. The place is infamous for its cheese fondue but none of us felt up to that. I ended up getting a rosti and it was great! We hung out there for awhile, then wandered back to our campsite. My roomies are of the drunken partying pursuasion, so we had little in commom for the most part. But I dont spend much time in my room, so it is ok. I got up fairly early on my first day there. I spent the morning just wandering around locally. The town is a valley in the Swiss Alps, with something like 170 waterfalls in the area - no matter where you look, it is a postcard. Around noon, I headed back to the campsite and caught a shuttle bus to Interlaken, where I had previously bought a ticket for river rafting! It seemed like the thing to do whilst being in Switzerland. And it was awesome! I was actually more nervous about that than I was about paragliding. I dont really know why. There were a bunch of people doing it as well, none of whom I knew. All my friends had moved on in the morning, so for the time being, I was alone in Switzerland. But we all got seperated into groups of 6 and our training began! We all got full wetsuits and boots - the water is only a couple degrees above zero. Then we were taught how to paddle and practiced the various commands we would need, ranging from All Forward (everyone paddle forward) to All left (everyone go to the left side of the boat, to prevent a flip over). We also learned how to rescue people and what to do if we flipped over or fell out. After we were deemed sufficiently experienced, we loaded out boats and headed off! The water is insanely fast. All glacier melt water, sort of grubby looking, almost brown, since it is fed from a mountain made with black stone. At one point, the river hits another river that is fed from a mountain with a different type of stone and you can clearly see the difference! Quite amazing really. Anyways, the rafting was fun! We hit a few category 3 and even a category 4 rapids. We almost flipped over at one point, which was one of the scariest things I have ever experienced. We hit a rock and the boat shifted and we were so close to going over. But we salvaged ourselves and got upright. But then we were off track from the sort of pathway down the river and consequently hit every other rock on the wy down. But it was fun! At one point, we hit an easy stretch and our pilot told us we could jump in and experience the river if we wanted to. I was game, so I went in, holding on to the boat the whole time. It was definitely an interesting experience. I have never felt so...powerless...in my life. The current was so strong, I was just a leaf on the water. And so so cold. We eventually got back in the raft and the rest of the trip was more of a relaxing river trip, until we poured out into the lake. He let us swim to shore if we wanted to and man, that was cold. Also hard to swim wearing a full wet suit and shoes. We loaded the boats back onto the trailer and headed back to the campsite. And we got pictures of the whole thing! It is on a CD though, so I have no clue what it actually contains. I was kind of tired after that and ended up just hanging around the campsite, relaxing, after I got back. The next day, I once again just wandered around locally for awhile, before heading to Interlaken again, this time to go to the Seilpark! It is a high rope adventure park. Basically, a system of obstacle courses, all on tree tops, ranging from 11m to 25m. There were 5 courses of varying difficulty and I did them all! It was so much fun. You get a full harness and two clips and a zip line thingy. You have to do a training mini course, only a metre above ground, while the instructor watches you, making sure you know how to use all the equipment properly. Always have one clip on at all times, etc. After that, you are free to do whichever course you want, in whatever order. The first one is a beginner course, just to get used to the idea. The second one is just giant ziplines. And they get harder and longer, with some really difficult obstacles, ranging from Tarzan swings to rope ladders to rings suspended in mid air. Absolutely exhausting and so much fun. I loved it. I met an Aussie couple on the way there and ended up hanging out with them for most of the time there. We couldnt get a shuttle back to the camp, so we walked about half an hour to the train station and caught a train back to Lauterbrunnen. It was a nice walk and a nice train ride. We were all exhausted by this point though, the Seilpark really gets you! One of the main attractions of this region is the Jungfrau mountain - the highest mountain in Switzerland and somewhat unique because you can actually get to the top via train. Most people come here to do that. I had not planned on it because it is a really expensive train ticket. But as I walked by reception, I suddenly changed my mind, walked inside, and bought the ticket. I told myself that I would not avoid doing something I wanted to do because of money, so screw it! And I am soooooo happy I did it. After some contemplation, I got a ticket for the first ticket of the day (6:40am), which was the cheapest, and I also only about a return ticket for about a third of the way, wanting a nice long hike at some point. I got up ridiculously early, walked to the train station and hopped on the train! About two hours later, it was snowing, 1.4 degrees celcius and I was on top of Europe. Quite literally. Over 3500m above sea level and nothing but mountains as far as the eye could see. Almost breathtakingly beautiful. I literally just stood on the edge, almost completely alone, for aboutu 20 minutes, just looking. Almost surreal, there was a level of silence that I have never really experienced. Everyone who got off the train went straight for the highest observation point. I went straight for a side door, to a plateau, and there was almost no one else there. It was so cool. After awhile, I went back inside and checked out the rest of the building and the various observation points. I was taking picture after picture but because of the glare, I could not actually see the results until much later. (Fantastic, everyone could be a breathtaking postcard, seriously). I followed a sign pointing to something that I had no clue what it was, so naturally, I followed it. And ending up doing a 2 hour hike, in the snow, on the top of a mountain, in the Swiss Alps! So cool. I was absolutely freezing cold by the end of it, since I was not really prepared for 0 degree weather, so I popped back inside, bought a hot chocolate and just sat by a window, looking down at the world. Eventually, I had to catch the train back down the mountain. I got off about an hour later, since I only bought a partial ticket. I found some hiking signs pointing to Lauterbrunnen, about 3 and a half hours away and I set off. And it was perfect. The ultimate hike. Beautiful sunny weather, large mountains all around me, waterfalls, forests. Eventually, the path took me through a few small Swiss farming villages. Everything was just so pretty. It took me about 4 hours to get back to the campsite, all quite steep downhill. I was quite tired by the time I got back, but it was a fantastic day and I felt really good about being in Switzerland. That evening, I randomly bumped into Kym, one of my original friends from Paris, seemingly so long ago. The campsite has a pretty decent kitchen, so we stocked up on groceries and make a great dinner while getting caught up. It was great seeing her again. I really like that about Busabout - after you have been travelling long enough, you run into so many people you know, at utterly random unexpected times. Awesome. The washing machines are quite cheap here, although dryers are expensive, so I decided to do a wash then hang out my clothes to dry. It was bright and sunny outside, should not be a problem. About 20 minutes after putting my clothes in the washer, a completely unexpected thuinderstorm hit. And then there was torrential rain for the rest of the night and the following day. I wasnt bothered by it, I had already done what I had wanted to do. I met up with Kym again in the morning and, with her roomie, we chipped in and made an awesome bacon and egg brekkie for only 4 francs each. So fantastic. Then we just did more or less nothing for the day. I eventually wandered into town and bought a Swiss army knive, a pretty kick-ass one too. And I am considering it a work investment as opposed to a random holiday expense! Yeah.... The rain let up a bit around 3pm, so we headed down to the Traummelbach falls, about an hours walk from the campsite. It was pretty cool - basically a system of 10 waterfalls, all inside a mountain. Very powerful water, neat to stand near. Got completely soaked, but that was ok, since it was raining the entire walk back to the site, so soaking was inevitable. We made a great dinner again, hung out for a few more hours, the said goodbye. The last two nights were great - I had the room to myself! A 4 bed room, all mine. It felt so great. I got up early this morning, packed and hopped on the bus for another 10 hour bus ride back to Nice, where I will be staying for 3 nights, before heading off to Spain. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 9th, 2008
7:44 pm	Lauterbrunnen! Very quick entry. Switzerland is awesome, Internet insanely expensive. No long entry for a few days. Just letting you know that I am alive. I have added two nights to my stay here, I will now be in Switzerland until Sunday. I went river rafting today. So cool. Literally. (Comment on this)
Sunday, July 6th, 2008
7:15 pm	Cinque Terre! Ok, this has got to be one of the most beautiful places on this planet. I cannot believe I had not hear of it before! I am so glad I gave myself 4 days here, it is fantastic. Cinque Terre is actually a network of 5 old coastal villages that are linked together by a walking path. The path has been built right into the actual cliff face and, until the last century, was the only way to travel between villages. Everyone comes here to walk the path and to hang out in the cute villages. It is not too far from Florence, maybe a 3 hour drive in total. We actually stopped for an hour in Pisa along the way and checked out the Leaning Tower. After getting the obligatory cheesy shots, we headed on and got to La Spezia, a town near the 5 villages and the main train station. Now, I had a hell of a time getting accommodation for this place. I eventually got 2 nights into a random campground a few towns beyond Cinque Terre and two nights in La Spezia, in a hotel. This is the first time I have left the Busabout recommended stops and the first time since Paris that I had to travel on public transit on my own with my bags. But it was fine! Found the train station, bought a ticket to my village and got there about 40 minutes later. My instructions from the campground was to walk up the staircase and use the public phone to call them. I found the staircase, then found the phone. And spent half an hour trying to make a damn phone call, failing miserably. It just did not work for me. There was probably some trick to it but all the help menus were in Italian and I just could not figure it out. I was getting frustrated and I had to clue where the campsite actually was but I assumed that it is big enough to have scheduled pickups, so I waited outside and sure enough, less than a minute later, a mini bus shows up with the name of the camp on it. I wave it down and, luckily, the driver spoke fluent English, and took me to the camp. She was one of the friendliest people I have met on my trip so far, knew me by name before I even said more than a couple of words and took me straight to my room so I could drop my stuff off and just said to come down and check in whenever I felt like it. I went into the room, expecting the 4 bed dorm room I booked, only to see a private cabin. A bit nervous at this point, I went down to reception and asked them about it. Turns out, they had to switch some bookings around and it resulted in me getting a private cabin! A full cabin, double bed, full working kitchen, private bathroom, fridge, everything! All for the price of a hostel dorm room. Fantastic. By this point, it is already the afternoon and I was tired, so I hopped on the bus to town, found a supermarket, stocked up and just hung out in my cabin the rest of the night, reading and just relaxing! I bought spaghetti and pesto and made myself an awesome (and cheap) Italian meal! It felt great. Since I have a private room and I didnt know anyone else at the camp, I ended up spending the entire next day on my own. I took the bus to the train station, bought a 3 day Cinque Terre pass and headed off to Riogiamorre! I wandered aimlessly around the town for awhile, getting moderately lost in the labyrinth of tiny streets and staircases, then decided to do the full walk. It starts off so easy. Paved walking path, tons of tourists, great views. I hit the first village in under 20 minutes. Explored that for awhile, then found the path again and kept walking. This one took longer but it was also quite easy. The third village was quite different, on the top of the cliff as opposed to a seafront. I walked up a ridiculously large amount of stairs. Seriously. It took about half an hour. Of just stairs. When I finally got up to the top, I declared it lunch time and bought a sandwhich and a cold drink and found a shady bench, right on the side, overlooking the coast. The sea spread out as far as I could and the water was just sparkling. Very beautiful. I ended up staying there for almost an hour, just relaxing. Eventually, I got up and continued on the trail. Then it started getting harder. It was no longer a single walking path but a pretty brutal hiking trail. I did the first three villages in under 2 hours but the last two took me 4 hours. The pathways up the mountain are literally carved into the rock. You are either walking uphill for 45 minutes or so, or downhill. Exhausting, but incredibly rewarding. You are never out of sight of the sea and every corner you turn, the view just gets increasingly spectacular. It really was breathtaking - sparkling ocean, green mountains, tiny colourful buildings. I have so many pictures, it is almost ridiculous. The fourth village was my favourite. It is still mostly within the boundaries of a medieval castle wall and one tower still remains, poking out like a lighthouse. So cool. The last strech, between the 4th and 5th village was the longest and most brutal. My legs were killing me by the end of it but I was happy. That walk was one of the highlights of my trip and the best hike I have ever done in my life. The next day, I had to switch accommodation and headed back to La Spezia. I knew that Sarah, my friend from occasional cities since St. Johann, was arriving and that we were staying in the same hotel, so I worked it out that I would get there around the same time she did. I wasnt sure how we would manage to meet up, but luckily, we ended up in the same room! We heard rumours of a train strike the following day, so Sarah decided that she wanted to do the big walk on that day. So I decided to keep her company. So I did it again! I was already sore from the day before, but not badly. We decided to start in the opposite end than I had the day before, which meant that we did the hardest bits at the start of the day, when we were fresh and eager. Not so good with sore legs, but I managed and I knew that once we got past the first two villages, it was easy from there. It was nice doing the walk with someone too. And I loved being able to walk down that insanely long flight of stairs instead of up them! Random encounter: on the path, we ended up chatting to this couple from Australia and discovered that they were staying in the same hotel as we were. Not only that, but were in the same room! Randomly meeting your roomates in the middle of a mountain hike in Italy in strange. We did the walk faster together than I had on my own and we both felt great by the end of it. Still, it was hard work and we declared today to be a day off. We slept in, ate a decent breakfast and grabbed a train to our favourite village, Vernazzo, and spent a couple of hours on the beach. The water is just a perfect temperature, cold for a few seconds but wonderfully refreshing after that. After awhile, we got bored of our overcrowded beach, so we left and went one town over, to see if that one was any better. It was even more crowded, but we swam once more and hung out a bit longer. I got badly sunburned, even after multiple applications of 40 spf sunscreen, which is ridiculous. We got tired and started walking back, grabbing an enourmous gelato along the way. I am leaving Italy tomorrow, heading of to France! I will only be in Nice for one night, before heading up to Switzerland! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
11:07 am	Pompeii and Florence! I believe I have finally figured out how to import my blog! So no more double posting, yay. It has come to my attention that some people are not seeing my notes pop up on facebook. I have no clue why, I checked again and they were all posted! Might be easier to check my actual blog, that will at least not rely on an internal notification. Please make comments! Let me know you are all still alive! Anyways, I am in Florence now, which is beautiful but also incredibly hot. We only walked for about half an hour this morning before spotting this dirt cheap Internet cafe, so we hopped inside to escape the heat. But first of all, Pompeii! Pure awesome. Archaeologists dream. It was actually better than I expected and I expected something good! For those of you who may not know, Pompeii is a Roman city that was buried by a volcanic eruption, killing everyone who stayed there and covering the city until it was discovered only a couple hundred years ago. Which means it was really well preserved and never adapted to other uses, other cultures through time. Which means it is awesome! The preservation and/or reconstruction is amazing! You actually walk down ancient Roman streets, inside ancient Roman buildings, looking at ancient Roman wall paintings. There are theatres, a forum, restaurants, private houses, temples, everything! And we are allowed to walk through a good chunck of it. We were there for over 5 hours and saw maybe 60% of it. Getting there went quite smoothly. It is not all that close to Rome, about a 3 hour commute away but it went all right. To give ourselves the maximum amount of time to explore, we caught the first train out at 7:45am. It was about 2 hours long and we got off in Naples, to catch another train to Pompeii itself. No problmes! The tickets were more expensive than I had thought though, the Italian train system is strange and somewhat confusing. But we made it there and happily explored a Roman city for a day! Getting back was interesting too. John had looked up the ideal times and we got there to catch the fastest one home. Went to the ticket machines, looked it up. One seat left. Looked up the next train. One seat left. Looked up the next train. One seat left. Looked up the last train, which would get us to Rome around 10pm, ticket malfunction. Grrr. Somewhat frustrated, we decided to go attempt to talk to an actual person. As we walked up to the line, I had just said something about getting to Rome and an American girl waiting at the entrance to the huge ticket line approached us and asked us if we needed to get to Rome. She and her friend had apparently bought 2 tickets each for the train, not knowing that the other was doing the same. The train was leaving in less than 10 minutes and she didnt have time to line up to get a refund. We looked at the tickets, which were legit and agreed to buy them off her. We actually got a deal, we had said that we were looking for the 20 euro tickets whereas she had bought the superfast ones at a much higher price. She was desperate and just said she would take whatever we had planned on paying. So we bought them and hopped on the train. Slightly sketchy perhaps, but it worked and we got home in plenty of time. Got up the next morning, said goodbye to John and headed off to Florence. We got here around 3pm, which was great. Busabout was offering a cheap Florence dinner night out that practically everyone did. The food was great and decently priced! After that, we wandered around Florence for awhile, unashamedly showing our child of the 90s status by taking pictures of all the statures that correspond to ninja turtles. We got to the bridge right at sunset and I got some absolutely beautiful shots. I am glad I found this cheap Internet place. I have a potential problem with my bank. I was trying to withdraw cash at Rome and a message came up saying that no internation withdrawls were allowed with this card. Which is dumb, considering I have been withdrawing Internationally for over a month now. So I am going to attempt to contact my bank now, which should be fun. My Canadian card worked fine though, so dont worry, I still have money! Ok, time to do bank stuff then explore Florence. (Comment on this)
Saturday, June 28th, 2008
10:01 pm	Rome! Ok, Rome! Apologies for my lack of entries, lots to see, little time to see it in! In short, Rome is awesome. The past few days have not run as smoothly as I may have hoped but overall, it has still been fantastic. The bus trip from Venice to here was the longest one yet, over 9 hours. But it wasn’t too bad, lots of tv show watching and book reading, it is actually quite relaxing, a change of pace from constant sight seeing. I am staying in another campground, like the one in Venice. It is not as nice as the one in Venice and quite far outside of Rome, about a 40 minute commute, a bus ride and metro, to get into central Rome, which is annoying. But it is way cheap and staying inside central Rome definitely is not, so I can manage a bit of inconvenience. John got here about a half hour after I did, which was great. We were both starving, so we headed down to the restaurant to get some food. The food is decent here and fairly reasonable in price. Walking back from the restaurant, we ran into a group of people I know from busabout and ended up hanging out at a table, chatting away. It was great to meet up with some of them again. There were a few I haven’t seen for ages! The next day, we got up and headed to Rome! Rome is simply…fascinating. I didn’t realize that so much has been preserved. I mean, I knew about the Coliseum and the Pantheon and such, but was not prepared for running across 2000 year old buildings EVERYWHERE. It is so cool. The place is an archaeologists dream! It is also a dump, there is so much garbage and graffiti everywhere, it is insane! And cats. Lots of cats. And it is brutally hot. Plus 40 degrees every day I have been here but if you want to get into churches, you cant wear shorts or tank tops. Brutal. I had previously purchased a Rome walking tour, after it was strongly recommended by several people whom I respect. That was supposed to be at 2pm, so we had a good chunk of the day to just wander. So we did! Started out at this really neat Roman bath that was converted into a church, designed by Michelangelo. Not a bad start. Then we wandered past Augustus forum, so we went inside and spent a good chunk of time checking it out. Tons of rooms that you can just wander in and out of. Very cool. After that, we ate some ridiculously overpriced street meat and then headed towards Circus Maximus, to meet up with tour guide. And promptly got lost and completely missed the tour. Grrr. Luckily, the tickets are valid for any day but it did waste a lot of valuable Rome time. Since we couldn’t do the tour, we decided we might as well go to the Coliseum as a consolation prize! But the line up was insane and when we found out that the tickets also include the Palatine and the forums, we knew we didn’t have enough time to see it all before they closed and decided against it. By then, I was feeling exhausted and slightly ill, so we headed back to the campground. The following day, we declared a Vatican day! I had also bought a Vatican tour, also based on rave reviews, but sincerely regret that one. First of all, I was told that the tour was at 10am. The booklet I had also said 10am. So there we were, waiting at 10am. No one was there. Another guy from busabout showed up, also looking for the tour. Nothing. But he had previously heard a rumour that the tour was actually at 11am, so we waited around. And yes, it was at 11am. But that was basically a wasted morning. That wasn’t all though. I really disliked the tour guide. Very American, chewing gum constantly, dressed like a bum, and more or less managing to constantly reduce thousands of years of history into lame ninja turtle jokes. I got sick of him really quickly. I normally like walking tours because you see so much of stuff that you would never have seen otherwise and learn stuff you would never have found out on your own. Not with this tour. The first thing we did was hop on a bus, drive for 20 minutes and get off….at a café. Not even in the Vatican. And then ate breakfast for 20 minutes. Then we walked up the road and jumped into a random alleyway for some rapid general information, before walking for 40 minutes to get to the actual Vatican city. By the time we crossed the bridge, we were already over 2 hours in to a 4 hour tour and we hadn’t even hit the damn location yet. I was seething a bit, especially since the tour was not exactly cheap and I felt Rome time slipping away rapidly between my fingers. We eventually got to the museum and bought our tickets (not included in the tour price) and we got about an hour rapid tour of the main tourist route of the Vatican. Which I could easily have done on my own. He did give us a decent talk on the Sistine Chapel, which I do appreciate but other than that, I didn’t learn a thing. And after you leave the Chapel, you cant go back into the museums, of which there are 15, only 5 of which we briefly walked through. By then, I was annoyed. I had paid good money to see way less in a lot more time. So John and I abandoned the tour before we left the Chapel and headed back into the museums. And I am so glad we did. We didn’t make it to the Egypt gallery, but we saw some awesome paintings and random things like a room full of stamps of the Pope. We had fun looking at tons of bizarre religious paintings, making snarky comments (quietly) that art critics and religious people alike would definitely have gringed at if they overheard. But we were having fun! After we left the museum, we wanted to find St. Peters Cathedral, so we started wandering around the Vatican. And since we went off in the wrong direction to begin with, we ended up walking around the entire thing. So we can claim we walked around an entire country! We eventually did find the Cathedral and it is indeed impressive. And actually worth the fact that we had to wear pants and t shirts all day in plus 40 degree weather. After that, we headed down a random street and found a decent looking restaurant. The food was great, the service was crap. We finished eating and waited over 45 minutes just to get the bill. And the bill was inaccurate or just lame. When we asked about it, it seems that we had to pay for the bread that we very specifically did not ask for or eat and we had to pay for the use of the tablecloth. We were so tired of the place by then, we gave up and paid and left. We didn’t really know where we were but eventually found a bus that would get us to a station we knew. Like all the buses here, it was crammed full and not air conditioned, but we made it. Only to find that the subway system shuts down at 10pm. Seriously. So there we were, in central Rome, with no public transit. So we had to get a taxi, which I hate. But John was awesome and cheerful and we eventually made it back to camp. Today was a fantastic day. Makes up completely for the lame things that have happened on the other days. We got up decently early and headed straight for central Rome. The line up for the Coliseum was already massive, over an hour just to get tickets, but we are intelligent! The tickets are valid for the Coliseum, Palatine Hill and the forums, so we headed for the Palatine. About 5 people in line. Brilliant. And it was pure awesome. It is basically where a bunch of royal rich guys built their houses. Mostly in ruins now but still plenty of walls and wells and even complete rooms. So cool. The best was Augustus’s house, which has remarkable preservation. Actual entire rooms, with the original paint still decorating them. We wandered around happily for quite some time, then headed down the street to the Coliseum! And, because we are brilliant and bought our tickets at the non insanely popular place, we walked right past the insane line up and literally walked right into the Coliseum. Which was everything I hoped it would be. Massive, falling apart, awesomely archaeological and insanely cool. It doesn’t take too much time to see everything and take cool pictures, so we eventually to buy some even more ridiculously priced food, before finally actually meeting up with the tour. I was a bit sceptical about this tour, considering how much I enjoyed the last one, but this one was brilliant! I was so relieved it wasn’t the same tour guide. This guy was good, very informative, good speaker, great stories. We walked around Rome for over 4 hours, seeing all sorts of cool stuff, actually put into context. I really enjoyed it. Got to see the non existent Circus Maximus, the Mouth of Truth, the Pantheon, and tons more. Also had some of the best gelato ever. The tour ended close to 6pm, at the Coliseum. Our tickets were burning holes in our pockets, since we didn’t have time to see the Roman forums before meeting up, so we almost ran down street, hoping to get in before the 6pm closing time. The ticket machine rejected my ticket, since we had already used it to get into the Palatine and had not realized that the forums were not separated, but the nice ticket guy let us through and we happily wandered around the ruins of the Roman forum! So awesome. Tomorrow, we are going to Pompeii. I am so excited. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, June 27th, 2008
3:55 am	Florence! I am back in that awesomely cheap Internet cafe, trying to escape the relentless heat. I have already eaten two gelatos which is not even remotely excessive. (Mom - the flavours I have tried so far throughout my trip including, but not limited so, chocolate, vanilla, watermellon, banana, strawberry, kiwi, nutella, raspberry, lemon, lime, mint and cantelope. All are awesome.) I admit I have been slacking off over the past few days, recovering from Rome. It is way too hot to wait for hours in line to see some art I know little about, so my roomate and I have scorned the art galleries and have spent our time roaming the streets. I have seen a good part of Florence now and I like it here. It has a good vibe to it, it is not insanely expensive and you can actually escape tourists if you avoid the galleries. Yesterday, after doing all my Internet stuff, I was able to get a hold of my bank and solve my bank card issues. Whew. I have also checked my bank account and did some math and figured out that I am exactly on budget right now and will have more than enough money to finish my trip! So dont worry, Mom and Dad! After that, we spent a couple of hours just wandering about. We went inside the giant Duomo, a massive cathedral that looks awesome on the outside but is pretty boring on the inside. There was a cool underground section with the archaeological remains of the previous churches built on the same spot, which was neat. After that, we found a supermarket and stocked up on food and drinks. Our room has a fridge! We live in luxury! Then we both decided simultaneously that it was too hot to exist in Florence and headed back to our campsite. The transit system here is somewhat unreliable, but we made it back! Then we spent a few hours just relaxing and I actually had time to read my book. We ate dinner at the restaurant and it was delicious! Mixed salad, penne with pesto, orange juice and a gelato, all for only 8 euro. Not bad at all. Today, we got into the centre and started wandering about again. We saw a giant fortress label on the map and decide to go check it out. Turns out, it is some fancy business thing with a big "no tourists" sign up front. So we left and kept wandering. We eventually found a market, wandered around not buying anything, walked across the famous Ponte Vecchio, a bridge with jewelery stores on it, definitely not buying anything. We ate lunch at this awesome little cafe, where I finally found the same spaghetti dish I really liked in the Czech Republic. Then we decided to find this Internet place again, to get out of the sun, so here I am! I am heading to La Spezia tomorrow, for Cinque Terre. I have had trouble booking hostels for the next few legs of my trip and I had to juggle my schedule around to get in anywhere. I will be staying at one campground in Cinque Terre for 2 nights, then a different one in La Spezia for another two. Then I go to Nice for just a night before shooting up to Switzerland, for 2 nights, before coming back down to Nice, to stay for 5 nights. I could not get into Avignon at all, might do it as a day trip from Nice. I have managed to book the rest of my trip up to Paris, so I am set from now on. Internet may not be reliable where I am staying for the next few days, so I may not be on until I get to France. I am looking forward to Cinque Terre! It is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places on this planet! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008
3:40 pm	St. Johann and Venice! Ok, I am trying to blog up to where I am now! I am sort of cheating right now. The computers here are rather expensive, 5 euro an hour. But, unlike most computers, they are already on and running, you only need the code to connect to the Internet. Plus, there is actual USB port access. As I write this, I am transfering all my photos to my flash drive and writing this offline, completely free! I will connect when I want to upload. Yay. But first, St. Johann in Tyrol! Possibly my favourite stop thus far. It is another one of the towns that I had not originally planned to go to, but the more I did my research, the more I like it. It is a village within a valley, smack inside the Alps. Beautiful mountains in every direction. The village itself has around 3000 people, very Austrian. It is actually commen to see men and women wearing traditional clothing. Lederhosen is cool. Anyways, St. Johann is not far from Munich. We got here around 10:30am, so I had almost two full days to explore. The hostel is more like a bed and breakfast. Small, owned by a cheerful woman who likes chatting to all of us. I am sharing a room with only one other person, which makes a welcome change from the 5 to 9 people I am usually with. I met another random Australian girl as we both approached the guide to ask about hiking paths and we decided to take one to a famous waterfall. The hike was up a mountain and was supposed to take about 5 hours, maybe 20km. After spending so much time in cities, I was really looking forward to being outside, with some actual trees! My new friend is not in very good shape but she really wanted to do it. It took us about a 2 hour walk just to find the start of the hike, which was kind of funny. Small town, not a good map, confusing signs. After a few false starts and scenic detours, we found the path we wanted and started up the mountain. We took it really slow, taking tons of breaks and since neither of us had anywhere else to be, we were in no hurry. It was actually quite a hard walk to the waterfall. Constantly uphill, sometimes very steeply so. At one point, we were resting on one of the benches and a couple of Austrian mountain bikers came down. One of them got off his bike and started cheerfully chatting to us. Soon realizing that we had no clue what he was saying, he switched to limited english and we talked for a bit. He thought it was absolutely hilarious that he was talking to an Australian and a Canadian, halfway up a mountain, in St. Johann, Austria. After awhile, he started down and again and we kept going up. My friend was struggling but we made it! We both just started laughing when we got to the infamous waterfall. Definitely the most pitiful waterfall I have ever seen. I guess it is just not the right season for a lot of water but there was barely more than a trickle coming down. We actually weren.t even sure we had gotten there until we found the sign. Still, you could see the watermarks where the water normally is and I am sure it is quite spectacular during the melting season. There was, however, a spectacular view of the entire valley down below us. After many photos and a bit of rest, we headed down again. Like all mountain hikes, it took way less time to get down then it had to get up. Still, we had spent the whole day hiking, it was getting dark, almost 10pm by this point. As we walked through the town, an Austrian man came up to us, handed me a huge lit candle, said something cheerfully in german and kept on walking. Feeling slightly bemused by this, we kept walking. Soon enough, we reached a crowd of people, all holding candles and heading in the same direction. We were not sure whether we had just joined a religious cult or what, but we figured that since we also had a cool candle, we should head in that direction too! It turns out that it is part of the local celebration of the summer solstice, which was on the following day. There was a few bands, a choir, tons of candles and lederhosen everywhere. Very cool uniforms. Lots of speeches that we didnàt understand but we cheered happily whenever the crowd did. There was a ceremonial lighting of a massive bonfire, then the whole crowd filed past it, tossing their lit candles into it. I cheerfully did the same. The crowd dispersed and we headed back to the hostel. But it was fun to be involved in a local ceremony, even if I didnt have a clue what was going on! The following day, my new roommate and I decided to go on another hike. We picked a random path and started up it. Soon, we realized that this was the path that would take us up to the top of one of the tallest mountains in the region, about a 7 hour hike, straight up. We decided we were way too lazy for that and settled for about a 2 hour hike. We were chatting and she was telling me about going paragliding the day before. St. Johann is known for its adventure sports, including skydiving and paragliding. We were both disapointed, because we had both wanted to go canyoning, but we needed 4 people to make a booking and no one else was interested. I had decided against paragliding because it was too expensive. Our hike took us to the bottom of the mountain, where the gondala starts to take the lazy people up it. It is also where the paragliding starts. I went up to the counter to ask about the paragliding and the guy behind the desk made a call, then said to me, "ok, you can go in 10 minutes". Screw the money, I thought, and I agreed. I told myself before I started this trip that I would not not do something I really wanted to do, purely for monetary reasons. And it was not exorbitant either, only 120 euros, including photos. And, man, am I glad I did it! It was literally one of the most exhilerating experiences of my life. It was a tandem jump, meaning I didnt really have to do a thing beyond run for about 10m at the very beginning. My pilot, Wolfgang, was awesome. He spoke excellent english and answered all my questions cheerfully. The ride up the gondala to the top of the mountain was interesting, to say the least. It is quite a steep climb and takes over half an hour. And the whole time, I am looking down, thinking, "I am going to jump off this mountain". So weird. We finally get to the top and my pilot sets it all up. I get harnassed into this thing that is almost like a suit but in the air, changes into a chair when I lean back. Ingenious. Wolfgang gets attached to the parachute and I get attached to him. He picked our launching point based on the current winds and told me to just start running. So I did. Towards the very steep edge of a mountain. About three steps later, the winds hits the chute, I get yanked back and we are suddenly airborn, shooting up into the air. My pilot tells me to lean back and suddenly, I am sitting comfortably in a chair, the ground 2000 m below me. It is impossible to describe how that feels. And, surprisingly, I felt completely safe. Very securely fastened. It has got to be the closest thing to flying that a person can feel. It was amazing. We hit a decent thermal a few minutes in and went even higher. All I could see under me were mountains and trees and tiny little villages. Wolfgang showed me how to turn and how the chute works. He pointed out our landing point, way way below. And we just flew. I was airborn for about half an hour. Apparently, it is possible, with decent thermals, to stay up in the air for 12 hours sometimes. Absolutely amazing. I had decided that since I am already springing for this jump, I may as well get some photos to prove that I did it! So Wolfgang had a camera attached to the end of a long pole and kept taking photos from all different directions, to show both me in the air and the ground below me. I got the film canister at the end of it, I can wait to see the pictures! After about 20 minutes into the air, he said quietly, "ok, now we are going to do an action shot!". And then banked sharply to the right. I cannot describe the feeling. Up until then, it was actually relaxing, calmly watching the scenery float around me and under me. But that sharp turn was a bigger rush than the largest roller coaster in the world. And I like it. He asked me if I wanted any more and I said yes. So he started do acrobatics in the air. Amazing adrenaline rush, I have never felt anything like it. The acrobatics do eat up height quickly though and soon enough, we were close to our spot and landed gently. Seriously, it was one of the highlights of my life so far. So, I quite happy for the rest of the day. Hell, I am still happy. But the day got even better. It was the summer solstice, an important date here in Austria! Since this is a hiking and mountain climbing town, there is a competition between the hardcore amoung them to really celebrate the solstice. So they light up the mountains. Literally. They spend weeks climbing to the very tops, hauling up wood and fuel. Then, as the sun sets, they light them up. We knew this was going to happen, so we headed up to the top of the mountain I had recently jumped off. From there, we had a roughtly 200 degree view of many different mountain ranges all around us. And, as the sun set, they started lighing up. Only a few at first, seen only as a small flickering light, maybe halfway up a mountain. But as it got darker, more and more of them started popping up until most of the mountains were just peppered with them. The very tops of some of the mountain ranges, almost 3000m high, were actually outlined with fire lanterns. It was absolutely amazing. Especially since they can only be scaled with expertise and full climbing gear, which cant be easy with a load of wood! I just loved being at the top of a mountain, in the Austrian Alps, watching something like that that I have never seen nor will likely see again. Amazing stuff. The next day, we got on the bus and headed for Venice. Longer bus trip this time, didnt get here till past 5pm. The drive there was spectacular. Very few people watched the movie, we were all just marvelling at the scenery around us. I like mountains. We had a stop at the second highest McDonalds in the world and I was hungry enough at that point to eat there. We are staying in a camping village, outside of Venice itself. It is huge, cheap and has everything we need - a swimming pool, laundry, a bar, even a supermarket. There is an hourly shuttle bus to Venice itself, roughly half an hour out. The climate changed drastically coming down from the mountains. The night before, I was wearing pants and a sweater, hanging out by a bonfire, on the top of a mountain. The next day, it was 35 degrees, humid, with a very intense sun. Most of my friends were only planning on staying here the one night (as opposed to the three I have planned) so they decided to head down to Venice right away, to at least get a few hours to see it. So we hopped on the bus and headed off! About 20 minutes later, we get to a massive bridge, spanning almost as far as we can see. Clearly heading towards some islands! We get off the bus and just start wandering. Venice is definitely one the strangest places I have seen. It is built on something like 117 island. No cars in the entire city. It is also the first place I have been to that actually looks exactly the way I picture it. It really is a bunch of houses, right up against canals, with gondolas floating everywhere. The city itself is a complete maze. Maps are virtuously useless. Very few streets are actually labelled and the city is seperated into 6 different neighborhoods, all build on a similar blueprint. And everything has the same souvenir shops, gelato stores, restaurants, everything. So it is somewhat surreal to walk through. There are signs pointing people in the direction of the main places but apparently locals like to switch them around, which I find hilarious. Hey, if I lived in a city with something like 400 tourists for every local, I would probably do the same! We eventually found the square we were looking for and happily marveleld at the cool buildings. Then we decided that we really did need a gondala ride. We asked around and eventually found out that there was a standard price pf 100 euros for a 50 minute ride, which holds up to 6 people. Splitting the cost, that wasnt so bad. But then two people in our group backed out, leaving only 3 of us who wanted to do it. 100 euros split three ways was too much for all of our budgets. But we kept asking around, going away from the main touristy places and down the smaller streets and eventually got one to give us a ride for 20 euros each. So we did it! I really like it. I know it is silly and a tourist trap but I still wanted to do it. It was a great way to explore the city! You cant access a lot of it by walking, it is all about the boats. Our gondala driver was pretty cool, kept pointing out sites (like Marco Polos house) and even singing for awhile. Very cool. By then, it was getting late, so we wandered back and eventually found our bus back to the campground. We ate some dinner at the restaurant here and I said goodbye again to some good friends. Campgrounds are not the same as hostels. I am in a room with three beds but, surprisingly, I am the only one in it. I havent had my own room in 5 weeks. At first, it was fantastic. But since my friends are all gone and this place is huge, it is starting to get a bit lonely. I havent met anyone else to hang out with so I have been mainly on my own. Still, I had fun yesterday. Actually, I am glad I got to explore Venice on my own. There wasnt much in terms of museusm and churches that I wanted to see, so I just wandered aimlessly, eating gelato. It is really the best way to explore the city. If you have a particular place to find, you will get frustrated when you inevitably get lost. But if you dont care where you end up, dead ends become funny instead of frustrating. I did go inside the Basilica in St. Marcos square and it was neat. It was really hot and I was a bit sneaky and went into the "prayers only" section and sat down for awhile, just resting. I saw everything I wanted to see and eventually headed back to the campsite. I decided this morning that I am happy with what I saw in Venice and I have declared today a day off. I ate a really good breakfast at the restaurant, then spent the rest of the morning alternatively reading by the pool and jumping into it to cool off. I sort of needed a day off, endless travelling can be tiring! It also gives me time to write massive blog entries like this and to organize photos. I assume that when the Busabout bus arrives in a couple of hours, I will have some new roomates. I am heading off to Rome tomorrow! I am so looking forward to being there and to meeting up with John! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 23rd, 2008
10:10 am	Salzburg and Munich! Ok, prepare for a long blog! I am sad I lost that long one I wrote a few days ago, I wrote in in Germany, as the German game was playing and there is no way to recreate my comments on what was happening then! Ah well. Ok, Salzburg! I got up early and wandered around for a few hours on my own. Salzburg is dominated by a massive fortress, so I hiked up to it and checked it out. I still love castles! I only had a few hours to wander because I had to be back at the hostel by 1pm for the ice cave tour! Ice caves! They are awesome. Absolutely amazing. We got picked up at our hostel and drove to a bus station, where we got on a bus. There, we had a good hour long ride through the Austrian Alps! I like mountains. Then we drove up a mountain. It eventually got too sleep for the bus, so we got off and started walking up. And up.And up. Then we got on the steepest cable car in Europe and went up even higher. Then we walked up and up and up again, for another half an hour. Finally, we reached the mouth of the ice caves! Then we walked 700 steps up in there, then 700 steps down, then back down the mountain. Whew. The ice caves go back 42km into the mountain and we got to see about 1km of it. The way was lit by laterns with a single flame and the occasional magnesium strip, the way it would have been lit when they were first discovered in the 1800s. The cave is massive, soaring high over our heads and as far as we could see and covered in ice. Ice lakes, ice rooms, ice stalactites and staglamites, ice figures everywhere. When lighted by fire, it is absolutely breathtaking. And cold too, hovering around 0 degrees. Very cool. After the ice caves, we were obviously somewhat tired and chilled out for a few hours, just hanging out at the hostel bar, eating schnitzel. But, that night was the Austria vs Germany game! So my friend Pedro and I went down to the massive fan zone. Two giant screens, 6000 people. Absolutely crazy. There were quite a lot of germans there too, so the atmosphere was fantastic. When Germany scored the goal, the crowd went insane, throwing beers all over the crowd. I was supporting Austria, since I was in the country and they were definitely the underdogs, and I found an Austrian flag on the ground and started waving it about. Eventually, a man dressed like the Austrian flag, mainly wearing white briefs and painted the rest of him red, came up to me, talking excitedly in German. I did not understand him and said so (in german( and he switched to perfect English, explaining that he would like to borrow my flag to start an Austrian chant. I gladly gave it to him and he got the crowd going. After that, we chatted for awhile and he loved the fact that a Canadian was in Salzburg, cheering for Austria. Austria did eventually lose but it was a peaceful loss and there were no fights or anything. Very cool. The next day, we hopped back on the bus and headed to Munich. After checking in and stashing my stuff, I couldn't find anyone I knew so I headed off on my own and wandered around for a couple hours and ate dinner. I was tired though and eventually came back to the hostel ahd chilled out. They had a cool lounge area with hammocks and everything and it was nice to just sit and read a book for awhile. Eventually, a few of my friends found me and we headed into the hostel bar to watch the game. But it was really loud in there and way too muchj smoke so we quickly left and ended up drinking coffee at Starbucks of all places. Most of my friends were leaving for Venice the next day, so it was nice to have another night to just hang out. I did not have good luck with roommates in Munich. Usually, I am in a room with other busabout people, which is usually great because we all have stuff in common. This time, I was in a 6 person dorm with 5 new people every night. And the 5 new people were always travelling as a group, so I was always the odd one out, feeling like I was invading their space. The first night was the worst though. Really inconsiderate people. I went to bed around midnight and I was the only one there yet. Around 1am, three more come in, turn on all the lights, drop their stuff off, make their beds and leave again. At 2am, one girl comes in, turns on all the lights, bangs around looking for something, finds it and leaves, leaving the lights on. I get up, turn off the lights, go back to bed. 2:30am, same thing. 3am, same thing. 3:30 am, the girl comes back, turns on all the lights again, finally goes to bed. 4:30am, the three other peoples alarms go off, they all get up and leave for an early train. So yeah, basically no sleep at all that night. The next night was slightly better but still intererupted a couple of times. And the last night, my 5 other roommates were 5 middle aged Asian people, no English at all, and who didn't turn off the lights until 2am and got up at 6am. Bleh. My first full day in Munich, I was grumpy and groggy. I decided to go to the free walking tour, with the same company I have done a lot of the free tours with. It was great, 4 hours long, lots of neat historical places and anecdotes. Met another busabout person who I ended up hanging out with for the next few days. She also had roomates from hell, so neither of us felt like doing much after the tour. We ran into a few others that I knew and we ended up going to an actual beer hall, which was fantastic! Massive room, massive long tables, insane amount of really good, quite cheap food. Beer comes in one litre mugs. Yeah. I discovered a beer, Radler, that I actually really like. It is apparently beer mixed with lemonade, which sounds gross but is actually fantastic. The next day, my friend and I decided to go to Dachau, the concentration camp memorial site just outside of Munich. It was...intense, but interesting. We went on a guided tour and walked all over the grounds. The creepiest part for me was actually standing inside a gas chamber. Very few people could handle it for long, it was really intense. I wish I had more free time to actually go through the museum though, the tour, even though it took 3 hours, seemed rushed. But I am glad I went. It is a part of history that people should not forget. After Dachau, my friend and I decided that we needed cheering up, so we wandered around the shopping district. She wanted to buy some Birkenstock sandles, since we are in Germany and they are cheap here, and I actually ended up buying a pair too. SO comfy and I did need a new pair on sandles. After that, we climbed to the top of Altes Peters tower and watched over Munich. We ran into a couple of people we met on the Dachau tour and ended up at the infamous Haupbrauhaus beer hall. I was not particularly impressed with my meal but the atmosphere was fun. I like beer halls. After leaving the hall, we got some gelato at a stand and wandered back to the hostel. We headed off for St. Johann, Austria, the following day. But I am running out of time, so I will write more about that tomorrow! (Comment on this)
Sunday, June 15th, 2008
11:51 am	Vienna! cont. Ok, got cut off bz Internet last time and was too cheap and lazy to buy anz more minutes. I left Vienna this morning and I am now in Salzburg. I am actuallz kind of sad to leave Vienna, I did not see as much of it as I perhaps could have. On the bus there, I impulsively bought a day trip excursion to the Wachau Valley. It was a "grape grazing tour". Now, I don`t particularly care about wine but all my friends on the bus reallz wanted to go and I liked the idea of getting out of the city, so I went for it. It was fun! Maybe not the best value for money ever, but I do not regret it. We got picked up outside our hostel at 9am and drove for about an hour out of town. Absolutely gorgeous countryside. Not quite full mountains yet but very pretty rolling hills and vallezs and lakes. It was a bike tour, which I have never done. We got off the bus at the first village and went straight into a winery, which has been making wines for like 1000 years. All local ingredients, everyone in the village makes wine from their own backyard vineyards. Very pretty, large terraced hills with grape vines everywhere. Our guide taught us how to taste wine and we tried 5 different kinds. Two of them I actually really liked. I thought you were supposed to spit out wine when you are tasting them but we were told to just keep drinking. Yeah... 5 half glasses later, we left and biked about 5km down to the next village. There, we had some free time and I got to climb a small mountain! The top of the hill was a large castle ruin (yep, I find castles everywhere). It was actually the place where Richard the Lionhart was kept imprisioned for some time. The castle is mostly gone but there were still a bunch of walls and a few rooms left and you could just wander around them, climbing where ever zou wanted. Very cool. Walked back to the village and we had a jam tasting session! Again, all local ingredients. So yummy. Then we had a liquor tasting session, none of which I particularly liked. Then we hopped on our bikes and biked about 15km or so, all on lovely bike paths, riding through vineyards and hilly mountains. Very scenic. We arrived in another wine village and stopped for lunch at an Austrian pub. Had an awesome meal - steak, Austrian sausage, tons of salad. They served wine at lunch too but we all hated it and only a few people drank it. Then we hopped back on the bikes and headed back to a different winery. There, we tasted 4 more wines, then went chocolate tasting. Yum. Then, somewhat wobbily, we biked along the Danube back to the bus to drive back to Vienna. There was more wine and, by, then, drinking games going on on the bus but by then I had had enough and stopped drinking. About half the people on the tour went off to do the pub crawl afterwards, which I think is insane! I went back to the hostel and, very excitingly, I know, did my laundry. The hostel has this massive couch that is basically a room, so I just hung out there whilst waiting for my clothes. I ended up chatting with a guy from northern England, who was also a big movie fan, and we ended up chatting for a couple of hours, then he left to catch his train. The day after was a bit lazy. A lot of people were tired and somewhat hung over. I hung out with a couple of friends and we decided to go see the palace, one of the residences of the infamous Hapsburgs. It was cool, very big, a gazillion rooms, all very much decorated in tons of fancy art. There was also a huge hedge maze in the backyard. Guess which part was my favourite? :) That took a few hours. We went to an apple strudel making presentation, which was awesome and included a free sample. Yum. By then, we were tired and not feeling touristy so we grabbed some lunch. I had a snitzel that was as big as my head. Then we found a cafe and just lazed around for a few hours. I love the cafe culture here. You can literally buy a coffee and just sit for hours. Awesome. We had all previously purchased a Vienna night bike tour, so around 7pm we went to the meeting place. Normallz, we all do the day time walking tours the first day we get to a new city. It is a great way to see all the main sites with tons of good info. The walking tours were all canceled because of the football but the night bike tours kept running. It was a bit strange to do it on our last night there, but hey. It was great! Fantastic bikes, effortless to ride them. We just rode around Vienna for 4 hours, stopped on occasion for the guide to point something out. Great bike paths all over the city, no problems riding around at all! After the bike tour, we went into another cafe and decided to get dessert. Note to anyone who may travel to Austria! Cafes are tricky. They give you a bowl of pretzels and tiny croissants on the table when you sit down - but, unlike in Canada, it is not free. I was ok with that. But I did get annoyed later on. I bought a banana split, which was great, and on the tray with the bowl, there was a package of waiffer cookies. Now, if I order food and food appears on the tray, I assume that all items on that tray are included on the listed price. Nope. Cookies were extra. Bleh. Left early the next morning, saying goodbye to Kate, who is staying in Vienna a few more nights. Uneventful ride to Salzburg this morning. I ended up buying a couple more tours. Salzburg is the city where the Sound of Music was filmed. I have heard many people rave about the Sound of Music tour so I decided, hey, how often am I in Salzburg? I went on the tour this afternoon and it was AWESOME! Seriously good cheesy fun. 4 hour tour of Salzburg and surrounding areas with an insanely hilarious tour guide. She was so into it, dressed up, cracking jokes and constantly belting out the songs and getting us all to sing along. We spent an hour or so in Salzburg itself, then left and drove up and up and up and up through the mountains. We are within the Austrian alps at this point and it is beautiful. Drove for about an hour, looking through the lake district, so many lovely lakes and villages. Stopped at one of the villages and had a cup of coffee and some apple strudel (well, I am in Austria!). It was really a lot of fun. A couple other people I have been hanging out with since Cesky also came. None of the guys wanted to come, so they other two girls hilariously left their partners at the hostel, doing laundry while they went of on the tour. Brilliant. I have spent the rest of the evening just hanging out at the hostel. The food is good here and decently priced. Tons of people around. Met a couple of Americans and chatted to them for awhile. One of them was also interested in seeing the fortress tomorrow (oh yeah) so we are going to meet up tomorrow morning and check it out. Then, I am going on a Ice Cave tour! It will, hopefully, be awesome. Note especially for Genna: This will make you insanely jealous. Now, all of Austria is insane because of the Euro cup. Every city is basically half shut down, massive fan zones everywhere. Tomorrow is going to be huge - it is the Austria versus Germany game. I am in Austria. The Austrians dislike the Germans. This is will be awesome. We are all planning on heading down to the fan zone to watch the game. It will be insane! (Comment on this)