So I'm a little bit late on this one, as we've already been in germany for about five days now but here is the update on Paris and Brussels.
As you already know we had to stay long in barcelona for unfortunate reasons, which cut down on our France stay substantially. We were originally going to have two days in Avignon and then five days in Paris, but instead we were stuck with only two days in Paris. Now I'm not saying its impossible to experience a city in two full days....but its Paris....in two full days...common. Now you're not going to get this reference unless you watch how i met your mother but... "Challenge accepted!!!".
We pulled in the first day to some light snow, and made our way down the street to our hotel. We were told before hand that the french were somewhat snobby but we were not prepared for what we were to encounter. Looking like "the albino" from the princess bride, (google it, I feel bad even saying it but its uncanny the resemblance) this woman at the reception continued to snoot and laugh at everything we would ask or any sense of miscommunication in the least. Finally after half an hour of arguing and phoning managers we were able to get ourselves our reserved room and get out to the city.
Thankfully aside from the people, paris had more than enough to offer. Our first stop was of course the Eiffel tower. The weather was supposed to turn gross so we thought we should get there first to ensure we see it in its prime. When we got there it was still daylight, and Im not saying I wasn't impressed, just...i can see why people say its more of an eyesore than a thing of beauty. Basically just a huge hunk of metal thrown together and propped up in the middle of town. The size of it was ridiculous though, I'll give it credit for that. To get that classic standing in front of the tower picture that everyone has you actually have to stand in the next city over it felt like. Once it turned to night though, you really could appreciate it for what it was. Glowing in all it's lights (except once an hour when they do a light show which is basically just the tower having a seizure), is when you really feel the magic of everything come to life. You begin to understand why the eccentric romantic Pepe Le Pue makes this city his home.
One of the funnier things about it though is these flocks of immigrants who make their living by selling cheesy little glowing Eiffel towers. Now we were used to these people as every city in europe has their own version, but what we hadn't experienced yet was what happens when bike police come cruising through. With one tug of a rope all their little models would be tied into a bag and within seconds twenty or thirty of them would be sprinting down the street, with the jingling of their toys on their backs. This would happen about once an hour or so, like a bunch of renegade Santa clauses or something.
The next day we decided to check out the louvre. Being basically the most famous museum in the world we felt we kind of had too. Not too mention kalia was more than stoked to see all the paintings from the artists that she had been teaching her kids in school, like van gogh, Monet, da Vinci etc... Now i won't get too into it but basically we had some major false impressions and realistically ended up paying twenty dollars to go see the mona Lisa. She was really cool too see though, had the same smirk on as usual and, as kalia loved, her eyes would follow you wherever you went.
Also that day we went and saw the champs elysees. Its apparently the second most famous street in the world next to fifth avenue in new York. It's basically a two km long shopaholics dream that starts at a main roundabout and ends at the 'arc de triumph' (which was also kind of cool, just a little too cold at the time to enjoy). Oh but when I say 'shopaholics dream' I of course mean the kind that wear fur around their necks and have twenty black credit cards to use, not two broke travelers including one who is used to shopping at army and navy. But nonetheless it was a great time for window shopping and pretending. It wasn't all a bust though, Kalia managed to find a beauty of a coat to replace the burlap sack that her previous coat had turned into.
At the end of the street where the roundabout is, it continued into their own version of a christmas market and this is where we experienced the sensation of the french crepe. Not a breakfast food as we have altered it to be, but a fresh off the pan, layered with nutella, desert from the heavens. Mothers, you have two and half weeks to perfect this by the time we get home...
The only other thing we really saw in Paris was the notre dame, which was pretty amazing. We've already had a few things be a let down throughout the trip, as they're so hard to determine in pictures, but I would say this one lived up. And don't worry I got tons of pictures of the gargoyles as I know this is what everyone like myself is actually interested in...
So that was pretty much it for Paris. From here we went on to Brussels, which actually came very close to not happening. When we were deciding way back when , we had the options of Amsterdam, Brussels, or stretching out France a little bit more to fill the gap until we got to Nuremberg. Thankfully we made the choice we did, as the city turned out to be one of our favorites. We had kind of felt like most of the cities had been selling out to the western ideals and losing their soul that made them each unique... mainly Spain and portugal. But Brussels felt like it must have way back when, except instead of a blacksmith and a butcher they now have a Footlocker and a Burger King which I will actually agree was a good upgrade.
But other than that, this small city was lined with ancient buildings, cobble stone roads, and chronicles of narnia looking lamp posts. We spent most of our days there just wandering the streets popping into any shops that looked intriguing, and strolling through the endless vendors of the Christmas market. Although none of these came even close to the best part of the town. Belgium beer. We found online this pub in a basement that contained a ridiculous two thousand different types of beer. Needless to say I attempted to try every flavor there, but came a little bit short......1996 flavors short actually. But it didn't matter, with those four flavors that we tried, our minds and taste buds were blown. Not even the infamous Sleemans honey brown came close. Not too sure what were gonna do when we get home, but Europe has officially ruined deserts and now beer for us.
Other than that belgium didn't have a lot of sights or anything, just a great little city to get lost in for a few days.
Until next time
g & k
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Spain
Well, Spain was interesting. Let's start at the beginning shall we?
Madrid is a very busy city. Everybody is on fast mode, they just done stop! Run to the metro, run away from the metro, its crazy! The roads are just packed with people trying to walk along the sidewalks, and the starbucks we hung out in for free internet was always crammed with wall to wall people trying to get seats. Mom, thanks to your lessons on stalking "those who might leave" in parking lots I was always able to sneak two seats and a table for us. It's an art form i think. On our first day we went and saw the Royal Palace; the biggest palace in Europe. It is huge! Goon As Graeme would say. It was so long with so many columns and all the lampposts in its courtyard were trimmed in gold. Each time we see palaces or "houses" like this we always go "Can you imagine this being where you live?". The next day we went and saw the Crystal Palace. This is not a palace that was lived in. Both the walls and ceilings are made completely of glass. It was so nice to have a completely clear day to this, so the sun shone through the glass and it was beautiful. That was such an awesome day. We sat on a bench looking at the palace and the pond, with the ducks waddling around, eating our delicious lunch of mandarin oranges and cupcakes. Mandarin oranges have become a staple us. We really miss fruit and fesh produce. On our third day we went down to the river and had another picnic lunch, and then walked along the shore to the temples of Debod; temples that the Egyptians built in 2nd century A.D. They had hieroglyphics all along the walls. I cant remember why they were built... Sorry :) information overload. Our fourth day was just a whatever day, we had seen all the big sights that you we ere supposed to see, so we just enjoyed our last evening in Madrid walking along the streets and drinking hot drinks.
Barcelona.... Well if you haven't heard yet, my purse was stolen the day before we were supposed to leace for France. It was really stupid of us, but we had everything in there; our passports, our debit cards, my credit card, my glasses, contacts, iPod, ect. So that little hiccup cost us 4 more unwanted days in Barcelona. Yes some would say that being stuck in Barcelona is not a bad thing, it could be worse, but after starting off the trip to this city with a walk through the suburbs looking for a hotel that didn't appear to exist and conveniently is nonrefundable, having to book a new hotel for the week onto of that one, and then the hotel in Avignon, France having to be charged because it was too late to cancel, we we were pretty ready to leave.
Before this all happened, Barcelona was pretty sweet. We really like cities that are on the waterfront. They just have a much nicer vibe to them, way less intense. Everybody just walks alone the walk ways having a good time, not rushing around. We loved hanging out by the water after sight seeing and such during the day. We went and saw the Sagradia de Familia, a very strange looking cathedral thats still in the process of being built. The guy that designed it, who seemed to design everything famous in Barcelona, definitely liked things to look different. It has like lizards crawling up the sides of the steeples. Graeme thought it looked pretty weird, beautiful is definitely not the right descriptive word for it. We went and saw the Parque Guell; a park designed by the same guy. Guadi is his name. The park theme was Hansel and Grettel. Everything looked like it was made out of gingerbread and gumdrops, a kids dream park. It was a beautiful park, with super tall palm trees all around. When do you get to walk through a park of palm trees? Not in BC thats for sure. We walked down to the beach one day, and the waves were huge. People were surfing, even though it was a pretty cold and windy day.
This brings us to the day everything was taken. So spain was kind of a hectic time, it kind of feels like a whirl wind. That unwanted experience didn't ruin our feelings to towards Spain at all, it just made the last few days a bit of a haze. We'll tell you more about it when we get home :) which is in 3 and a half weeks by the way, surprise! Can't wait to see everyone again, we miss you guys! Graeme will blog next on Paris and Belgium. Hope everyone is having awesome Christmas holidays!
g&k
Madrid is a very busy city. Everybody is on fast mode, they just done stop! Run to the metro, run away from the metro, its crazy! The roads are just packed with people trying to walk along the sidewalks, and the starbucks we hung out in for free internet was always crammed with wall to wall people trying to get seats. Mom, thanks to your lessons on stalking "those who might leave" in parking lots I was always able to sneak two seats and a table for us. It's an art form i think. On our first day we went and saw the Royal Palace; the biggest palace in Europe. It is huge! Goon As Graeme would say. It was so long with so many columns and all the lampposts in its courtyard were trimmed in gold. Each time we see palaces or "houses" like this we always go "Can you imagine this being where you live?". The next day we went and saw the Crystal Palace. This is not a palace that was lived in. Both the walls and ceilings are made completely of glass. It was so nice to have a completely clear day to this, so the sun shone through the glass and it was beautiful. That was such an awesome day. We sat on a bench looking at the palace and the pond, with the ducks waddling around, eating our delicious lunch of mandarin oranges and cupcakes. Mandarin oranges have become a staple us. We really miss fruit and fesh produce. On our third day we went down to the river and had another picnic lunch, and then walked along the shore to the temples of Debod; temples that the Egyptians built in 2nd century A.D. They had hieroglyphics all along the walls. I cant remember why they were built... Sorry :) information overload. Our fourth day was just a whatever day, we had seen all the big sights that you we ere supposed to see, so we just enjoyed our last evening in Madrid walking along the streets and drinking hot drinks.
Barcelona.... Well if you haven't heard yet, my purse was stolen the day before we were supposed to leace for France. It was really stupid of us, but we had everything in there; our passports, our debit cards, my credit card, my glasses, contacts, iPod, ect. So that little hiccup cost us 4 more unwanted days in Barcelona. Yes some would say that being stuck in Barcelona is not a bad thing, it could be worse, but after starting off the trip to this city with a walk through the suburbs looking for a hotel that didn't appear to exist and conveniently is nonrefundable, having to book a new hotel for the week onto of that one, and then the hotel in Avignon, France having to be charged because it was too late to cancel, we we were pretty ready to leave.
Before this all happened, Barcelona was pretty sweet. We really like cities that are on the waterfront. They just have a much nicer vibe to them, way less intense. Everybody just walks alone the walk ways having a good time, not rushing around. We loved hanging out by the water after sight seeing and such during the day. We went and saw the Sagradia de Familia, a very strange looking cathedral thats still in the process of being built. The guy that designed it, who seemed to design everything famous in Barcelona, definitely liked things to look different. It has like lizards crawling up the sides of the steeples. Graeme thought it looked pretty weird, beautiful is definitely not the right descriptive word for it. We went and saw the Parque Guell; a park designed by the same guy. Guadi is his name. The park theme was Hansel and Grettel. Everything looked like it was made out of gingerbread and gumdrops, a kids dream park. It was a beautiful park, with super tall palm trees all around. When do you get to walk through a park of palm trees? Not in BC thats for sure. We walked down to the beach one day, and the waves were huge. People were surfing, even though it was a pretty cold and windy day.
This brings us to the day everything was taken. So spain was kind of a hectic time, it kind of feels like a whirl wind. That unwanted experience didn't ruin our feelings to towards Spain at all, it just made the last few days a bit of a haze. We'll tell you more about it when we get home :) which is in 3 and a half weeks by the way, surprise! Can't wait to see everyone again, we miss you guys! Graeme will blog next on Paris and Belgium. Hope everyone is having awesome Christmas holidays!
g&k
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Portugal
First off I just want to thanks my parents, the funks, for the awesome early Christmas present that they gave us. I don't want to get into the whole Mac vs PC, or Steve jobs vs bill gates debate, because I know the salmonds are reading this and i don't want them to feel like they are winning this topic at all. But In case you didn't already know, we were given an iPad and I don't even want to imagine how this trip would be going if we didn't have it. I think we would still be trapped in italy somewhere flabbergasted trying to find available hotels. So thank you again!
We just ended about a week and a half in Portugal. Well...more like four days in portugal and a week in "little Britain". We booked this amazing four star hotel in a place called albufeira for a week, for only twenty dollars a night. All we saw were pictures of amazing beaches, pool side bars, and a ginormous room. Sounds perfect right? Right?? Wrong! A little bit of research probably would have shown us that being there you will experience as much Portuguese culture as being in britain, or Canada, or pretty much anywhere else in the world except for portugal. Our first clue was when we arrived at the hotel and we were surrounded by retired British people. Kalia refers to it as the Waikiki of Europe. We thought maybe if we went out into the town we could get away from it but no such doing. Every shop in a two mile radius was serving fried beans for breakfast, or playing some "blokes vs mates" football game. We did manage to get on a bus and get to someplace called city center where there were a bunch of shops where we could get some authentic Portuguese swag. Or so we were hoping. We felt like when joey from friends was in England and the vendor salesman convinces him all the locals wear the tall british flag hats.
Needless to say that was a painful week. We at least got a couple days of sun out of it and got to chill poolside for a few hours, but we were over the moon when we finally got to ship out and head to Lisbon.
Finding the Lisbon "hotel" gave finding the venice hotel a run for its money. We arrived in the city around noon thinking we would go drop off our things and head out onto the town and get a nice full day in still. What we weren't aware of though was that if the information people in Lisbon don't know where something is off the top of their heads you're pooched. We were basically running around town asking everyone in sight if they knew where the hotel or even the street it was on was, resulting in about twenty different ideas of where we should go. Finally we were able to find the street on a map and started our trek. After arriving at the address located conveniently on top of a giant hill in the ghetto, we discovered there was no place called residencial Alegre there, and were left running around for another two hours or so. To cut the story short, some other young people who worked for the "hotel" found us wandering and showed us that in fact we were in the right place but the hotel was actually just a spare room in their parents three bedroom complex. Kalia suitably calls this place "the room".
Enough with the venting though and onto Lisbon. The city is really quite nice. We arrived just late enough in november to see the city with all its christmas lights up, which of course makes any city look that much nicer. We spent countless hours walking up and down the pedestrian only streets looking at all the quaint jewelry shops, or chowing down on the most delicious tarts ever to have graced our mouths. I even ventured out to try a baked good called a brisa which is basically a brick of icing sugar, dough, and lemony goodness. Even though im sure I have severly damaged my insides it was oh so worth it.
Aside from the city center we also managed to check out the infamous jeronimos palace and Belem tower, which were no rome, but were definitely interesting seeing the different styles of architecture going on in the world hundreds of years ago.
Lisbon is also home to some of the coolest contemporary architecture out there, and thanks to the heads up from janaya we made sure we checked it all out.
One of the funnest things in the city that i forgot to mention was their epic trams. We managed to hop on one which is apparently famous as it was the first one ever in the city around a hundred years previous, and by the looks of it's wooden stature was probably the exact same one used back then. It basically went for a tour of the city ripping up and down steep narrow streets, taking you to all sorts of sights like st jorges castle that overlooks the city, or ancient churches which I have no idea what their names are but you know they've got to be important in someway so you take a picture and act like you know whats going on.
I think that's about it from portugal though, we just arrived jn Madrid today after another pleasant overnight train and look forward to seeing everything this city has to offer.
g&k
We just ended about a week and a half in Portugal. Well...more like four days in portugal and a week in "little Britain". We booked this amazing four star hotel in a place called albufeira for a week, for only twenty dollars a night. All we saw were pictures of amazing beaches, pool side bars, and a ginormous room. Sounds perfect right? Right?? Wrong! A little bit of research probably would have shown us that being there you will experience as much Portuguese culture as being in britain, or Canada, or pretty much anywhere else in the world except for portugal. Our first clue was when we arrived at the hotel and we were surrounded by retired British people. Kalia refers to it as the Waikiki of Europe. We thought maybe if we went out into the town we could get away from it but no such doing. Every shop in a two mile radius was serving fried beans for breakfast, or playing some "blokes vs mates" football game. We did manage to get on a bus and get to someplace called city center where there were a bunch of shops where we could get some authentic Portuguese swag. Or so we were hoping. We felt like when joey from friends was in England and the vendor salesman convinces him all the locals wear the tall british flag hats.
Needless to say that was a painful week. We at least got a couple days of sun out of it and got to chill poolside for a few hours, but we were over the moon when we finally got to ship out and head to Lisbon.
Finding the Lisbon "hotel" gave finding the venice hotel a run for its money. We arrived in the city around noon thinking we would go drop off our things and head out onto the town and get a nice full day in still. What we weren't aware of though was that if the information people in Lisbon don't know where something is off the top of their heads you're pooched. We were basically running around town asking everyone in sight if they knew where the hotel or even the street it was on was, resulting in about twenty different ideas of where we should go. Finally we were able to find the street on a map and started our trek. After arriving at the address located conveniently on top of a giant hill in the ghetto, we discovered there was no place called residencial Alegre there, and were left running around for another two hours or so. To cut the story short, some other young people who worked for the "hotel" found us wandering and showed us that in fact we were in the right place but the hotel was actually just a spare room in their parents three bedroom complex. Kalia suitably calls this place "the room".
Enough with the venting though and onto Lisbon. The city is really quite nice. We arrived just late enough in november to see the city with all its christmas lights up, which of course makes any city look that much nicer. We spent countless hours walking up and down the pedestrian only streets looking at all the quaint jewelry shops, or chowing down on the most delicious tarts ever to have graced our mouths. I even ventured out to try a baked good called a brisa which is basically a brick of icing sugar, dough, and lemony goodness. Even though im sure I have severly damaged my insides it was oh so worth it.
Aside from the city center we also managed to check out the infamous jeronimos palace and Belem tower, which were no rome, but were definitely interesting seeing the different styles of architecture going on in the world hundreds of years ago.
Lisbon is also home to some of the coolest contemporary architecture out there, and thanks to the heads up from janaya we made sure we checked it all out.
One of the funnest things in the city that i forgot to mention was their epic trams. We managed to hop on one which is apparently famous as it was the first one ever in the city around a hundred years previous, and by the looks of it's wooden stature was probably the exact same one used back then. It basically went for a tour of the city ripping up and down steep narrow streets, taking you to all sorts of sights like st jorges castle that overlooks the city, or ancient churches which I have no idea what their names are but you know they've got to be important in someway so you take a picture and act like you know whats going on.
I think that's about it from portugal though, we just arrived jn Madrid today after another pleasant overnight train and look forward to seeing everything this city has to offer.
g&k
Monday, November 15, 2010
All of Greece
okay, so I'm going to try and sum up 9 days of Greece into a paragraph or two...
We got to Athens last Friday on November 5, and discovered the men of Athens have no fear when it comes to gawking at women. It was quite creepy. They just stare right at you, even straight at your face, and just continue to look at whatever they want. So nasty. We were so worried that Kefalonia, the supposedly magical island we were heading to the next day, was just like Athens. The next morning we gathered all of our stuff and began our 7 hour journey to what we hoped would be an amazing and tropical week of paradise.
After our 3 hour bus ride, and 3 hour ferry ride we arrived at the port of the island. The ocean was clear turquoise blue, and the houses of Sami (the town of the port) were painted bright colors, and had a mountain of bright green trees and grass behind them. This place couldn't possibly have a gross place, it just couldn't! We hopped back on our bus and got taken to Argistole, the bus depot. This place was also along the water, the road lined with palm trees. We realized that we had totally forgotten to write down the address to our hotel that we were staying at, we just had the name of it and the beach it was near. We asked the bus driver how to get there and he laughed, telling us that we had to taxi, the island was pretty much shut down and there was no more public transportation. We were stunned. He told us to wait 5 minutes, so we did, and then he came back and told us to hop on his bus he would take us near there because he had to fill up with oil. We drove for about ten minutes, him showing us the orange tress, olive vineyards, and the beaches that had the best swimming. The bus finally dropped us off on a dirt road, with directions to follow the road and head right, our hotel should be over there somewhere, so we started walking. We turned the first corner and saw the sun setting on the open ocean. It was incredible. I think we both danced a little bit. It was so beautiful! The road continued along the cliffs by the ocean and we saw a sign for Ammes, where we were staying. We saw the familiar image of the yellow building with blue windows And a blue roof, we found our place. Isabella the owner came out to us saying they'd been siting for us, turns out we were the only ones staying there. She showed us our room, which was huge, and opened our doors onto our private balcony with an amazing ocean view. She then left us to get settled in. We danced again! This was the tropical get away we had wanted.
For the next week we enjoyed going to Myrtos Beach, which you should google and drool over, lying in the sun while enjoying the fact that there was practically nobody else on the beach, and that you couldn't hear constant people sounds, just the waves. Oh and the sound of bells! There are hundreds of free range Billy goats all throughout the island, and one of their favorite spots to hang out is on the hills by the beach. We went swimming and ate a healthy lunch of a bag of chips and small Greek cupcakes for lunch everyday. We would come home around 4, shower, and then either make dinner in our apartment that had its own kitchen, or treated ourselves to a dinner made by Isabella, either pizza or a sandwich. Every evening was spent down at her little bar having drinks with a group of retired couples that had moved to the island from england. We all had a great time sitting around talking about traveling stories, music, and at some point in the night soccer, or football as they call it. One of the couples even had us stay with them for two nights so we wouldn't have to go back to athens as soon as we were. It was super sweet of them. The one and only downside to our trip to the island is that Graeme's wedding ring got eaten by the waves of the beach. All we can think of is that since the waves were really strong that day, and maybe the super salty water had a part in it, the pull just sucked the ring off. So Graeme is ringless, we're hoping to find him another ring maybe in portugal or Spain? They seem like countries that have lots of jewelry.
We've now arrived back in Athens, which isn't so bad now. There's like a mass rally going on for communism at the moment, it's pretty crazy. Thousands of people marching through the streets chanting something in Greek, with commy flags, and police and military soldiers keeping everything in check. Grae feels Ike we're witnessing history, but all i can think of is the seinfeld episode of where Elaine's communist boyfriend tries to convert Kramer.
Next time you hear from us we'll be in Portugal! Finally get to see this part of my heritage, i am so excited! Hope everyone is doing well back at home, love and miss you all!
g&k
We got to Athens last Friday on November 5, and discovered the men of Athens have no fear when it comes to gawking at women. It was quite creepy. They just stare right at you, even straight at your face, and just continue to look at whatever they want. So nasty. We were so worried that Kefalonia, the supposedly magical island we were heading to the next day, was just like Athens. The next morning we gathered all of our stuff and began our 7 hour journey to what we hoped would be an amazing and tropical week of paradise.
After our 3 hour bus ride, and 3 hour ferry ride we arrived at the port of the island. The ocean was clear turquoise blue, and the houses of Sami (the town of the port) were painted bright colors, and had a mountain of bright green trees and grass behind them. This place couldn't possibly have a gross place, it just couldn't! We hopped back on our bus and got taken to Argistole, the bus depot. This place was also along the water, the road lined with palm trees. We realized that we had totally forgotten to write down the address to our hotel that we were staying at, we just had the name of it and the beach it was near. We asked the bus driver how to get there and he laughed, telling us that we had to taxi, the island was pretty much shut down and there was no more public transportation. We were stunned. He told us to wait 5 minutes, so we did, and then he came back and told us to hop on his bus he would take us near there because he had to fill up with oil. We drove for about ten minutes, him showing us the orange tress, olive vineyards, and the beaches that had the best swimming. The bus finally dropped us off on a dirt road, with directions to follow the road and head right, our hotel should be over there somewhere, so we started walking. We turned the first corner and saw the sun setting on the open ocean. It was incredible. I think we both danced a little bit. It was so beautiful! The road continued along the cliffs by the ocean and we saw a sign for Ammes, where we were staying. We saw the familiar image of the yellow building with blue windows And a blue roof, we found our place. Isabella the owner came out to us saying they'd been siting for us, turns out we were the only ones staying there. She showed us our room, which was huge, and opened our doors onto our private balcony with an amazing ocean view. She then left us to get settled in. We danced again! This was the tropical get away we had wanted.
For the next week we enjoyed going to Myrtos Beach, which you should google and drool over, lying in the sun while enjoying the fact that there was practically nobody else on the beach, and that you couldn't hear constant people sounds, just the waves. Oh and the sound of bells! There are hundreds of free range Billy goats all throughout the island, and one of their favorite spots to hang out is on the hills by the beach. We went swimming and ate a healthy lunch of a bag of chips and small Greek cupcakes for lunch everyday. We would come home around 4, shower, and then either make dinner in our apartment that had its own kitchen, or treated ourselves to a dinner made by Isabella, either pizza or a sandwich. Every evening was spent down at her little bar having drinks with a group of retired couples that had moved to the island from england. We all had a great time sitting around talking about traveling stories, music, and at some point in the night soccer, or football as they call it. One of the couples even had us stay with them for two nights so we wouldn't have to go back to athens as soon as we were. It was super sweet of them. The one and only downside to our trip to the island is that Graeme's wedding ring got eaten by the waves of the beach. All we can think of is that since the waves were really strong that day, and maybe the super salty water had a part in it, the pull just sucked the ring off. So Graeme is ringless, we're hoping to find him another ring maybe in portugal or Spain? They seem like countries that have lots of jewelry.
We've now arrived back in Athens, which isn't so bad now. There's like a mass rally going on for communism at the moment, it's pretty crazy. Thousands of people marching through the streets chanting something in Greek, with commy flags, and police and military soldiers keeping everything in check. Grae feels Ike we're witnessing history, but all i can think of is the seinfeld episode of where Elaine's communist boyfriend tries to convert Kramer.
Next time you hear from us we'll be in Portugal! Finally get to see this part of my heritage, i am so excited! Hope everyone is doing well back at home, love and miss you all!
g&k
Monday, November 8, 2010
Italy part dos
It's been about a week since we last updated you on what's been going on, so I'll try to do so to the best of my memory. Although those of you who know me, know that this is not my strong suit so the details may be a little foggy.
After we left Florence, which was simply amazing, we were left with a random day in between places where we did not know what to do. We were leaving on a Sunday and every place in Rome was fairly cheap from monday on so we had a random night in which we were a little unsure of what to do. With all of my stupidity, i suggested Naples as it was pretty much the only other place in italy that i had heard of before and so basically made the assumption that it must be magical like the rest of italy. What a mistake. If we had taken one second out of our time to do a simple search of Naples on the google machine we would have been bombarded with information of a city that was going through a crisis of all crisis'. Basically one of the worst garbage strikes in recent history. As soon as we arrived we were overwhelmed by a terrible putrid smell, followed by sights of garbage piles that made raccoons feel like kings. As kalia put it we should be giving the downtown east side homeless medals for their cleanliness. Not only was the city a disaster, but our hotel was a mess. The man working there put no effort to helping us out in anyway, and when you have cobwebs hanging off every possible corner you know you've given up. After a delicious mcdonalds meal, which was probably the brightest part of the night, we went for a walk around the citys waterfront which was not awful considering. Upon reaching the beach however and seeing endless piles of broken bottles, corn on the cob, and other strewn garbage we decided to call it a night.
Quick point on the mcdonalds meal, it contains a burger called the crispy mcbacon which is the best burger I have ever tasted from the franchise and am hoping it has already made it's way to Canada.
Oh ya one more side note, apparently the cinque terra is amazing, and choosing naples over it might go down as the worst call I have ever made. Still kicking myself.
The next day we left literally as early as the train schedule would allow us. We both weren't too sure what to expect from Rome but straight up, it is an awesome city. Once you were there, you were there. We would catch a quick bus every morning into the city realms and from there all the major stops were easily walkable distance away or if you were tired there was a subway station on literally every block it felt like. There were some lousy parts of the trip of course such as the thunderstorm the first night, but after that it was on. Three straight days of Italian leather, Italian pizza, and structures that canadians cant even comprehend. Straight up Nick, everything your firm designs should be made of marble. I'm not sure what my favorite sight was as of quite yet, but all i know is that I have never said the three words "this is goon!" as much as I did over those three days. How people put those things together way back, boggles my mind. I just keep picturing world's strongest men type people picking up giant blocks and carrying them up to the top of the colloseum without any equipment or anything. I don't think it was like this but every statue we saw of naked dudes, and there were a lot, they were all jacked out of there mind. Like they came out of the movie 300 or something.
Anyways, that's basically been rome, shortened down significantly of course. Were in greece right now, and its epic, I won't leak any info though. You'll have to wait until the next update.
Love you all,
g&k
Ps we hear its about to snow down there. Too bad. It's about 20 degrees over here.
After we left Florence, which was simply amazing, we were left with a random day in between places where we did not know what to do. We were leaving on a Sunday and every place in Rome was fairly cheap from monday on so we had a random night in which we were a little unsure of what to do. With all of my stupidity, i suggested Naples as it was pretty much the only other place in italy that i had heard of before and so basically made the assumption that it must be magical like the rest of italy. What a mistake. If we had taken one second out of our time to do a simple search of Naples on the google machine we would have been bombarded with information of a city that was going through a crisis of all crisis'. Basically one of the worst garbage strikes in recent history. As soon as we arrived we were overwhelmed by a terrible putrid smell, followed by sights of garbage piles that made raccoons feel like kings. As kalia put it we should be giving the downtown east side homeless medals for their cleanliness. Not only was the city a disaster, but our hotel was a mess. The man working there put no effort to helping us out in anyway, and when you have cobwebs hanging off every possible corner you know you've given up. After a delicious mcdonalds meal, which was probably the brightest part of the night, we went for a walk around the citys waterfront which was not awful considering. Upon reaching the beach however and seeing endless piles of broken bottles, corn on the cob, and other strewn garbage we decided to call it a night.
Quick point on the mcdonalds meal, it contains a burger called the crispy mcbacon which is the best burger I have ever tasted from the franchise and am hoping it has already made it's way to Canada.
Oh ya one more side note, apparently the cinque terra is amazing, and choosing naples over it might go down as the worst call I have ever made. Still kicking myself.
The next day we left literally as early as the train schedule would allow us. We both weren't too sure what to expect from Rome but straight up, it is an awesome city. Once you were there, you were there. We would catch a quick bus every morning into the city realms and from there all the major stops were easily walkable distance away or if you were tired there was a subway station on literally every block it felt like. There were some lousy parts of the trip of course such as the thunderstorm the first night, but after that it was on. Three straight days of Italian leather, Italian pizza, and structures that canadians cant even comprehend. Straight up Nick, everything your firm designs should be made of marble. I'm not sure what my favorite sight was as of quite yet, but all i know is that I have never said the three words "this is goon!" as much as I did over those three days. How people put those things together way back, boggles my mind. I just keep picturing world's strongest men type people picking up giant blocks and carrying them up to the top of the colloseum without any equipment or anything. I don't think it was like this but every statue we saw of naked dudes, and there were a lot, they were all jacked out of there mind. Like they came out of the movie 300 or something.
Anyways, that's basically been rome, shortened down significantly of course. Were in greece right now, and its epic, I won't leak any info though. You'll have to wait until the next update.
Love you all,
g&k
Ps we hear its about to snow down there. Too bad. It's about 20 degrees over here.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Italy
First things first, if anyone has any idea how to upload photos to a blog with the iPad let me know. It must be child locked or something cause I can't figure it out.
Well I'll catch you up first. I believe the last place we left off at was Manchester. The next day we took a bus down to Liverpool which was an awesome little city. And if you didn't know it before you got there you would definitely know it when you arrived that they are the hometown of the beetles. There are so many pubs and clubs claiming to be the original one where it all started that we contemplated just club hopping for the whole night so that we would be guaranteed to hit the right one. With a little tip from Roy though, we found a place called the cavern which we discovered was the only one telling the truth. After a nice pint of fosters we called our journey a success and called it a night. The next day we had a morning to kill before catching a flight to Italy so we decided to go check out "the beatles story" which was a museum of the beatles. Being one of kalias all time favority bands it was a must. Im not sure what I expected to be honest but for the thirty or forty dollars or whatever it costed I was expecting something pretty magical. I kept thinking maybe we'd get to have a private concert with Paul McCartney or something. But after a few hours of walking through hallways of posters of the beatles and wax sculptures of them it was over and we were both a little let down. But on the bright side it was pouring rain when we got too the museum and by the time we got out it was nice again so there was one plus out of it.
We arrived in Venice a couple days ago, tuesday i think it was, at about nine thirty or so. Not the greatest time of day to experience our first language change. We got off the plane and got tickets on a bus to a town called mestre which was not the tricky part but still took some finangling. The worst part about lower class hotels and hostels in italy is that they havent fully captured the power of the internet yet and trying to find directions or even a website with bus routes is next to impossible. I knew our hotel was somewhere around that town thoug but not exactly sure where and we both didn't feel like taking some unknown bus to who knows where and be even more pooched so we began to walk. I won't bore you with every detail but the long story short, is that after about four kilometers of walking down this ling road in the dark, and passing what must have been about one prostitute every fifty meters we finally arrived at midnight and were able to call it a night.
For as awful as that night was though the city made up for it the next day. We caught the bus in in the morning, and our jaws literally dropped when we walked to the top of the first bridge and looked out onto the city. As we literally say every time we see anything amazing here, you can see all the pictures you want but nothing compares to seeing it in person. Even watching the Italian job could get me ready for how awesome this city was. There must have been a few hundred canals at least through the city and literally after we would pass over every one I would lose my mind. A close second to the city as well was the gelato. Oh my word, it was ridiculous. It's pretty unfortunate because I'm fairly certain it will be ruined for me for life. The white rock stuff which i used to think was delicious just does not compare. It's worth it though. As someone told us and the rule we now live by, is that when your in italy you must eat at least two scoops of gelato every day. And if anyones wondering we didn't get to go on one of those cool looking gondola rides through the canals because they actually cost about eighty dollars or so. Oh well, venice was still a great great time.
We are actually in Florence at the moment and are about to go check out the uffizi museum so we must go. I'm sure kalia will fill you all in before we head to Rome though as we won't have wireless for about a week I believe.
G and k
Well I'll catch you up first. I believe the last place we left off at was Manchester. The next day we took a bus down to Liverpool which was an awesome little city. And if you didn't know it before you got there you would definitely know it when you arrived that they are the hometown of the beetles. There are so many pubs and clubs claiming to be the original one where it all started that we contemplated just club hopping for the whole night so that we would be guaranteed to hit the right one. With a little tip from Roy though, we found a place called the cavern which we discovered was the only one telling the truth. After a nice pint of fosters we called our journey a success and called it a night. The next day we had a morning to kill before catching a flight to Italy so we decided to go check out "the beatles story" which was a museum of the beatles. Being one of kalias all time favority bands it was a must. Im not sure what I expected to be honest but for the thirty or forty dollars or whatever it costed I was expecting something pretty magical. I kept thinking maybe we'd get to have a private concert with Paul McCartney or something. But after a few hours of walking through hallways of posters of the beatles and wax sculptures of them it was over and we were both a little let down. But on the bright side it was pouring rain when we got too the museum and by the time we got out it was nice again so there was one plus out of it.
We arrived in Venice a couple days ago, tuesday i think it was, at about nine thirty or so. Not the greatest time of day to experience our first language change. We got off the plane and got tickets on a bus to a town called mestre which was not the tricky part but still took some finangling. The worst part about lower class hotels and hostels in italy is that they havent fully captured the power of the internet yet and trying to find directions or even a website with bus routes is next to impossible. I knew our hotel was somewhere around that town thoug but not exactly sure where and we both didn't feel like taking some unknown bus to who knows where and be even more pooched so we began to walk. I won't bore you with every detail but the long story short, is that after about four kilometers of walking down this ling road in the dark, and passing what must have been about one prostitute every fifty meters we finally arrived at midnight and were able to call it a night.
For as awful as that night was though the city made up for it the next day. We caught the bus in in the morning, and our jaws literally dropped when we walked to the top of the first bridge and looked out onto the city. As we literally say every time we see anything amazing here, you can see all the pictures you want but nothing compares to seeing it in person. Even watching the Italian job could get me ready for how awesome this city was. There must have been a few hundred canals at least through the city and literally after we would pass over every one I would lose my mind. A close second to the city as well was the gelato. Oh my word, it was ridiculous. It's pretty unfortunate because I'm fairly certain it will be ruined for me for life. The white rock stuff which i used to think was delicious just does not compare. It's worth it though. As someone told us and the rule we now live by, is that when your in italy you must eat at least two scoops of gelato every day. And if anyones wondering we didn't get to go on one of those cool looking gondola rides through the canals because they actually cost about eighty dollars or so. Oh well, venice was still a great great time.
We are actually in Florence at the moment and are about to go check out the uffizi museum so we must go. I'm sure kalia will fill you all in before we head to Rome though as we won't have wireless for about a week I believe.
G and k
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Manchester, England
We made it! We arrived on Saturday, Oct.23 at 11:06 am. The airplane said what time it was when we landed...
Once we we got to what was our home for the next two days (thank you Steve!) we fell asleep for a few hours. Neither of us really slept on the plane. After we woke up we decided to go walk around outside in search of a computer store and a drug store. We had success in the drug store search, but found out the computer store was "in town" and we'd have to take a bus to get there. We decided against this idea because we would have had no idea what bus to take to get back home, since neither of us thought to write down our address or even what street we were living on. We later found out that town was an hour long bus ride away.
That evening we researched flights to Venice, Italy. We found one leaving from Liverpool on Tuesday. So we get to spend a night in Liverpool tomorrow :) Yes dad, The Beatles! Janaya I will take lots of pictures for you.
Today, we slept in until 2:30 in the afternoon. We were stunned. 14 hours of sleep! We were convinced Grae would wake up early since he has an internal clock set to wake up at 7 every morning. I guess it's still there because that's what time it would have been at home right? We're going to be awake for a long time tonight. We're having a Lord of the Rings marathon (we watched the first one last night). Everything is too far away for us to go out and have a night life.
Next time you hear from us we'll be somewhere in Italy! Hope everyone is doing well.
- g&k
Once we we got to what was our home for the next two days (thank you Steve!) we fell asleep for a few hours. Neither of us really slept on the plane. After we woke up we decided to go walk around outside in search of a computer store and a drug store. We had success in the drug store search, but found out the computer store was "in town" and we'd have to take a bus to get there. We decided against this idea because we would have had no idea what bus to take to get back home, since neither of us thought to write down our address or even what street we were living on. We later found out that town was an hour long bus ride away.
That evening we researched flights to Venice, Italy. We found one leaving from Liverpool on Tuesday. So we get to spend a night in Liverpool tomorrow :) Yes dad, The Beatles! Janaya I will take lots of pictures for you.
Today, we slept in until 2:30 in the afternoon. We were stunned. 14 hours of sleep! We were convinced Grae would wake up early since he has an internal clock set to wake up at 7 every morning. I guess it's still there because that's what time it would have been at home right? We're going to be awake for a long time tonight. We're having a Lord of the Rings marathon (we watched the first one last night). Everything is too far away for us to go out and have a night life.
Next time you hear from us we'll be somewhere in Italy! Hope everyone is doing well.
- g&k
Friday, October 22, 2010
Tomorrow
Well we leave tomorrow at 4:55pm, to fly directly to Manchester! We are both very excited, and slightly nervous for this new adventure. We promise to try very, very hard to blog as often as we can... but be easy on us, this is our first. See you in a few months everyone!
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