I'm SO not supposed to be writing this this early, but I really have no idea how much time the computer will suck me in tomorrow! Or if I'll have the energy or motivation to write. I'm waiting for laundry to dry right before I put things away in my luggage (yes at 3am) so now is perfect for my maiden blog journey!
Things have finally tied together! (yay!) I'm going to go to Bath right away when I get to England as it is more financially sensable to do so. Also Alex doesn't have classes on wednesday so I'll have someone to show me what this England place is all about! I'm quite excited as it'll guarentee I'll have a bed to sleep in! The only problem is that my train leaves at like 8:30... and I get in at 1:30... so 7 hours to toodle about! It'll only take me 20 minutes to get to Paddington so this will be interesting! Anyone know what's around Paddington station to check out? Meh if not I'll just crawl into some pub and look as non-touristy as possible!
I so had more to say... but I suppose that'll come my first post post-flight!
Love!
-Alex
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Susan -- sick in Leicester
So, I'm sick, but as Bethany put it "feeling a bit under the weather". This basically means, fighting off a cough like a sonofabitch. Normally I'd want to go with Beth on her first day into town, but I don't think I could handle it. We'll see. Our trip to Morrisons yesterday really did wear me out though. Super a lot.
I knew it would happen eventually during my stay, I just didn't realise how soon. I guess now is better than some of the alternatives. It sucks being sick when you're on your own though. You have to get motivation to shove things like medicinal lemonade down your own throat, and other such treatments.
I should eat. I got about a million kinds of chicken broth soupd yesterday. Got garlic, got pasta, got peppers, got oil, and bread, and ham... and stuff... just need the energy to get out of bed.
I think my head may fall off. Alas, time to get back to the sick-n-alone grind. I know I'm going to have to be out and about tomorrow *hangs head* I really hope I'm feeling better.
I knew it would happen eventually during my stay, I just didn't realise how soon. I guess now is better than some of the alternatives. It sucks being sick when you're on your own though. You have to get motivation to shove things like medicinal lemonade down your own throat, and other such treatments.
I should eat. I got about a million kinds of chicken broth soupd yesterday. Got garlic, got pasta, got peppers, got oil, and bread, and ham... and stuff... just need the energy to get out of bed.
I think my head may fall off. Alas, time to get back to the sick-n-alone grind. I know I'm going to have to be out and about tomorrow *hangs head* I really hope I'm feeling better.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
blog on demand
So Susan told me it was my responsibility to do a travel blog today. Who knows, maybe she'll do one as well, but it's apparently my job today.
Susan's feeling a bit under the weather so we've taken it easy today. I have to say that I don't actually mind. I thought I might this morning, but I didn't. You see, what with all the travelling about, I really haven't had a take-it-easy day in quite a while. I slept in. I read my book a bit. Surfed the internet. Made my breakfast, had a shower. It was all quite nice. I was still at that point the only person in my building. Later Susan and I went over to Morrisons, the grocery store about a five minute walk from our residence. We got some stuff. My kitchen is currently lacking pots... so the pasta I'd gotten earlier can't really be cooked yet. I want to wait until more people get here to determine if we're going to get a couple communal pots or something. I can't imagine nine people are going to need nine pots. I doubt we're all going to try to cook at the same time. So I got stir fry stuff. We interestingly do have a wok. I'll be making that in a few moments.
I met the first of my housemates today. I was in the kitchen making a sandwich and he walked in. I couldn't see him yet, but I heard him open the door. "Hello!" I say, all cheery like. It scared the crap out of him. It was kind of amusing, and I know he felt kind of silly, but that's okay. His name is John and he's from Manchester. Quite nice.
So today's been really laid back. I'm starting to enjoy my dorm room, which is good as I'll be spending a lot of time here. I was really skepical about it after my first night when I basically froze. But since I have acquired a (pink!) blankie and kind of settled in, I like it rather a lot more.
I'm bound and determined to get into town tomorrow. John assures me most things will be open on a Sunday, though some things will close earlier than normal. He also informed me that tomorrow is move-in day, so the rest of our housemates should arrive. Darn. I was kind of liking not having to share the bathroom et cetera.
Time to go make dinner -- it'll be my second dinner done on my own. Last night was a very nice frozen pizza. Tonight's is a bit harder, lol.
Susan's feeling a bit under the weather so we've taken it easy today. I have to say that I don't actually mind. I thought I might this morning, but I didn't. You see, what with all the travelling about, I really haven't had a take-it-easy day in quite a while. I slept in. I read my book a bit. Surfed the internet. Made my breakfast, had a shower. It was all quite nice. I was still at that point the only person in my building. Later Susan and I went over to Morrisons, the grocery store about a five minute walk from our residence. We got some stuff. My kitchen is currently lacking pots... so the pasta I'd gotten earlier can't really be cooked yet. I want to wait until more people get here to determine if we're going to get a couple communal pots or something. I can't imagine nine people are going to need nine pots. I doubt we're all going to try to cook at the same time. So I got stir fry stuff. We interestingly do have a wok. I'll be making that in a few moments.
I met the first of my housemates today. I was in the kitchen making a sandwich and he walked in. I couldn't see him yet, but I heard him open the door. "Hello!" I say, all cheery like. It scared the crap out of him. It was kind of amusing, and I know he felt kind of silly, but that's okay. His name is John and he's from Manchester. Quite nice.
So today's been really laid back. I'm starting to enjoy my dorm room, which is good as I'll be spending a lot of time here. I was really skepical about it after my first night when I basically froze. But since I have acquired a (pink!) blankie and kind of settled in, I like it rather a lot more.
I'm bound and determined to get into town tomorrow. John assures me most things will be open on a Sunday, though some things will close earlier than normal. He also informed me that tomorrow is move-in day, so the rest of our housemates should arrive. Darn. I was kind of liking not having to share the bathroom et cetera.
Time to go make dinner -- it'll be my second dinner done on my own. Last night was a very nice frozen pizza. Tonight's is a bit harder, lol.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Ireland -- the last of the pre-Leicester posts
So what do I write about nine days in Ireland? In BC we’re so proud of how green our scenery is. Well I have come to learn that you really don’t understand what green is until you’ve seen Ireland.
Dublin was first. I loved that city. It was so vibrant. There was a lot of history – much of it literary, which appealed to me. There is a particular culture about the city of Dublin. It is very familiar, and yet distinct. The people are friendly and open, and seem to genuinely are about having fun. At the same time, the shadow of the rebellions from 1919-1925-ish hang over the city in its music and history and the bullet holes in the General Post Office and other monuments. There is so much going on at any one time, so many layers being played all around, that it is impossible to be totally apart from the bustle. It’s a small city in international terms. There really are no high rises or anything like that, and yet its clearly a world class metropolis. So much to do, and see, and... drink.
In Dublin I went to the Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. I also went to the Dublin Writers’ Museum. I went to Dublin Castle (where much of the tv series The Tudors is filmed) which included the amazing Chester Beatty Library. I went to the Guinness Storehouse. I took a bus tour of the city. I drank a few pints of Guinness. It was super fun, and a place I know I’ll go back to.
Cork was next. This was a quiet little town, not a lot to see and do really. The tour guide websites all tell you to go to the Butter museum. I have to say I never did make it there, lol. But Cork was where we were staying when we went to Blarney Castle. Yes, I kissed the stone – now I have the gift of the gab, hehe. What I enjoyed most about the castle was moving through the different rooms and climbing the stairs then walking around the parapets. It was a little like falling back into the thirteenth century or something. It was a fun day. The countryside is so beautiful.
After Cork was a long day of travel. We took the bus from Cork to Dublin (about four hours) then from Dublin to Belfast (about three hours) with about an hour in between. That bus ride, especially the second one, was interesting for me. It felt almost like a pilgrimage, going back to the ancestral home of my family or something like that.
Interestingly, the city of Belfast was basically closed the entire time I was in it. We arrived on a Saturday after 6pm so everything was closed. Sunday morning Papa wanted to go to church so I went along with him. Nothing opens on a Sunday until 1pm. After church we went to visit family – first Sadie (one of Papa’s sisters) and then Teresa (one of Papa’s sisters in law) so we were already visiting by the time things opened up. We had dinner with Teresa and he daughter Emma and by the time we got about to the main city it was about 8:30 and things were closed again. The following day we took a full day bus tour up the coast, so I didn’t see anything when it was open. The next morning I left. So I really didn’t see Belfast, but I enjoyed it anyway. It was nice to see things, even if not to go in them, and it was nice to meet the family I’d never met before.
The tour up the coast was amazing, and probably the highlight of my time in Ireland. It was a bus tour operated by a company called Allen Tours and they took us up the Antrim coast road towards the Giant’s Causeway. Along the way we stopped at a number of photo stops including castles and scenic pit stops and quaint towns. We did a long stop at the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge. I walked a kilometre to get to this bridge, taking in the most breathtaking coastline I’d ever seen. I got to the bridge and walked across. It was so cool. I walked the kilometre back to the bus and freaked out a bit because I couldn’t find papa (he didn’t do the bridge, too much walking/stairs) only to realize soonish later that he had skipped ahead to the pub where we were having lunch. I wasn’t pleased. We had lunch in an old pub and continued up the coast. The driver did things in a slightly different order than normal because of how perfectly our weather was behaving. We stopped at a castle with the sky golden behind it and reflecting in the water. Finally we made it to the Giant’s Causeway, which was amazing to see. The whole way the tour driver was telling us interesting stories about things we were passing, including folk tales and the like. We got back into Belfast a little past 8pm. It was a fantastic day and I took a tonne of pictures.
The next morning I left Belfast, flying into London. It was harder to leave papa behind than I had thought it would be, I must admit. We had a pretty good time together. I got into London and went out to South Woodford, which is where another of Papa’s sister’s lives with her husband. I had left my large suitcase with them so as to not have to lug it through Ireland. I’m so glad I did. That would have sucked big time. They fed me dinner and we chatted until bed. The next day I darted up to Leicester.
And that’s where I am now!
Dublin was first. I loved that city. It was so vibrant. There was a lot of history – much of it literary, which appealed to me. There is a particular culture about the city of Dublin. It is very familiar, and yet distinct. The people are friendly and open, and seem to genuinely are about having fun. At the same time, the shadow of the rebellions from 1919-1925-ish hang over the city in its music and history and the bullet holes in the General Post Office and other monuments. There is so much going on at any one time, so many layers being played all around, that it is impossible to be totally apart from the bustle. It’s a small city in international terms. There really are no high rises or anything like that, and yet its clearly a world class metropolis. So much to do, and see, and... drink.
In Dublin I went to the Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. I also went to the Dublin Writers’ Museum. I went to Dublin Castle (where much of the tv series The Tudors is filmed) which included the amazing Chester Beatty Library. I went to the Guinness Storehouse. I took a bus tour of the city. I drank a few pints of Guinness. It was super fun, and a place I know I’ll go back to.
Cork was next. This was a quiet little town, not a lot to see and do really. The tour guide websites all tell you to go to the Butter museum. I have to say I never did make it there, lol. But Cork was where we were staying when we went to Blarney Castle. Yes, I kissed the stone – now I have the gift of the gab, hehe. What I enjoyed most about the castle was moving through the different rooms and climbing the stairs then walking around the parapets. It was a little like falling back into the thirteenth century or something. It was a fun day. The countryside is so beautiful.
After Cork was a long day of travel. We took the bus from Cork to Dublin (about four hours) then from Dublin to Belfast (about three hours) with about an hour in between. That bus ride, especially the second one, was interesting for me. It felt almost like a pilgrimage, going back to the ancestral home of my family or something like that.
Interestingly, the city of Belfast was basically closed the entire time I was in it. We arrived on a Saturday after 6pm so everything was closed. Sunday morning Papa wanted to go to church so I went along with him. Nothing opens on a Sunday until 1pm. After church we went to visit family – first Sadie (one of Papa’s sisters) and then Teresa (one of Papa’s sisters in law) so we were already visiting by the time things opened up. We had dinner with Teresa and he daughter Emma and by the time we got about to the main city it was about 8:30 and things were closed again. The following day we took a full day bus tour up the coast, so I didn’t see anything when it was open. The next morning I left. So I really didn’t see Belfast, but I enjoyed it anyway. It was nice to see things, even if not to go in them, and it was nice to meet the family I’d never met before.
The tour up the coast was amazing, and probably the highlight of my time in Ireland. It was a bus tour operated by a company called Allen Tours and they took us up the Antrim coast road towards the Giant’s Causeway. Along the way we stopped at a number of photo stops including castles and scenic pit stops and quaint towns. We did a long stop at the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge. I walked a kilometre to get to this bridge, taking in the most breathtaking coastline I’d ever seen. I got to the bridge and walked across. It was so cool. I walked the kilometre back to the bus and freaked out a bit because I couldn’t find papa (he didn’t do the bridge, too much walking/stairs) only to realize soonish later that he had skipped ahead to the pub where we were having lunch. I wasn’t pleased. We had lunch in an old pub and continued up the coast. The driver did things in a slightly different order than normal because of how perfectly our weather was behaving. We stopped at a castle with the sky golden behind it and reflecting in the water. Finally we made it to the Giant’s Causeway, which was amazing to see. The whole way the tour driver was telling us interesting stories about things we were passing, including folk tales and the like. We got back into Belfast a little past 8pm. It was a fantastic day and I took a tonne of pictures.
The next morning I left Belfast, flying into London. It was harder to leave papa behind than I had thought it would be, I must admit. We had a pretty good time together. I got into London and went out to South Woodford, which is where another of Papa’s sister’s lives with her husband. I had left my large suitcase with them so as to not have to lug it through Ireland. I’m so glad I did. That would have sucked big time. They fed me dinner and we chatted until bed. The next day I darted up to Leicester.
And that’s where I am now!
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Rome
Oh I'm so far behind... I'm so sorry. This wouldn't have been an issue if I had had regular (free) internet in Ireland. This is my post on Rome, written while in Cork. I'll do a post on Ireland shortly. Then I have to get into the meat of this blog, which is the semester in Leicester! Stay on your toes because between myself and Susan this blog will likely be busy over the next couple of days.
________________________________________________
Roma, Roma, Roma.
I am actually writing this from Cork, but I don’t have an internet connection, so I don’t know when I’ll get to post it. I’ll just focus on Rome for this post, and do something about Ireland later on. Sound good? Good.
Manlio, the Italian interpreter where I used to work, told me that I would love Rome because of the culture it’s so full of. Rome was certainly a cultural experience. Actually getting there was a bit of a nightmare. The ship docked in C... oh god I can’t spell that. We had to get to the train station, which was “only a couple of short blocks from the dock, well within walking distance.” Well yes, it was within walking distance, but it was an unpleasant drag with all our suitcases. I was responsible for my large (VERY large and VERY heavy) suitcase, along with my little suitcase and my laptop bag. My arm kept getting sore pulling the big one, and the bag kept swinging off its perch on the small suitcase. I did more or less okay unless there were stairs or ledges or sharp corners. We finally get to the train station and lo and behold we have to go down and then up a flight of stairs. No elevators. Oh. God. Luckily a strapping young man saw me struggling up the stairs after I had already done the down on my own, and he carried my big one up for me. I could have kissed the guy. We find our train and haul all our stuff onto it. We find places for all our things. By this point I’m basically close to tears. The lugging, and the pulling, and the sore, and the tired (we had had to wake up at something like 6am) and the hot. Oh the hot.
I think this is where I’ll mention that the entire time we were in Italy the temperature hovered around 36 degrees (well during the day – at night it went down to a refreshing 23).
We get into Termeni station in Rome and we know our hotel is close to the station but it appears we left the station by the wrong exit and we’re tired and positively HATING our luggage so we decide to take a taxi. I call it a golden chariot. The taxi driver totally ripped us off. Totally. Like a lot. He charged us 25 euros to go essentially around the corner. That’s like 40 bucks for less than ten minutes in a cab. Yeah. We get to the hotel, and by this point we’re pretty well miserable.
Mom talks me into taking a shower, vowing it will make me feel better. Indeed it did. What helped even more was the 1.5 litres of water that Chelsea and I downed shortly after that. I figure by that point I was severely dehydrated. Feeling so thirsty you want to cry is never a good feeling.
Sounding kind of bleak, huh? Well after all that the Rome portion turned around and was great (well with one exception I’ll get to in a bit). We did a double decker bus tour. I’ve done better bus tours, but it was all right. We went into the Coliseum and were so pleasantly surprised that we were only in line about 15 minutes. We had heard horror stories about 4 hour lineups to get in there. We weren’t even sure if we were going to try. Well we were glad we did. I did the audio self guided tour, narrating the interesting bits to mom and Chelsea. I was glad to see it.
For dinner that night I had lasagne. Whohoo! In Italy. How cool is that?
The next day we were going to the Vatican. We had booked a skip-the-line thinger for the morning, because again there were horror stories about the line up. Well I’m sure it would have gone just fine had we not gotten terribly lost and been late for our skip-the-line. The group had already gone in by the time we found the spot. We find a payphone and call the tour company asking what to do. We’re told we can join the next group (four and a half hours later) for a fee of 15 Euro a person. The money we had already paid, of course, was gone. We ask how much it is to get in without the line skipping, and we’re told that’s only 11 Euro. Well then. So we just went and stood in the. Guess what? We were only line about half an hour. We didn’t even need the damn skip the line in the first place. The money we paid for that was totally thrown away (not to mention we wasted like two hours finding the place and a pay phone etcetera). When we actually paid to go in, it turned out I got a student rate, and Chelsea got a child rate, so the entry was even cheaper.
Once we got in, it was amazing. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the Vatican. I expected way more Jesus, way less Zeus. There was room after room of some of the most amazing Greek and Roman artefacts I’ve ever seen. Whereas many places have things like bust of random senator dude, and big pot with things engraved, this place had amazingly preserved full sized statues of gods and mythical beings (along with a healthy helping of random senator dude). There was also an amazing collection of Egyptian stuff, including super awesome mummies and sarcophaguses and all kinds of things. We spent hours in there. Then we got to the religious bits. There was unfortunately a lot of unnecessary seeming stairs, and that kind of sucked. The Sistine chapel was so beautiful. That Michelangelo was quite the artist, huh? That bit with Adam and God nearly touching fingers is of course the most famous part, but it’s such a small part of the beautiful whole. The mood was kind of killed in there by the rather militant grouchy security guys. But all in all it was pretty cool.
After that we had lunch and then sought out the famous Trevi fountain. They say if you throw a coin over your left shoulder into the Trevi fountain you will one day return to Rome. Of course we had to do that. It was an amazing fountain. Stunning.
We did a bunch of shopping and went back to the hotel to drop stuff off. We went to a fancy Italian restaurant for dinner and there was the most amazing thunder and lightning storm. We were sitting outside under the canopy and we still got wet – but this was the time we were most physically comfortable the entire time we were in Rome. We soaked up the rain... literally. It totally cut the humidity. It dropped the temperature. It made the waiters really funny to watch. The owner guy came out and was all distressed, but then kind of threw up his hands as if to say “there’s really nothing I can do” and made the best of it. It was so nice. It was very loud, very bright. Mom said Zeus didn’t want us to leave Rome the next day.
Well, leave we did. We woke up at 5am and made our way to the airport to fly to London. We met up with Papa at his sister’s house. The next morning I flew to Ireland. Four days in Dublin and two days in Cork later, here I am writing about Rome in a Cork B & B. Tomorrow I go to Belfast. But I’m gonna update y’all on all this later.
Cheers!
________________________________________________
Roma, Roma, Roma.
I am actually writing this from Cork, but I don’t have an internet connection, so I don’t know when I’ll get to post it. I’ll just focus on Rome for this post, and do something about Ireland later on. Sound good? Good.
Manlio, the Italian interpreter where I used to work, told me that I would love Rome because of the culture it’s so full of. Rome was certainly a cultural experience. Actually getting there was a bit of a nightmare. The ship docked in C... oh god I can’t spell that. We had to get to the train station, which was “only a couple of short blocks from the dock, well within walking distance.” Well yes, it was within walking distance, but it was an unpleasant drag with all our suitcases. I was responsible for my large (VERY large and VERY heavy) suitcase, along with my little suitcase and my laptop bag. My arm kept getting sore pulling the big one, and the bag kept swinging off its perch on the small suitcase. I did more or less okay unless there were stairs or ledges or sharp corners. We finally get to the train station and lo and behold we have to go down and then up a flight of stairs. No elevators. Oh. God. Luckily a strapping young man saw me struggling up the stairs after I had already done the down on my own, and he carried my big one up for me. I could have kissed the guy. We find our train and haul all our stuff onto it. We find places for all our things. By this point I’m basically close to tears. The lugging, and the pulling, and the sore, and the tired (we had had to wake up at something like 6am) and the hot. Oh the hot.
I think this is where I’ll mention that the entire time we were in Italy the temperature hovered around 36 degrees (well during the day – at night it went down to a refreshing 23).
We get into Termeni station in Rome and we know our hotel is close to the station but it appears we left the station by the wrong exit and we’re tired and positively HATING our luggage so we decide to take a taxi. I call it a golden chariot. The taxi driver totally ripped us off. Totally. Like a lot. He charged us 25 euros to go essentially around the corner. That’s like 40 bucks for less than ten minutes in a cab. Yeah. We get to the hotel, and by this point we’re pretty well miserable.
Mom talks me into taking a shower, vowing it will make me feel better. Indeed it did. What helped even more was the 1.5 litres of water that Chelsea and I downed shortly after that. I figure by that point I was severely dehydrated. Feeling so thirsty you want to cry is never a good feeling.
Sounding kind of bleak, huh? Well after all that the Rome portion turned around and was great (well with one exception I’ll get to in a bit). We did a double decker bus tour. I’ve done better bus tours, but it was all right. We went into the Coliseum and were so pleasantly surprised that we were only in line about 15 minutes. We had heard horror stories about 4 hour lineups to get in there. We weren’t even sure if we were going to try. Well we were glad we did. I did the audio self guided tour, narrating the interesting bits to mom and Chelsea. I was glad to see it.
For dinner that night I had lasagne. Whohoo! In Italy. How cool is that?
The next day we were going to the Vatican. We had booked a skip-the-line thinger for the morning, because again there were horror stories about the line up. Well I’m sure it would have gone just fine had we not gotten terribly lost and been late for our skip-the-line. The group had already gone in by the time we found the spot. We find a payphone and call the tour company asking what to do. We’re told we can join the next group (four and a half hours later) for a fee of 15 Euro a person. The money we had already paid, of course, was gone. We ask how much it is to get in without the line skipping, and we’re told that’s only 11 Euro. Well then. So we just went and stood in the. Guess what? We were only line about half an hour. We didn’t even need the damn skip the line in the first place. The money we paid for that was totally thrown away (not to mention we wasted like two hours finding the place and a pay phone etcetera). When we actually paid to go in, it turned out I got a student rate, and Chelsea got a child rate, so the entry was even cheaper.
Once we got in, it was amazing. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the Vatican. I expected way more Jesus, way less Zeus. There was room after room of some of the most amazing Greek and Roman artefacts I’ve ever seen. Whereas many places have things like bust of random senator dude, and big pot with things engraved, this place had amazingly preserved full sized statues of gods and mythical beings (along with a healthy helping of random senator dude). There was also an amazing collection of Egyptian stuff, including super awesome mummies and sarcophaguses and all kinds of things. We spent hours in there. Then we got to the religious bits. There was unfortunately a lot of unnecessary seeming stairs, and that kind of sucked. The Sistine chapel was so beautiful. That Michelangelo was quite the artist, huh? That bit with Adam and God nearly touching fingers is of course the most famous part, but it’s such a small part of the beautiful whole. The mood was kind of killed in there by the rather militant grouchy security guys. But all in all it was pretty cool.
After that we had lunch and then sought out the famous Trevi fountain. They say if you throw a coin over your left shoulder into the Trevi fountain you will one day return to Rome. Of course we had to do that. It was an amazing fountain. Stunning.
We did a bunch of shopping and went back to the hotel to drop stuff off. We went to a fancy Italian restaurant for dinner and there was the most amazing thunder and lightning storm. We were sitting outside under the canopy and we still got wet – but this was the time we were most physically comfortable the entire time we were in Rome. We soaked up the rain... literally. It totally cut the humidity. It dropped the temperature. It made the waiters really funny to watch. The owner guy came out and was all distressed, but then kind of threw up his hands as if to say “there’s really nothing I can do” and made the best of it. It was so nice. It was very loud, very bright. Mom said Zeus didn’t want us to leave Rome the next day.
Well, leave we did. We woke up at 5am and made our way to the airport to fly to London. We met up with Papa at his sister’s house. The next morning I flew to Ireland. Four days in Dublin and two days in Cork later, here I am writing about Rome in a Cork B & B. Tomorrow I go to Belfast. But I’m gonna update y’all on all this later.
Cheers!
Susan -- The quest for internet
Yesterday was a bit of a terror.
I got in at 3:30 am, and from there had a time of finding a bed, getting four hours sleep after much travel, and well... gr.
I had more written. Let's just say that life brightened when Beth walked in. You see, the nice people at accomodation (where I started) told her where to go and what to did... they did not tell me. How awkward. I was running around like a chicken with her head lopped off let me tell you! So not cool. But things worked out.
We went to a Scottish dance thing that they put on and I was introduced to Strongbow, which yes they have at home, but I've never had before, thinking it's beer. Well it does taste suspiciously like beer... As if they're trying to convince me to eventually like the stuff. As if! I tried dancing and pulled this very shy but interested looking guy from Idaho off the wall in order to do so. We were amused by the general chaos of things.
He was kinda off putting though, so I abandoned him after a while. I feel good about myself though because he found people to hang out with after that. You know, after I literally threw him into the thick of things. Then it was off for another drink. Found a girl doing museum studies--through absolute coincidence this seems to be what everyone I've met is doing. Everyone seems to think that because I'm Canadian I should be studying law... strange.
So, Beth and I found another wall flower since, unfortunately, everyone had found groups on the first day that we'd not been privvy to. She was nice, but I don't know how she's going to make it through an entire year at leicester... poor dear. Socially not so great. But through her we met some very entertaining Chinese students who took me as somewhat a novelty.
Before I'd met up with Beth I'd met a Brazillian and an Indian girl who were both super nice.
I've already been told how cute my accent is... LOL.
Oh, and I learned that booze goes straight through me when I'm powering away on no sleep. Erk.
Booze is relatively cheaper here.
Oh, and last random piece of information: they're haveing some cultural, meet the mayor, thing tonight. They want us in cultural dress... wtf is that for Canada? I've decided that I'll be wearing my chinese accessories all day today. That should do it...
I got in at 3:30 am, and from there had a time of finding a bed, getting four hours sleep after much travel, and well... gr.
I had more written. Let's just say that life brightened when Beth walked in. You see, the nice people at accomodation (where I started) told her where to go and what to did... they did not tell me. How awkward. I was running around like a chicken with her head lopped off let me tell you! So not cool. But things worked out.
We went to a Scottish dance thing that they put on and I was introduced to Strongbow, which yes they have at home, but I've never had before, thinking it's beer. Well it does taste suspiciously like beer... As if they're trying to convince me to eventually like the stuff. As if! I tried dancing and pulled this very shy but interested looking guy from Idaho off the wall in order to do so. We were amused by the general chaos of things.
He was kinda off putting though, so I abandoned him after a while. I feel good about myself though because he found people to hang out with after that. You know, after I literally threw him into the thick of things. Then it was off for another drink. Found a girl doing museum studies--through absolute coincidence this seems to be what everyone I've met is doing. Everyone seems to think that because I'm Canadian I should be studying law... strange.
So, Beth and I found another wall flower since, unfortunately, everyone had found groups on the first day that we'd not been privvy to. She was nice, but I don't know how she's going to make it through an entire year at leicester... poor dear. Socially not so great. But through her we met some very entertaining Chinese students who took me as somewhat a novelty.
Before I'd met up with Beth I'd met a Brazillian and an Indian girl who were both super nice.
I've already been told how cute my accent is... LOL.
Oh, and I learned that booze goes straight through me when I'm powering away on no sleep. Erk.
Booze is relatively cheaper here.
Oh, and last random piece of information: they're haveing some cultural, meet the mayor, thing tonight. They want us in cultural dress... wtf is that for Canada? I've decided that I'll be wearing my chinese accessories all day today. That should do it...
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Susan -- on travelling
This is from travelling. More on my other travels and travails tomorrow. Too tired to function right now.
September 22 9:35
Seattle airport...
As those who know me know, this is the furthest out of country that I've ever gone... until now! So you can just imagine how anxious I am as I sit in the *looks around* Mountain Room Bar shh, I know I'm a minor here) and eat my dinner. The moment I get on that plane I'll be headed to New York, then to England. This still seems absolutely wild to me.
My send off was very sweet, my day's been go go go with it. First to grab some more inclusive health insurance, a web cam, an adaptor, cash in cash for cash. That kinda thing. Then the parents were off for a dr's appointment, and my lover grabbed my bags and me. We grabbed a bite, and made our way to Main street bus terminal. There we left eachother with rushed kisses and hugs, and back to my parents I went. Mom and dad had already picked up my ticket and gotten everything in order, as I was, classically, running late... he. We waited in line and I was introduced to my very southern grey hound bus driver. Might I just say that this guy was fantastic. Not the comfiest bus, but a super driver. Well, I got a bit concerned at the boarder as we had all these damned forigners ;) with possible restrictions on their entrance to the country, so we ended up running about fourty five minutes late. Erk. Well we got to the station, and I was not privy to the beautiful Washington country side as I was busy sleeping. So we got to the station and I found my charter bus to the airport after much confusion by everyone involved. Greyhound had no idea where Grey Line picked up airport passengers, this was somewhat concerning.
But hey, instead of finding the charter bus, the bus found me! Yay! I met Doug, and Doug being the nicest driver ever (that's two) grabbed my bags and hurried me into the shuttle bus for the charter bus. Very nice. Then onto the big bus. At this point I'm getting concerned again. Am I going to have enough time to do everything I need to do? I did. Hell, I had over an hour to grab dinner. Sweet.
Going through customs wasn't bad, though, two things: no one told me I'd have to remove my shoes. That was unexpected. THe other thing... no one told me to take my laptop out of my bag when it went through the x-ray thinger... boy did I look like a travel newb. Way to get dirty looks from hot russian customs guy. I felt the shame.
So, now I'm chilling, haveing chicken strips and fries, and looking forward to a flight into somewhere I've never been before. You know Seattle's nice and all but it's feeling like such a stopping point that I just want to get the hell out!
Oh, and as a side note, the waitresses in this bar are super bitter and overworked... or something. Funny too... they insult the customers (loudly) to the other customers hey, this means I don't have to leave a tip right?
September 23 7:06 am Vancouver time
Flying out of JFK, on plane 10:06 am
Well the flight into JFK was not cool. I would even go so far as to say very not cool. Let's see, I boarded and noted right away that this was a super little plane, not really built for comfort. First class looked econ. Well I got to my seat, one of the first to do so, and was soon joined by my two seat mates. The plane was full, so we were a little like sardines. This wasn't so bad at first because I was super excited so really, not a crisis. Not a crisis until my ass fell asleep, I lost my blanket which was doubling as a pillow, and then not one but two babies started to cry. Groovy. This was not cool. Soon the numbing spread to my legs. I decided to suck it up, cope, and sleep through it. I managed to mostly do this but the occasional wake ups were a real bitch. ostThe fellow beside me was quite smelly. I lost my blanky pillow when I went through my first nap. It was tragic.
I was thrilled as hell to get off the plane. Movement once more! I stretched my legs and grabbed my stuff and then got off after the heard of people who were standing all cricked up for way longer than they needed to. After the landing we had, I guess they were happy to be on the ground. I was! But that was over, and all was well. JFK was very helpful. When I got off I realised that I didn't know what to do about my luggage, was I to pick it up and bring it somewhere else, or would it find it's own way to England. It would find it's own way. I then got the information as to what gate I'd be going to. Very good.
After getting a dry coissant and a bottle of water I went back to my gate and started to people watch. It was far more lively then my last gate. There was a young woman curled up in a chair looking very excited and saying "did you get it? did you get it?" her boyfriend was stomping on the floor, and there were other people getting into it. "It" was a cockroach. As well, there was a hispanic gentleman passed out on the floor. This eventually brought the cops on the whim of a concerned citizen. The gentleman in question was aparently drunk, and after two translators and much deliberation they were forced to cart him away in a wheel chair to sober up. I called grandma, as she was the only person I knew who would be awake--took me forever to find the change so I could do it.
Then it was on to the next flight. I went on to it groaning hoping it would be more comfy than my last. I was blessed... well of course I was, this was a bit of a longer flight (is). As a bonus, it's no where near filled up. So, the guy who was sitting next to me found somewhere else to habitate, and I have two seats to myself, a free headset, and food, and really. I'm doing quite well. I've saved all the little parts of my meal for later, because I know I'll be hungry, and I'm really quite thrilled. I could handle this plane for a while actually.
I'm a little bit nervous about the trip from Heathrow to Leicaster. I don't know if thte dorm will be open, or what the bus will cost or... it's all very unnerving but I'm sure I'll manage just fine. The inflight movie, which I have playing in my ears right now is called "The visitor." I'm listening to it so that I can preserve my iPod's battery for the upcoming bus. After this will be Narnia. I think that's quite apropriate. I'm going to power this down and save my batteries for later
I only have like an hour of battery left. I suppose I could read my book now, ignor the movie and listen to the on flight radio. Yeah I'll do that.
September 22 9:35
Seattle airport...
As those who know me know, this is the furthest out of country that I've ever gone... until now! So you can just imagine how anxious I am as I sit in the *looks around* Mountain Room Bar shh, I know I'm a minor here) and eat my dinner. The moment I get on that plane I'll be headed to New York, then to England. This still seems absolutely wild to me.
My send off was very sweet, my day's been go go go with it. First to grab some more inclusive health insurance, a web cam, an adaptor, cash in cash for cash. That kinda thing. Then the parents were off for a dr's appointment, and my lover grabbed my bags and me. We grabbed a bite, and made our way to Main street bus terminal. There we left eachother with rushed kisses and hugs, and back to my parents I went. Mom and dad had already picked up my ticket and gotten everything in order, as I was, classically, running late... he. We waited in line and I was introduced to my very southern grey hound bus driver. Might I just say that this guy was fantastic. Not the comfiest bus, but a super driver. Well, I got a bit concerned at the boarder as we had all these damned forigners ;) with possible restrictions on their entrance to the country, so we ended up running about fourty five minutes late. Erk. Well we got to the station, and I was not privy to the beautiful Washington country side as I was busy sleeping. So we got to the station and I found my charter bus to the airport after much confusion by everyone involved. Greyhound had no idea where Grey Line picked up airport passengers, this was somewhat concerning.
But hey, instead of finding the charter bus, the bus found me! Yay! I met Doug, and Doug being the nicest driver ever (that's two) grabbed my bags and hurried me into the shuttle bus for the charter bus. Very nice. Then onto the big bus. At this point I'm getting concerned again. Am I going to have enough time to do everything I need to do? I did. Hell, I had over an hour to grab dinner. Sweet.
Going through customs wasn't bad, though, two things: no one told me I'd have to remove my shoes. That was unexpected. THe other thing... no one told me to take my laptop out of my bag when it went through the x-ray thinger... boy did I look like a travel newb. Way to get dirty looks from hot russian customs guy. I felt the shame.
So, now I'm chilling, haveing chicken strips and fries, and looking forward to a flight into somewhere I've never been before. You know Seattle's nice and all but it's feeling like such a stopping point that I just want to get the hell out!
Oh, and as a side note, the waitresses in this bar are super bitter and overworked... or something. Funny too... they insult the customers (loudly) to the other customers hey, this means I don't have to leave a tip right?
September 23 7:06 am Vancouver time
Flying out of JFK, on plane 10:06 am
Well the flight into JFK was not cool. I would even go so far as to say very not cool. Let's see, I boarded and noted right away that this was a super little plane, not really built for comfort. First class looked econ. Well I got to my seat, one of the first to do so, and was soon joined by my two seat mates. The plane was full, so we were a little like sardines. This wasn't so bad at first because I was super excited so really, not a crisis. Not a crisis until my ass fell asleep, I lost my blanket which was doubling as a pillow, and then not one but two babies started to cry. Groovy. This was not cool. Soon the numbing spread to my legs. I decided to suck it up, cope, and sleep through it. I managed to mostly do this but the occasional wake ups were a real bitch. ostThe fellow beside me was quite smelly. I lost my blanky pillow when I went through my first nap. It was tragic.
I was thrilled as hell to get off the plane. Movement once more! I stretched my legs and grabbed my stuff and then got off after the heard of people who were standing all cricked up for way longer than they needed to. After the landing we had, I guess they were happy to be on the ground. I was! But that was over, and all was well. JFK was very helpful. When I got off I realised that I didn't know what to do about my luggage, was I to pick it up and bring it somewhere else, or would it find it's own way to England. It would find it's own way. I then got the information as to what gate I'd be going to. Very good.
After getting a dry coissant and a bottle of water I went back to my gate and started to people watch. It was far more lively then my last gate. There was a young woman curled up in a chair looking very excited and saying "did you get it? did you get it?" her boyfriend was stomping on the floor, and there were other people getting into it. "It" was a cockroach. As well, there was a hispanic gentleman passed out on the floor. This eventually brought the cops on the whim of a concerned citizen. The gentleman in question was aparently drunk, and after two translators and much deliberation they were forced to cart him away in a wheel chair to sober up. I called grandma, as she was the only person I knew who would be awake--took me forever to find the change so I could do it.
Then it was on to the next flight. I went on to it groaning hoping it would be more comfy than my last. I was blessed... well of course I was, this was a bit of a longer flight (is). As a bonus, it's no where near filled up. So, the guy who was sitting next to me found somewhere else to habitate, and I have two seats to myself, a free headset, and food, and really. I'm doing quite well. I've saved all the little parts of my meal for later, because I know I'll be hungry, and I'm really quite thrilled. I could handle this plane for a while actually.
I'm a little bit nervous about the trip from Heathrow to Leicaster. I don't know if thte dorm will be open, or what the bus will cost or... it's all very unnerving but I'm sure I'll manage just fine. The inflight movie, which I have playing in my ears right now is called "The visitor." I'm listening to it so that I can preserve my iPod's battery for the upcoming bus. After this will be Narnia. I think that's quite apropriate. I'm going to power this down and save my batteries for later
I only have like an hour of battery left. I suppose I could read my book now, ignor the movie and listen to the on flight radio. Yeah I'll do that.
Friday, September 19, 2008
An internet addict in Ireland
Hello all,
The shopping mall in Cork has these internet stations that are pretty well the same idea as a pay phone. So here I am. Feeding euros into a machine because of my desperate need to feel connected.
Of course you'll get a more detailed recordwhen I'm able to use my own computer (and thus not have to write in the internet browser -- yay word) but Rome was cool. I went in the colloseum, and saw the Sistine Chapel and ate pasta and pizza and all that great stuff. I loved Dublin too. I went to Trinity college to see teh book of Kells, I went to the writers museum, I went to Dublin Castle, and I went to the Guinness storehouse. All very cool. Now I'm in Cork. Went to Blarney castle today and kissed the Blarney stone. Tomorrow I head to Belfast where I'll be for three days, then to Leicester! Very exciting.
For the record, Irish keyboards are very strange.
Well that's all for now. My euros are just dribbling away here. Ta!
The shopping mall in Cork has these internet stations that are pretty well the same idea as a pay phone. So here I am. Feeding euros into a machine because of my desperate need to feel connected.
Of course you'll get a more detailed recordwhen I'm able to use my own computer (and thus not have to write in the internet browser -- yay word) but Rome was cool. I went in the colloseum, and saw the Sistine Chapel and ate pasta and pizza and all that great stuff. I loved Dublin too. I went to Trinity college to see teh book of Kells, I went to the writers museum, I went to Dublin Castle, and I went to the Guinness storehouse. All very cool. Now I'm in Cork. Went to Blarney castle today and kissed the Blarney stone. Tomorrow I head to Belfast where I'll be for three days, then to Leicester! Very exciting.
For the record, Irish keyboards are very strange.
Well that's all for now. My euros are just dribbling away here. Ta!
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Cannes, Florence
The two final ports. How sad – tomorrow I have to disembark this fine ship. That means that starting tomorrow my meals aren’t free. This is probably what makes me most sad. I’m going to have to pay for meals. And entertainment. This is unfortunate.
But the final two ports were spectacular. Cannes was wonderful. You know all those wonderful things you hear about the south of France? Well based on what I saw on Cannes it’s all true. We spent the day mostly on this beautiful beach with the finest white sand and warm Mediterranean waters. It was so nice. The sun was shining hot upon us, and it might have been unpleasant, but the water made it so nice. I spent so long in there just swimming around. It was superb. After my mom and sister dragged me out of the water, I dried off by lying in the sun. We then went to a little sidewalk cafe and ordered half a bottle of wine and a dish of strawberries. We had bush wine and a dish of cut up strawberries served with a shaker of sugar. It was so... French. When we were done at the cafe we wandered up the street and stumbled upon a free art show taking place at a hotel, so of course we had to take a look. Chelsea and I then went on a quest for a souvenir shop (we actually had to LOOK for one... this place is so charmingly untourist trap) so I could get a Cannes Film Fest postcard for the people at work. We finally found one, and I got a T-Shirt saying Cannes Film Fest on it (well actually it says it in French, but you get the idea). It was such a perfect day. I can’t wait to have the chance to return to the south of France. Nice perhaps? Or Marseilles?
Today was Florence. A while ago I told Susan that I thought she and I ought to have a villa in Tuscany. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. Now having spent the day in Tuscany, I have to say I’m utterly convinced. The ship actually docked in Livorno which is a little less than two hours from Florence. We took a bus that we booked through the cruiseline. There was a guide dude who narrated the entire way there telling us things about Florence and the region, including handing out a map with a recommended walking tour on it and giving us a bunch of advice on where to go for lunch and gelati and all that good stuff. We got into Florence and went to the Church of Santa Croce. This church is lined with the tombs of some of the greatest Italians of the Tuscan region including Machiavelli, Galileo, Michealangelo, and Dante. We saw the private chapel of the Medicis. It was all quite amazing. Then we went through the nicest square with shops specializing in gold and leather goods. I ended up getting a purse. It’s adorable and purple. My mum also got me a gold charm for my charm bracelet at home. We went to an authentic brick oven pizzeria for a pizza lunch. I had a glass of wine with lunch because a glass of wine was literally the same price as a tin of pop. Seriously. After lunch we went to the Galleria Uffizi, which is often called the second greatest art gallery in the world, second only to the Louvre. Just outside of the gallery in the public square is a copy of the David by Michealangelo – it is the same spot where the original used to stand but they had to move it after the arm fell off and hit a peasant on the head, killing him. The original is now in another gallery, but two copies were made – one is almost identical and in that square, the other is a bronze cast and on a hill over looking the city. We got to the see the bronze one as well when we were leaving Florence. Unfortunately we didn’t have nearly enough time to see the things in the Uffizi gallery as thoroughly as we should have. The highlight for me was seeing the original Birth of Venus and Spring by Botticelli – easily his two most famous works, and some of my favourite paintings ever. This gallery had the best collection of medieval art I’ve ever seen. They also had a phenomenal number of busts and statues from ancient Rome. It kind of felt like we had to run through this gallery, but we still were able to see a lot. I could easily go back there though. After the gallery we stopped for Gelato at the place where our guide swears has the best Gelati in Florence. I had a scoop of white chocolate and a scoop of stracciatelli. It was amazing. Following this was a bit of window shopping and then back on the bust to go back to the ship. It was an exhausting but wonderful day.
Tonight’s dinner, to add the catalogue, was watermelon and feta cheese as an appetizer, followed by a side serving of fetticini alfredo, and a turkey dinner entree. For dessert I had rhubarb ice cream. Written out like this the meal seems kind of lame compared to others I’ve told you about ,but I enjoyed it. The light dessert was because I was really full already – there were more exciting choices I assure you. This is the last time I can report my dinner from the ship.
On that note, this might be the last post for a few days. Tomorrow we’re taking the train from Civitaveccia to Rome. We have two nights in Rome, but imagine I probably won’t have internet in the hotel. After that I fly to London to meet up with Papa at his sister’s house. The next day we fly to Dublin and I do the Ireland bit, going from city to city in a manner that makes me doubt my internet connectivity. You may not hear from me again until I get to Leicester. This also goes for friends who might be looking for me on facebook or by e-mail or other ways. If I get a connection (a free, or reasonably cheap one) I’ll certainly be in touch, but it may not be for almost two weeks.
Cheers!
But the final two ports were spectacular. Cannes was wonderful. You know all those wonderful things you hear about the south of France? Well based on what I saw on Cannes it’s all true. We spent the day mostly on this beautiful beach with the finest white sand and warm Mediterranean waters. It was so nice. The sun was shining hot upon us, and it might have been unpleasant, but the water made it so nice. I spent so long in there just swimming around. It was superb. After my mom and sister dragged me out of the water, I dried off by lying in the sun. We then went to a little sidewalk cafe and ordered half a bottle of wine and a dish of strawberries. We had bush wine and a dish of cut up strawberries served with a shaker of sugar. It was so... French. When we were done at the cafe we wandered up the street and stumbled upon a free art show taking place at a hotel, so of course we had to take a look. Chelsea and I then went on a quest for a souvenir shop (we actually had to LOOK for one... this place is so charmingly untourist trap) so I could get a Cannes Film Fest postcard for the people at work. We finally found one, and I got a T-Shirt saying Cannes Film Fest on it (well actually it says it in French, but you get the idea). It was such a perfect day. I can’t wait to have the chance to return to the south of France. Nice perhaps? Or Marseilles?
Today was Florence. A while ago I told Susan that I thought she and I ought to have a villa in Tuscany. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. Now having spent the day in Tuscany, I have to say I’m utterly convinced. The ship actually docked in Livorno which is a little less than two hours from Florence. We took a bus that we booked through the cruiseline. There was a guide dude who narrated the entire way there telling us things about Florence and the region, including handing out a map with a recommended walking tour on it and giving us a bunch of advice on where to go for lunch and gelati and all that good stuff. We got into Florence and went to the Church of Santa Croce. This church is lined with the tombs of some of the greatest Italians of the Tuscan region including Machiavelli, Galileo, Michealangelo, and Dante. We saw the private chapel of the Medicis. It was all quite amazing. Then we went through the nicest square with shops specializing in gold and leather goods. I ended up getting a purse. It’s adorable and purple. My mum also got me a gold charm for my charm bracelet at home. We went to an authentic brick oven pizzeria for a pizza lunch. I had a glass of wine with lunch because a glass of wine was literally the same price as a tin of pop. Seriously. After lunch we went to the Galleria Uffizi, which is often called the second greatest art gallery in the world, second only to the Louvre. Just outside of the gallery in the public square is a copy of the David by Michealangelo – it is the same spot where the original used to stand but they had to move it after the arm fell off and hit a peasant on the head, killing him. The original is now in another gallery, but two copies were made – one is almost identical and in that square, the other is a bronze cast and on a hill over looking the city. We got to the see the bronze one as well when we were leaving Florence. Unfortunately we didn’t have nearly enough time to see the things in the Uffizi gallery as thoroughly as we should have. The highlight for me was seeing the original Birth of Venus and Spring by Botticelli – easily his two most famous works, and some of my favourite paintings ever. This gallery had the best collection of medieval art I’ve ever seen. They also had a phenomenal number of busts and statues from ancient Rome. It kind of felt like we had to run through this gallery, but we still were able to see a lot. I could easily go back there though. After the gallery we stopped for Gelato at the place where our guide swears has the best Gelati in Florence. I had a scoop of white chocolate and a scoop of stracciatelli. It was amazing. Following this was a bit of window shopping and then back on the bust to go back to the ship. It was an exhausting but wonderful day.
Tonight’s dinner, to add the catalogue, was watermelon and feta cheese as an appetizer, followed by a side serving of fetticini alfredo, and a turkey dinner entree. For dessert I had rhubarb ice cream. Written out like this the meal seems kind of lame compared to others I’ve told you about ,but I enjoyed it. The light dessert was because I was really full already – there were more exciting choices I assure you. This is the last time I can report my dinner from the ship.
On that note, this might be the last post for a few days. Tomorrow we’re taking the train from Civitaveccia to Rome. We have two nights in Rome, but imagine I probably won’t have internet in the hotel. After that I fly to London to meet up with Papa at his sister’s house. The next day we fly to Dublin and I do the Ireland bit, going from city to city in a manner that makes me doubt my internet connectivity. You may not hear from me again until I get to Leicester. This also goes for friends who might be looking for me on facebook or by e-mail or other ways. If I get a connection (a free, or reasonably cheap one) I’ll certainly be in touch, but it may not be for almost two weeks.
Cheers!
Monday, September 8, 2008
Barcelona
First off, I promise I tried to post monkey pictures, but blogger keeps flipping out when I try to post photos. I don’t know what it is. I assume the shoddy at sea reception, but I donno. Sorry. So far I’ve taken more than 150 photos. No, they’re not all going to be posted here (good lord...) but at some point I promise I’ll find a way to get some up.
Today was Barcelona. I LIKE that city. A lot. While the other places have been really cool in a number of different ways, Barcelona had a particular flavour that I enjoyed. It had all kinds of awesome history, shown in its art, architecture, monuments, culture, et cetera, but it’s also a vibrant modern city. I love the new meets old effect. We didn’t get to see nearly as much of this city as I wanted to. While the other cities had a lot going on, and I’d love to go back there, Barcelona tops the list for an active desire to return. I would put effort into going to this city again.
We got off the ship and took the shuttle into town. Then we took a cab to the top of the main shopping street, La Ramblas, so that we could walk down it. It’s quite a long street and we didn’t have the time nor the energy to walk both up and down it all. We took in a number of cute boutiques, the cutest of which were actually a block or so off La Ramblas when we decided to venture that way. We found a really cool food market, kind of Granville Island market like, that was full of colours and sounds and people that were just fascinating to take in. We found an awesome little hand made jewellery story where I got stained glass earrings and Chelsea got a nifty bracelet.
Chelsea really wanted to see the big cathedral, so we went a bit off our main track to try to find it. Along the way we found this other really cool cathedral, but not the big gothic one we were looking for. I don’t know how the city managed to this church as well as it did, but we gave up after a bit. We only had so much time before we had to get back to the ship. While looking for this cathedral though we came across the historic city hall, in front of which there was this massive protest going on. Now because I cannot understand Spanish I have not the slightest idea what they were protesting, but my goodness they were entertaining about it. There was this big raft they kept pushing around, and balls, and castenets, and bicycles. It looked like a really fun riot. There were a million police around though, so there was likely a reasonable chance things could have gotten ugly.
On our way back to the main road we stopped at an Irish pub. I know, kind of amusing. While in there we partook in the national drink of Spain – Sangria. Mmm wine... We all know how I enjoy that. My sister had her first illegal drink in a pub. We couldn’t remember if Spain was one of the European countries with a drinking age of 16 but it turned out it was 18. No asked for ID thought so she was okay, but it was kind of amusing.
We finished our walk down La Ramblas, passing the flower market and the portrait artists along the way. We did a few more tourist souvenir shops and then had to go back the ship. It may sound like not a huge amount, but we spent hours ashore. I could have been there hours (or days) longer. I would love to see some of the original Gaudi, the Dali and the Picasso as well. More of the Gothic architecture. The Catalina cultural stuff. There’s just so much, and I so enjoyed everything I saw.
Tomorrow is Cannes, which I’m really looking forward to. An easy day at the beach. Yay! And a chance to speak more French. Also cool.
You guys seem very entertained by the food and I’m sorry you’re not getting a complete catalogue. I can do today’s dinner though! I started with an appetizer of twice backed goat’s cheese soufflé, and then had strawberry and thyme infused lemon sorbet, followed by pork tenderloin rubbed with cocoa and served with ratatouille and garlic potatoes. Dessert was called “Menage a trios” and consisted of a nice vanilla praline icecream kind of thing, and chocolate cake, and strawberry mousse. It was nice.
After dinner, I went to the show where I was hypnotized. Yeah. My mom talked me into that. I went up there all like “I don’t know if I can be hypnotized” and then the lady explained that it was basically a deep meditation, nothing else, and I was like “crap, I KNOW I can meditate...” So that was amusing. There were a bunch of people on stage, many of whom had to do funny things. Pretty well all I had to do was the group activities, which were sleeping on demand and then the finale... which involved me rapping in Cantonese and dancing. Yeah, that was special. So now I’ve spent the rest of the night avoiding my fans. One lady asked if I take dance lessons because was amazed by my moves and thought I ought to be on a commercial or something. Another said I was fantastic and that she’d never laughed that much in her life. So glad to be amusing, lol
Well it’s pretty well bed time. I was all rejuvenated after my extended meditation, but now it’s past 1am and I have to be up at a reasonable time to go into Cannes.
Cheers!
OH BOY -- a bonus! I got blogger to let me upload one little picture. Well here's a Gibraltar ape, and that's my cruiseship in the background. Yay!
Today was Barcelona. I LIKE that city. A lot. While the other places have been really cool in a number of different ways, Barcelona had a particular flavour that I enjoyed. It had all kinds of awesome history, shown in its art, architecture, monuments, culture, et cetera, but it’s also a vibrant modern city. I love the new meets old effect. We didn’t get to see nearly as much of this city as I wanted to. While the other cities had a lot going on, and I’d love to go back there, Barcelona tops the list for an active desire to return. I would put effort into going to this city again.
We got off the ship and took the shuttle into town. Then we took a cab to the top of the main shopping street, La Ramblas, so that we could walk down it. It’s quite a long street and we didn’t have the time nor the energy to walk both up and down it all. We took in a number of cute boutiques, the cutest of which were actually a block or so off La Ramblas when we decided to venture that way. We found a really cool food market, kind of Granville Island market like, that was full of colours and sounds and people that were just fascinating to take in. We found an awesome little hand made jewellery story where I got stained glass earrings and Chelsea got a nifty bracelet.
Chelsea really wanted to see the big cathedral, so we went a bit off our main track to try to find it. Along the way we found this other really cool cathedral, but not the big gothic one we were looking for. I don’t know how the city managed to this church as well as it did, but we gave up after a bit. We only had so much time before we had to get back to the ship. While looking for this cathedral though we came across the historic city hall, in front of which there was this massive protest going on. Now because I cannot understand Spanish I have not the slightest idea what they were protesting, but my goodness they were entertaining about it. There was this big raft they kept pushing around, and balls, and castenets, and bicycles. It looked like a really fun riot. There were a million police around though, so there was likely a reasonable chance things could have gotten ugly.
On our way back to the main road we stopped at an Irish pub. I know, kind of amusing. While in there we partook in the national drink of Spain – Sangria. Mmm wine... We all know how I enjoy that. My sister had her first illegal drink in a pub. We couldn’t remember if Spain was one of the European countries with a drinking age of 16 but it turned out it was 18. No asked for ID thought so she was okay, but it was kind of amusing.
We finished our walk down La Ramblas, passing the flower market and the portrait artists along the way. We did a few more tourist souvenir shops and then had to go back the ship. It may sound like not a huge amount, but we spent hours ashore. I could have been there hours (or days) longer. I would love to see some of the original Gaudi, the Dali and the Picasso as well. More of the Gothic architecture. The Catalina cultural stuff. There’s just so much, and I so enjoyed everything I saw.
Tomorrow is Cannes, which I’m really looking forward to. An easy day at the beach. Yay! And a chance to speak more French. Also cool.
You guys seem very entertained by the food and I’m sorry you’re not getting a complete catalogue. I can do today’s dinner though! I started with an appetizer of twice backed goat’s cheese soufflé, and then had strawberry and thyme infused lemon sorbet, followed by pork tenderloin rubbed with cocoa and served with ratatouille and garlic potatoes. Dessert was called “Menage a trios” and consisted of a nice vanilla praline icecream kind of thing, and chocolate cake, and strawberry mousse. It was nice.
After dinner, I went to the show where I was hypnotized. Yeah. My mom talked me into that. I went up there all like “I don’t know if I can be hypnotized” and then the lady explained that it was basically a deep meditation, nothing else, and I was like “crap, I KNOW I can meditate...” So that was amusing. There were a bunch of people on stage, many of whom had to do funny things. Pretty well all I had to do was the group activities, which were sleeping on demand and then the finale... which involved me rapping in Cantonese and dancing. Yeah, that was special. So now I’ve spent the rest of the night avoiding my fans. One lady asked if I take dance lessons because was amazed by my moves and thought I ought to be on a commercial or something. Another said I was fantastic and that she’d never laughed that much in her life. So glad to be amusing, lol
Well it’s pretty well bed time. I was all rejuvenated after my extended meditation, but now it’s past 1am and I have to be up at a reasonable time to go into Cannes.
Cheers!
OH BOY -- a bonus! I got blogger to let me upload one little picture. Well here's a Gibraltar ape, and that's my cruiseship in the background. Yay!
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Gibraltar, land of the barbary ape
Today I saw monkeys. But before I get to that, there’s something that I just must share with you. The strangest thing is happening to my skin. It’s turning colour, but not bright red. I have noticeable pigmentation. Friends, for perhaps the first time in my life, I’m tanning – go figure, the weather in the Mediterranean is sunny enough that this occurs. A tan, people. My arms, and my face... it’s quite shocking.
Okay so today was Gibraltar. We went into this not knowing what to think about the port, but generally excited about the monkeys. As it turns out, mum stayed on board again because she didn’t have a lot of interest in the monkeys. Chelsea and I went ashore. We scoffed at the shuttles and taxis thinking no problem, we could walk across this little rock. So where the map made Cadiz look bigger than it was, the map made Gibraltar look smaller than it was. We walked all the way down the pier (which was quite a ways) and then literally halfway across the rock to get to the tram to take us up the rock. It took us a bit more than an hour I think, and we didn’t stop to look in any shops or anything.
We got up to the tram and waited 45 minutes for our 6 minute tram ride up the rock. We got to the top and got to hang out with monkeys. Now I realize they are wild animals (the only wild primates in Europe actually) but I didn’t think they would be THAT wild – okay let me re-phrase that... I didn’t think we would be allowed to get that close to them. I sort of envisioned a viewing area, where we could look maybe down on the monkeys, or at them from across a fence or a glass pane or something. Nope. The monkeys own that rock man. If you go up there, you’re in their territory, and it doesn’t bother them at all to run around, past, and into you. The guy who works with the monkeys gives you this lecture about how from the monkey’s point of view they are not a tourist attraction and are wild animals and are interested in people only inasmuch as they think they might be able to get a snack off of us. They will bite and they will grab at any plastic bag or other thing they might suspect is food. The fine for feeding the monkeys (intentionally or not) is 500 pounds.
Chelsea and I hung out with the monkeys for a little more than an hour. They were so cool. It was really interactive. We could go all around this converted fortress tourist centre thing, and there really were monkeys running all around us. There was this one baby monkey only 3 months old – he was adorable! He did all the cute monkey things like hanging upside down and swinging off bars. There were other young ones, and a bunch of older ones including the alpha male, Gregory. The Barbary apes are tailless monkeys and wild to the rock of Gibraltar. The saying is that Britain will retain Gibraltar so long as there are monkeys there. For a while it looked like they might die out during WW2, and Winston Churchill, not wanting morale to go down at such a critical time, had reinforcement monkeys brought in from north Africa.
I’m sure no one is terribly interested in reading more about these monkeys. I will post pictures of them eventually, just no tonight most likely. Stay tuned. Dinner tonight, for those interested, was a chilled tea and watermelon soup, followed by spaghetti carbonera, and New York Sirloin steak with apple cider sorbet for dessert. Chelsea has tandoori tiger prawns for dinner, and if I liked sea food I’m sure those would have been superb.
Till later!
Okay so today was Gibraltar. We went into this not knowing what to think about the port, but generally excited about the monkeys. As it turns out, mum stayed on board again because she didn’t have a lot of interest in the monkeys. Chelsea and I went ashore. We scoffed at the shuttles and taxis thinking no problem, we could walk across this little rock. So where the map made Cadiz look bigger than it was, the map made Gibraltar look smaller than it was. We walked all the way down the pier (which was quite a ways) and then literally halfway across the rock to get to the tram to take us up the rock. It took us a bit more than an hour I think, and we didn’t stop to look in any shops or anything.
We got up to the tram and waited 45 minutes for our 6 minute tram ride up the rock. We got to the top and got to hang out with monkeys. Now I realize they are wild animals (the only wild primates in Europe actually) but I didn’t think they would be THAT wild – okay let me re-phrase that... I didn’t think we would be allowed to get that close to them. I sort of envisioned a viewing area, where we could look maybe down on the monkeys, or at them from across a fence or a glass pane or something. Nope. The monkeys own that rock man. If you go up there, you’re in their territory, and it doesn’t bother them at all to run around, past, and into you. The guy who works with the monkeys gives you this lecture about how from the monkey’s point of view they are not a tourist attraction and are wild animals and are interested in people only inasmuch as they think they might be able to get a snack off of us. They will bite and they will grab at any plastic bag or other thing they might suspect is food. The fine for feeding the monkeys (intentionally or not) is 500 pounds.
Chelsea and I hung out with the monkeys for a little more than an hour. They were so cool. It was really interactive. We could go all around this converted fortress tourist centre thing, and there really were monkeys running all around us. There was this one baby monkey only 3 months old – he was adorable! He did all the cute monkey things like hanging upside down and swinging off bars. There were other young ones, and a bunch of older ones including the alpha male, Gregory. The Barbary apes are tailless monkeys and wild to the rock of Gibraltar. The saying is that Britain will retain Gibraltar so long as there are monkeys there. For a while it looked like they might die out during WW2, and Winston Churchill, not wanting morale to go down at such a critical time, had reinforcement monkeys brought in from north Africa.
I’m sure no one is terribly interested in reading more about these monkeys. I will post pictures of them eventually, just no tonight most likely. Stay tuned. Dinner tonight, for those interested, was a chilled tea and watermelon soup, followed by spaghetti carbonera, and New York Sirloin steak with apple cider sorbet for dessert. Chelsea has tandoori tiger prawns for dinner, and if I liked sea food I’m sure those would have been superb.
Till later!
Friday, September 5, 2008
Lisbon, Cadiz, Casablanca
Portugal, Spain, Morocco...
I’ve been busy! Three ports in three days, and I didn’t find time to write a blog post about any of them. So in a nutshell...
Lisbon – my mom really liked this city... I didn’t dislike it or anything, I was just not as impressed as she was. We had some confusion regarding where and how to catch our double decker bus tour which kind of started us on the wrong foot. We finally got on it and it wasn’t the best tour. The guide was a grumpy lady and the tour was given in English, Portuguese, and Spanish (thus she didn’t say a lot). We got to see a lot of neat looking things, but we didn’t really have the chance to go in and see any. The ship was only in port until 3:00 so time was a real problem. We tried to call home but the pay phones confused the crap out of us. Turns out my Portuguese isn’t very good, lol.
Cadiz – this was a fantastic day. My mom’s back was really starting to hurt from all the walking recently so she elected to stay on the ship. Chelsea and I wandered Cadiz, and my god did we do it thoroughly. The city is on an almost island kind of peninsula thing that is 1200m across and 1800 long. We walked the circumference of almost the entire thing and cut across the middle, exploring the old quarter thoroughly. We found a renaissance castle built to protect the part of the coast most vulnerable to attack; the building was star-shaped and we were able to wander around all of it for free. We found the cathedrals and gothic and baroque buildings. We found a beautiful beach. We found the ruins of the oldest Roman theatre on the Iberian peninsula – it was built approximately 90 BC. We walked and we walked and we walked and it was exhausting but wonderful. We discovered so much of what turned out to be a fascinating and VERY Spanish little city, which was very cool because we didn’t expect a lot of it. The city had this tourist thing in it... I swear their tourism board has chatted with Ikea. There were lines literally painted on the sidewalk and if you followed them they took you to all the cool parts of town. We followd the yellow line (castles and fortresses) through most of its route and also spent time on the green line (medieval history). It was quite awesome.
Casablanca – the first thing my mom said to me when we woke up this morning was “we’re in AFRICA” which made her very excited. We went into town a little unsure. For the past few days we’d heard experienced travellers who’d been there before and cruisestaff as well, say interesting things about this city. Lots of people don’t like it. They get put off by the radically different culture, the poverty, the way tourists are treated. This didn’t shock me, and I was prepared for it, but nonetheless it was a place so different you couldn’t help but be “culture shocked” to some degree. Vendors walk right up to you and aggressively try to sell you things. You walk around knowing that there is a high rate of crime. Tourists (and it’s pretty obvious if you’re a tourist in this town) get immediately accosted by taxi drivers, vendors, cafe and bizarre owners, “tour guides”, beggars. It is very fast moving (very much unlike places we’ve been recently like Cadiz and Rouen) and they want to put wealthy white visitors right in the middle of it. We wandered a market, and went into a number of shops. They have such beautiful things, especially ceramics, metal work, leather, and art. My mom got a mask. My sister and I each got a bracelet. Lovely stuff. I enjoyed being there quite a bit. It really was like I stepped into another land. The official language is Arabic, but almost everyone speaks French so that was my primary way of communicating. I’m much better at that than I thought I’d be. We spent all of our 600 Moroccan Durhams – the equivalent of 100 Canadian dollars. If we’d had more I bed we could have spent them, but we’re happy with what we got. We also made a phone call to my dad that cost us something like 20 of those durhams. Oh, and some postcards :)
The ship has also been great of course. Chelsea and I each sang at karaoke the other night. We’ve done some line dancing. Seen a couple comedians. Tonight is a singer from London theatre’s west end. The food’s been great. Last night’s dinner was coq au vin. I haven’t looked at today’s menu yet. Should be exciting. Something kind of amusing is that fact that we’ve sailed into another time zone, but the ship is choosing to ignore that. We’re staying on “ship time” and totally disregarding clocks at port. I don’t know why, but I find this hilarious. Last night I watched Iron Man on the Movies Under the Stars screen from a lawn chair on deck. We’ve played a bunch of trivia games, but we haven’t won one yet – the most recent one we were one point away! That keeps happening, sigh. Lol.
Tomorrow is Gibraltar. I get to see monkeys! And it will be a nice break to be able to speak English at port, haha.
I’ve been busy! Three ports in three days, and I didn’t find time to write a blog post about any of them. So in a nutshell...
Lisbon – my mom really liked this city... I didn’t dislike it or anything, I was just not as impressed as she was. We had some confusion regarding where and how to catch our double decker bus tour which kind of started us on the wrong foot. We finally got on it and it wasn’t the best tour. The guide was a grumpy lady and the tour was given in English, Portuguese, and Spanish (thus she didn’t say a lot). We got to see a lot of neat looking things, but we didn’t really have the chance to go in and see any. The ship was only in port until 3:00 so time was a real problem. We tried to call home but the pay phones confused the crap out of us. Turns out my Portuguese isn’t very good, lol.
Cadiz – this was a fantastic day. My mom’s back was really starting to hurt from all the walking recently so she elected to stay on the ship. Chelsea and I wandered Cadiz, and my god did we do it thoroughly. The city is on an almost island kind of peninsula thing that is 1200m across and 1800 long. We walked the circumference of almost the entire thing and cut across the middle, exploring the old quarter thoroughly. We found a renaissance castle built to protect the part of the coast most vulnerable to attack; the building was star-shaped and we were able to wander around all of it for free. We found the cathedrals and gothic and baroque buildings. We found a beautiful beach. We found the ruins of the oldest Roman theatre on the Iberian peninsula – it was built approximately 90 BC. We walked and we walked and we walked and it was exhausting but wonderful. We discovered so much of what turned out to be a fascinating and VERY Spanish little city, which was very cool because we didn’t expect a lot of it. The city had this tourist thing in it... I swear their tourism board has chatted with Ikea. There were lines literally painted on the sidewalk and if you followed them they took you to all the cool parts of town. We followd the yellow line (castles and fortresses) through most of its route and also spent time on the green line (medieval history). It was quite awesome.
Casablanca – the first thing my mom said to me when we woke up this morning was “we’re in AFRICA” which made her very excited. We went into town a little unsure. For the past few days we’d heard experienced travellers who’d been there before and cruisestaff as well, say interesting things about this city. Lots of people don’t like it. They get put off by the radically different culture, the poverty, the way tourists are treated. This didn’t shock me, and I was prepared for it, but nonetheless it was a place so different you couldn’t help but be “culture shocked” to some degree. Vendors walk right up to you and aggressively try to sell you things. You walk around knowing that there is a high rate of crime. Tourists (and it’s pretty obvious if you’re a tourist in this town) get immediately accosted by taxi drivers, vendors, cafe and bizarre owners, “tour guides”, beggars. It is very fast moving (very much unlike places we’ve been recently like Cadiz and Rouen) and they want to put wealthy white visitors right in the middle of it. We wandered a market, and went into a number of shops. They have such beautiful things, especially ceramics, metal work, leather, and art. My mom got a mask. My sister and I each got a bracelet. Lovely stuff. I enjoyed being there quite a bit. It really was like I stepped into another land. The official language is Arabic, but almost everyone speaks French so that was my primary way of communicating. I’m much better at that than I thought I’d be. We spent all of our 600 Moroccan Durhams – the equivalent of 100 Canadian dollars. If we’d had more I bed we could have spent them, but we’re happy with what we got. We also made a phone call to my dad that cost us something like 20 of those durhams. Oh, and some postcards :)
The ship has also been great of course. Chelsea and I each sang at karaoke the other night. We’ve done some line dancing. Seen a couple comedians. Tonight is a singer from London theatre’s west end. The food’s been great. Last night’s dinner was coq au vin. I haven’t looked at today’s menu yet. Should be exciting. Something kind of amusing is that fact that we’ve sailed into another time zone, but the ship is choosing to ignore that. We’re staying on “ship time” and totally disregarding clocks at port. I don’t know why, but I find this hilarious. Last night I watched Iron Man on the Movies Under the Stars screen from a lawn chair on deck. We’ve played a bunch of trivia games, but we haven’t won one yet – the most recent one we were one point away! That keeps happening, sigh. Lol.
Tomorrow is Gibraltar. I get to see monkeys! And it will be a nice break to be able to speak English at port, haha.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Vigo spain
I went through all of yesterday without using either my computer or the internet. Aren’t you proud of me? Lol. I was certain the connection would be crap anyway. Like it is now, sigh. I really have to get on top of this doing internet while at port thing.
Speaking of port, today was the Spanish city of Vigo. Never heard of Vigo? Don’t worry, you’re not the only one. So far no postcards have been written – Most shops were closed in Rouen because it was Sunday, and I didn’t want everyone saying “why did I get the postcard from Vigo???” It was actually a nice little city. It is part of the region of Galacia, which historically was one of the Celtic nations, and it was also inhabited by the Romans for a while. UNESCO has named it a heritage site for its old buildings and whatnots. A lot of them were practically ruins, especially in the “old quarter” we wandered into. It is especially known for a cathedral called the Compostella de Santiago, but we didn’t go there because it was kinda far away and we were doing Vigo on foot.
There was some neat shopping but I didn’t actually buy anything. I almost got these adorable shoes that were black with little skulls on them, but all pointy and formal and adorable, but it was in this hole-in-the-wall shoe store that had people in it and the owner only spoke Spanish and I couldn’t actually reach the shoes because I only saw them in the window and I think they were size 39 but I think I’m a European size 42 or something... wow run on sentence.
We just wandered Vigo a bit, didn’t do a tour or anything. It was a nice place, I enjoyed being there, but I don’t think I’ll ever go “hey, let’s go on a trip to Vigo” or anything like that.
In the meantime, ship life has been great. Last night was formal night. It was fun getting dressed up. We went for drinks after dinner. Y’all seem fascinated by the cruise food thing, so let’s see, what did I have for dinner? There was this appetizer with fruit – kiwi and grapefruit with a raspberry sauce. Then I had a chilled yoghurt and green stuff soup. Main course was fillet mignon, as it often is on formal night. Yum. For dessert (don’t mock me) I had nutella ice cream. My after dinner drinks were a triple berry daiquiri and a mojito. We went to the show, which was the singers and dancers doing movie songs, and took some fun pictures on deck while it was windy. The whole day was super windy actually, and a little rocky. There are a lot of wusses on this ship complaining about the rockiness. They ain’t seen nothin’ yet. I love rockiness. It’s good to be reminded I’m on a boat.
Tomorrow is Lisbon. We have a hop-on-hop-off bus tour booked. That should be good.
Some Formal Night / Vigo pics: (Well I'm gonna try...)
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