The European Extravaganza!

The Penultimate Post

2005-08-07T23:59:00.000Z

OK, so this was going to be our last post... but then we weren't able to publish the long drawn out summary of our last few days in London before we were logged off (just like in Amsterdam... I guess we've gone full circle). So, we'll just say that we'll have to update this once we're back in Toronto, when many of you will probably already have heard of our escapades. Or maybe we'll just agree to not tell any of you anything until we've written it (you know, we don't want to spoil the ending).

So, it's late and we have to fly out of GATWICK (not HEATHROW!) tomorrow, so we need to get our rest. We're into the final leg. We'll see you at the finish line. Have that cheque for a million bucks ready. We've earned it.

Muggles, Lizzie Bennett & Wickham (!), and Guys & Dolls, oh my!

2005-08-06T07:41:00.000Z

After visiting Christ Church in Oxford to see all the HP-related rooms, we headed off for the Bodleian library which holds the divinity school which was used for the hospital wing in the movies. There is also the Duke Humphrey's library which was used as The Library in the films, but we found that we couldn't actually see that one unless we went on a tour. We decided we hadn't travelled all this way (god, starting to sound like Ewan McGregor in his travel book...)to chicken out because of the £5 admission price, so £5 poorer, we found ourselves signed up for the 2 pm tour.

In the interim, I dragged Laura around the city of Oxford looking for the best Trinity regalia we could find. We ultimately decided that a bonafide Trinity College Oxford scarf is what I needed; I know what I'll be going as for Hallowe'en this year! We won't talk about how much it cost, but believe me when I say it's super cool! We'll have to take a photo of me "kitted out" in all this stuff at some point!

We also stopped into Blackwells and looked around, but soon enough we were on our tour of the library. Our tour guide was the real-life incarnation of Madam Pince! She was so surly and snooty and gave Laura the most aggregious look when she asked whether our bags would be locked up during the tour (since we had to leave them behind). Anyway... the tour was actually really boring (due in no small part to Pince, we think). Now we remember why history can be so dull! Blech! We did learn a few cool facts (like how Cambridge began when students defacted from Oxford because of killings that were taking place!), and the Library was awesome. They really have the books chained up (like in the Restricted Section!) and everything! Alas, we couldn't take pictures, it was verboten, and there weren't any postcards of the place, but we have the memories. Oh! And we also got to check out some places around the library that will be featured in the next film, so we'll have to keep our eyes peeled (we did take pics of those!).

After a scrumptious cream tea (with clotted cream!) we got on the train to London... We ate chicken cottage for dinner again, and then went to bed. Our hostel isn't as great as we thought it would be, but it is clean. The breakfast is pathetic, and we have a hard time finding a hot shower, but we're safe and it's mostly quiet (we've recently been overtaken by children)...

Not enough time to regale you with all our tales so far (sorry for the misleading title), but you'll hear all about London, Ewan,Platform 9 and 3/4!, and Wickham in our next update. It's a heck of a time!

Back in England... a super fast update! We swear!

2005-08-03T10:48:00.000Z

We last left you before heading off to Mary King's Close. It had been recommended to us by Clart, our guide on the Lit Pub tour. We had signed up for the latest slot, although it didn't really matter as since it was below ground, it would dark always. We couldn't find a place to eat that satisfied all of my vague requirements: no potatoes, something with cheese, maybe meat, not fish and chips. Thus, we went back to The Elephant Cafe and had a fabulous salad while talking about JK and HP. The tour of the Close was... goodish. It was pretty interesting to see the underground alleyways (although they were not underground originally), although it would have been better if they had not bothered to try and be remotely scary since that just made things cheesy. If we wanted scares, we would have gone on the City of the Dead tour and then required new trousers, because when we first went into the Close, it was pretty scary on its own. We didn't like how the guides had to reenact the time by pretending to be people stuck down there; our guide was purportedly Mary King's own daughter. Still, it was pretty interesting, and we did like hearing about all the nasty and disgusting things they did in/to the Nor Loch (now Waverly Station and the Princes Gardens).

We had the most traumatic wakeup call the next morning as 2 of the people in our room decided to engage in activities perhaps best left for private rooms rather than 12-bed dorms. Even though they had constructed a little cave out of covers, it wasn't soundproof and they managed to wake up the entire room with their shenanigans. So frightening. More effective than any video in health class. Eep!

We left Edinburgh to go to Alnmouth/Alnwick (pronounced: Annick) to visit Hogwarts itself. It was really cool, and our tour guide Sid was fantastic. Alas, we could not totally enjoy ourselves as we had nowhere to put our rucksacks, and so we had ot carry them with us the entire time. We eventually abandonned them just past the spot where the kids take their first flying lesson. While at the castle, we also saw the improper site of the womping willow, the archway that Hagrid carries an Xmas tree through, the quidditch pitch backdrop, and a little area that the kids cluster around when Ron says that Hermione is a nightmare! So great!

We then took the train to Manchester, where we checked into our hostel and then went for chinese food (our first time in like, 43 days or something!). It was quite expensive everywhere, but we got a good deal in China town, and stuffed ourselves well.

The next day we took the train to Disley where we visited Pemberley/Lyme Park. We had dodgy directions from the station (read: walk half a mile from the station), so we thankfully found a woman who told us how to get there by foot (apparently this is uncommon). After much traipsing up cobbled laneways and across very hilly grasslands (lyme park itself), we made it to The building. We took pictures of the stairs that Darcy runs down when he is trying to catch Lizzie from leaving Pemberley, and of course, took pictures of the back of the house, and The Pond. We then spent a lazy afternoon dozing on the lawn near the pond and reading. No good gifts in the shop (zut!), but we did have a cream tea there, since how could we pass up that opportunity? Suck it, Taryn! Ha ha ha!

Got in very late to Oxford, and shared the train with many weirdos. One man had broken glasses and kept moaning and moving backwards from us but kept staring at Laura. Also, there was another man who was dressed as though he were an Indian chief.

Hostel provided us with full English breakfast (yum!), and since then we have been out and about wandering the streets of Oxford. Visited Christ Church, where we took pictures of the cloisters, the great stairway, and of course, the Great Hall (had to wait an extra half hour just for it to open, but only paid £2 instead of £3,50 for our troubles). Next we're off to do some more HP-themed sightseeing, and will head to London later today.

No more time to write, but we daresay there shall be time enough in London. Can't believe the trip is pretty much over. Can't say we want to come home... we're English girls at heart now! Haven't we always been?

Bloody Hell! Adventures and near misses in Edinburgh.

2005-07-31T14:41:00.000Z

Welcome to the land of poor grammar. We're not talking "Irvine Welsh" style prose here, but just full-on disrespect for the English language. Who ever knew that apostrophe-s made things plural? I am now going into overdrive as "The Grammar Warden". The city is lucky that I haven't taken to carrying a black sharpie with me to undo all of their grammatical offenses!

Anyway, a night of sleep did little to quell our stomachs back in Inverness, so the next morning, we did what years at university have taught us to do when one wakes up feeling queasy: eat a greasy breakfast. It might be a patented hangover cure, but it worked wonders on our roiling tummies as well. Who would have thought that McDonald's mcmuffins would be cure-alls?

We booked ourselves on a Jacobite Passion/Sensation tour, and wound up on a very nice tour bus with only one other elderly (more like ancient) couple to share it with. Our tour guide George was awesome (we have such good luck with guides), and was quite surprised to see the numbers so low. High season indeed! We blame the weather as it was threatening rain and was quite chilly out. The tour was a bit expensive, but the price included transportation to and from Loch Ness, admission to Urquhart Castle, a half hour ride on a boat on the Ness, and entrance to the Official Loch Ness Exhibition. Furthermore, George regaled us with stories and trivia about the area whenever we were on the bus, so it was a good deal!

We drove to the boat docks where we caught our ferry across Loch Ness to Urquhart Castle. It was quite cold out, and we think that might be why we didn't see Nessie. Still, we were happy that the water wasn't choppy, as apparently the waves can be as high as 6 or 7 feet when rough! The boat ride was actually really nice (despite the lack of paranormal visitors), and slow enough that no winds cut us to the bone.

When we reached Urquhart - which is really just the shell of a castle - we took tons of touristy type photos (we were in a mood), most notably ones where we are pointing out to the lake with aghast expressions on our face. We've left enough room to paste in a little Nessie when we get back home! In the souvenir shop, we found out by reading about the different clans that the Elliot(t)s were "bad-asses" and pretty much rabble-rousers who stole sheep and the like. It actually explains a lot. I guess you can't fight your past!

We were a bit late getting back onto our tour bus (George actually came looking for us) but this was only because we had taken his advice and watched the film in the tour center about Urquhart's history! Still, we vowed that we would be early when he came to pick us up from the Loch Ness Center. The center was really cool: you walked about from room to room watching little movies that traced the history of the loch and the monster sightings. Some rooms were very high-tech involving smoke and lasers (which Laura felt looked like the Dark Mark!), and it was all very interesting to see how they have gone about investigating the possibility of there being a monster/dinosaur living in the loch. George isn't the exhibitions biggest fan since it was put together by a single man and is therefore a unilateral look at Nessie. According to the exhibition, it is likely that Nessie is really just a huge sturgeon. Of course, sturgeon or no, we still didn't see her! Also, George has spoken to countless individuals (including some monks) who have all claimed to see something in the loch, and as he pointed out, they weren't all that concerned with convincing him about what they had seen since they were all personally satisfied. Also, all of these people were "reasonably intelligent" (in George's own words!) and had no need to make up stories. I guess we'll have to closely examine our pictures once we get back and see if anything mysterious crops up.

Once back in Inverness, we checked out of our first hostel and transferred over to our second one which was situated right across the street from a mall. Now we know why all the people from Fort William's went shopping in Inverness since, I personally managed to pick myself up a pair of jeans that no longer shame me when I wear them. They weren't too expensive, and were "petite" so they are the perfect length. Why oh why can't all North American stores have a petite section? It's just not fair to us short girls!

After some time doing some extensive window shopping, we began looking for a supermarket to get some food for dinner. Although we failed on that account (and actually wound up in a second-hand bookstore which seemed so promising at first (beautiful winding, iron staircase) but soon revealed itself to be infuriatingly unorganized), we did find a pub that had an awesome curry special on. Essentially we got a great curry with some rice, nan, chutney, and popadoms plus a drink for £4.99. We wanted to get Blackthorne (not knowing what it actually was, but the name sounded familiar). We were happy to find out that Blackthorne is cider, but then were saddened to find that they didn't actually have it available, so each got a pint of Fosters instead.

As we (ok, I) stumbled our way home afterwards, we lingered out in the cold for a bit longer as we watched some children doing some highland dancing. We were particularly amused by this tiny mulletted boy and his partner (Ginny Weasley) who essentially just lunged from side to side and threw their hand in the air. Very amusing!

The dampness from outside crept inward when I realized after climbing into bed that my sheets were moist. Although I got the guy at reception to change them for me, the matress itself was wet and so, I ended up just cocooning myself in the overlying duvet. Not the most comfortable sleep, although Laura was prodded throughout the night by her especially springy matress (she could feel every coil!). There was nothing good on tv (just Wife Swap, for whatever reason), so we stayed in our room reading. Much to our horror, just as we were getting ready to turn in for the night, Vomit Girl from the bus in from Fort William and her very unfortunate looking boyfriend/brother showed up! What are the chances that they would be in our room! It sounds like taking the tour bus was the best choice, since they had gone to Loch Ness as well but had walked for 12 miles or something and also did some hitch-hiking. No thanks!

The next day we took the train into Edinburgh. At first we were concerned because all of the seats appeared to be reserved, but the train was actually quite empty, so I guess people just didn't show up. The train was quite cold, although I slept through most of the journey! We did see a field where all the cows were lying down, although Laura couldn't remember whether her dad said that meant the world was ending OR whether it was going to rain. It then began to rain, so I think we're leaning toward the latter explanation!

We had to walk up some frighteningly steep hills (in the rain) once we reached Edinburgh, only to find when we got to our hostel that they had no record of us. This makes no sense since we booked it through the same site at the same time as our Fort William hostel, and they had us in their books! After 20 minutes showing them our confirmations (thank goodness Laura brought them along!) they conceded that they didn't have us in the books but that they had beds for us anyway (why they didn't tell us this from the get-go, we don't know). They wanted to put us in separate rooms, but then again, decided that they would not do this. This was all rather frustrating, but it did work out in our favour, so ha! Take that, Castle Rock Edinburgh! If we weren't so angry at them, we would have possibly been charmed by the Medieval Times like atmosphere of the place. The jury is still out on that. Also disappointing is that we got put into the Plant themed room, and are sleeping in beds called "Root" and "Nice Pear" instead of in the Scottish Slang Room or the Scotish Bands Room. Och!

We ended off the evening by wandering through the streets looking for a nice place to get some hot food since it was FREEZING out. Seriously, July here feels like late October in Toronto. Even wearing all of our long-sleeved clothing, the cold still got to us. We ended up eating at a pub called "The Last Drop" in the Grassmarket, which had great food and warm drinks (I had a frothy honey-milk drink called a "pooh bear"!). The pub is quite cleverly named as it stands just feet from where the gallows once stood, and where the last person was hanged. Clever!

After eating, we returned to the hostel where we read until we fell asleep, burrowed in our sheets (and in Laura's case, on top of egg-carton foam to boot).

The next day, we went to the castle where we had the best tour guide (eva!) named Jim Crewe. He was super Scottish and even wore a little baret with ribbons down the back. He told many jokes and had a strange proclivity for grasping people's shoulders in his iron grip. Never let Laura say that I am the geeky keener of the group, since when Jim asked us what the name of the tallest mountain in Scotland was, she blurted out "Ben Nevis" so quickly, no one else had time to react. Who's our little Hermione Granger now? Careful! You forgot to pack a pocket protector! ;) Then again, I was the one who proudly crowed out, "Nothing!", when Jim asked us what Scottish men wear under their kilts...

Anyway, we learned many cool facts about the castle, the Scottish Disease (golf, in case you're wondering), why they fire the cannon daily at 1 pm rather than noon (to save themselves 11 shells!), how the English end parties (they don't ask you to leave, they just clear up the food and put on their pjs!), and what will happen to the Stone of Destiny when Prince Charles or one of his sons is made king (it'll go back to England for the coronation).

After checking out the jewelry, the armour, and the Royal Apartments, and the Prisons (so cool! So many pirates! So little time! We could have made our own forged money and bought pieces of 8!), we had a whisky tasting at one of the gift shops. Never fear, we had the girly version: Drumgray, which is essentially like Bailey's Irish Cream. Very yummy, although we got less than a thimble full. Probably for the best that we stayed away from the other stuff as it smelled like cleaning solvent! Still, we couldn't go all the way to Scotland and not have a tiny taste, now could we? Although, after seeing some pictures of haggis, I don't know that we feel the same way about that!

We then made our way over to The Elephant House, which is the cafe where JK wrote her first Harry Potter novel. We enjoyed the delicious shortbread and paninis (brie & mango; give it a try at home!), and then went to the Museum of Scotland. We didn't make it off the ground floor, although we did learn quite a bit about torture instruments (best part of the exhibit AND it came in handy later... moihahaha). We headed into the Royal Museum, but weren't so interested in seeing Canadian totem poles (so that's where they all went). We did, however, see a child who resembled a turnip (we nicknamed him "Neep") more than any child ever should!

As we began searching for the statue of Greyfriar's Bobby (which it turns out that we had passed about 3 times previously), a scary man with huge gashes on his arm came up to us and began mumbling about how we had "missed him". We had no idea what he was talking about, but then he said something about how we had just missed seeing "Rom [sic] Weasley" yesterday. When I asked if he meant "Ron Weasley" he acted as though that was what he had said, and added "Chamber of Secrets" just to be clear. Turns out Rupert Grint may have been in the neighbourhood the day previously (a shop girl in another store seemed to confirm this), which pretty much makes us the worst Harry Potter fans ever. Fil, perhaps we were too hasty in taking away your membership. Our little hearts have broken, and we are inconsolable, although we cling to the hope that the Edinburgh drug smuggling ring is now just using Harry Potter lingo as a coverup, and that guy was just asking us if we wanted some heroin. Please let that be the case... We have no idea why he would talk to us about HP otherwise, since we weren't talking about it (for once) nor were we wearing/doing anything that would link us to HP. So it must have been drugs! Right? (Taryn, please do not comment on this matter; your cynicism is not welcome here).

Heartbroken, we wandered to the new Parliament building (the Charlie Brown Xmas music playing the entire way). Even its supreme ugliness could do little to raise our spirits, but apparently being £400 million over budget doesn't mean you'll construct a building that anyone is proud of! Took some shots of the Queen's residence (Hollyrood) but didn't feel like paying the exorbitant fee to actually go in.

Unable to figure out which type of tour of the city we would like to do (scary? scotland's history? Edinburgh's history? Undergound? Old school?), we decided to go on the literary pub tour that evening and to pick one for the next night later. The pub tour was AWESOME! We set ourselves apart as trouble makers early on, as we could not stop laughing, even when our guides were perhaps not purposefully being amusing. Although, it is our opinion that the other members of the group did not laugh nearly enough. Ms. Clart and Prof. McBrain were hilarious (especially McBrain's excessively effeminate mannerisms and his asking "Would you like a cream bun?"... we almost peed our pants!), and the fact that we decided to live it up and actually drink at the pubs as well, didn't hurt. We managed to stick to cider (strongbow and... some irish one, maybe Magners?). When we reached the end of the tour, there was a quiz about the facts that they had told us about during the tour. It's safe to say that we cleaned up, as we managed to remember quite a bit despite the pints of cider and the giggling fits. We knew the code names Burns and his "platonic friend" had used (Sylvander and Clarinda), the name of one of Edinburgh's female authors (Murial Sparks), the fictional character based on Deacon Brody (Gene Brody), and the ironic end that Deacon Brody met (being hanged on the gallows that he himself invented... I got to bring in my info from the Museum of Scotland and even named the device: the Maiden... our guides were a bit confused by that as they had not mentioned it. Keeners = Us!). When we got to the final pub, the barkeep, kept staring at my chest, which was a bit offputting, but then he finally asked if I went to the University of Toronto. Turns out his dad had gone to Trin and I was wearing my Trinity hoody. Whew! Still don't really know why he would recognise the crest, but oh well.

We made our way to a kebab shop recommended by Laura's book of lies (it had told us the city cafe served lamb burgers... they do not! Lies!). On our way, we passed a pub where drunken karoke was going on (someone was beautifully butchering "Common People"), and as we passed another bar, some guys yelled from the roof "Excuse me! Are you single!" at us as we passed and whistled quite a bit. Laura assures me they were trying to get my attention, but I think she looks less like a 12-year old boy than I do, so I think the flatteries were for her. No matter, we bypassed the kebab shop, and ended up getting pizza and a kebab elsewhere (at a place where we could understand the menu!). Dragging our sloshed selves home, we collapsed into bed, and slept very soundly. Word of warning: Saturday nights in Edinburgh are the times for hen parties, and those girls are, well... the text-book definition of "trollopy".

AFter a bit of sleeping in this morning, we got up and went to the Writer's Museum. Unfortunately it was closed, but we did get tickets for tonight's tour of Mary King's Close (Ms. Clart had recommended it to us last night). When we were getting our tickets, the man at the counter asked if we were both from Toronto, and then asked if we knew about Waterloo (where we think he is going to be visiting/staying). Little did he know Laura was an expert on the place. Sadly, we could not be enthusiastic about the city, since what more is there to say than it is a university town? We also got to hear our favourite street musicians so far, the "Brassed Off" band; a group of 5 fellows who each play a different brass instrument and play lovely classical tunes, so enjoyable! We then made our way to the post office, which was also closed, and did some more wistful window shopping in Zara and Nine West (I hope the prices are better at home!). As you may be noticing, we've pretty much exhausted all there is to do here in Edinburgh as tourists proper, so it's just as well we're heading off for Alnwick/Manchester tomorrow.

We ate a wonderful lunch at Ndeble (?), an African cafe. Alas, the book of lies proved false once more in terms of sandwiches offered, but we were still well-satisfied with what we got.

So, just the underground city tour tonight, and then it's off to England. It's not quite so blustery today, in fact, it is almost warm out! Still, it's hard to believe it's summer... which seeing as it's almost over - we've only a week before we're home! - is maybe just as well. It's hard to believe we've been gone for nearly 6 weeks now! Ah well, no time to be nostalgic; there's still plenty more to see! Namely: EWAN! We won't let him escape us as "Rom" did....

Planes, Trains, Ferries, the Hogwarts Express, and Vomit Buses

2005-07-27T21:59:00.000Z

Made it to Scotland without a hitch. The ferry coming over was quite cheap, and we got seats by the window this time. Steph amused herself by feeding a small bird that had flown onto the ferry, although members of the staff just saw what looked like a tiny child drinking from a juice box, clutching Harry Potter in one hand, and throwing bread onto the floor...

Once we got off the ferry, we took the train (a good 4 hour trip) to Glasgow Central Station (which is very impressive and pretty), where we then had to transfer to another train station. This little hike through the city will be all that we see of Glasgow, which looked nice enough. Shame that there's absolutely nothing to do there, especially when all the women sounded like Kelly MacDonald AND the boys had good hair. Looks like that Cute Boy Factory might be getting things back in order!

The train ride to Stirling was fairly uneventful although we did have to stand for a while and were not really able to put our packs down as a rude Canadian girl (not Steph) had seated herself onto the luggage storage block and refused to shift herself. Once in Stirling, we had to haul ourselves (nearly on hand and knee again) up a hill that rivalled the one we climbed in Salzburg to get to the Ice Caves. We were temporarily lead astray by the tourist sign (I guess they like to send people round the scenic route), but made it to the hostel unscathed but rosy-cheeked and gasping for breath.

We chatted with yet another Aussie in the hostel before setting out for dinner. We were sharing the dorm with a very frail elderly woman, whom I thought was dead later that night when I woke up and watched her "sleeping" (not in a creepy way!). We stumbled upon one of the best stores ever: Costcutter! Steph bought a massive bar of Cadbury's Fruit & Nut (Steph: Hey! I'm trying to fit back into those jeans!), as well as a bag of crisps enticingly flavoured "Prawn Cocktail" as well as a bag of crisp/crackers that were accurately named "Peking Spare Rib & 5 Spices". The Prawn Cocktail sadly turned out to be "ketchup"... I hope that's not what these Brits are dipping their shrimp in!

Stirling is a pretty dead town, and although we would have liked to check out the castle, we were dissuaded when we save the massive (and therefore extremely loud) group of school children (also staying at our hostel) heading off in that direction. After all, we wouldn't want them to mistake Steph for one of their own...

The next morning, we headed off for Doune, to visit "The Monty Python Castle". We had to first wait around in the bus station for a good hour before finally finding someone who could tell us which bus to get on. Furthermore, it would turn out to be very much an "Amazing Race" day as we were forced to keep our packs with us (looks like we're not going to be able to stow them at train stations any time in the near future) AND we were frequently getting off one mode of transportation in search of another with only minutes to spare. We are both still surprised that we managed to make every single train we had planned on... We were very much expecting that we would have to catch the 18:20 train from Glasgow which wouldn't get us into Fort William until well after 10 pm!

The woman at the gift shop at the castle was very nice as she let us leave our bags with her while we ran about madly clanking coconuts together pretending to be on horseback. It's a good thing we left the bags as we likely would have wedged ourselves in the narrow stairwells (something like Winnie the Pooh with the honey jar on his head!), and we darn well would not have made it down the scary winding staircases in one piece! Our galavanting was all caught on film, live, BUT whether any of you see that film is another story. Then again, all the evidence is on Steph's camera. Moihahaha!

We managed to catch an 11:15 bus back to Stirling, where we arrived just in time to dart over to the rail station and catch the 11:55 train into Glasgow. Once there, we then boarded a 12:40 pm train to Fort William. Finally we got to experience the glory of a train that leaves part of it behind! The train purportedly had the sketchiest bathroom ever (Steph can verify this claim... sadly), and as we neared the end of our journey, the two drunken Scotsmen across the aisle decided to engage Steph in conversation. At one point they asked her if she was a Canadian Indian (Steph: never had that one before!), and I tried to pass by as a pile of coats for as long as possible. When they asked what nationality I was, I pointed at myself all innocently and asked, "Me?" (Steph: I should have loudly proclaimed then and there, "She's no friend of mine!").

The hostel at Fort William was actually very nice, although it also required a horrible hike up a horrible hill. We chatted for a while with a guy from Prague (who was very happy to hear we liked the Czech Republic, and rightfully mocked and laughed at our butchering of their language; we still say the sounds they make don't correspond to the letters written nor do they have nearly enough vowels!). We then popped down to the common area to check out the library selection (Steph was hoping to increase her contraband Harry Potter books she's been thieving from hostels... Poor Arnie in Belfast no longer has a copy of Philosopher's Stone, the FUN edition). We had to leave, however, as there was a complete prat who was talking about how he didn't really like Harry Potter but that book 6 was "surprisingly good". He then dug his grave even deeper by saying that he liked HP because you just "turned your brain off" to read it, and that it was "very much like Dan Brown". AAAAAHHHHH! We wanted to snatch the book out of his hands, belt him over the head with it, and storm out, but we refrained.

Even the roaring fire in the common area wasn't enough to keep the chill away (this is summer, people!), so we headed upstairs where we had the handy "egg carton" foam bedding to help keep us warm.

This morning was the most magical day since July 15/16... for today we boarded the Hogwarts Express... Or the closest we will ever get. We took our ride on the Jacobite Steam Engines from Fort William to Mallaig. The scenery was beautiful, and going over the Glenfinnan viaduct was great (think of the Flying Car scene in COS!). Alas, there were no sweets to buy (from the trolley or the snack cart), so we had to make do with Muggle candy (Steph: Dad, I still have not forgiven you for forbidding me from buying the following items when we were last at Chapters: Ice Mice, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Licorice Wands, Chocolate Frogs, and Bertie Bott's Every-Flavoured Beans).

There was really nothing to do in Mallaig but to have lunch, and thankfully for Steph, we found a little place where we had "Fish Tea". This got us bread & butter, tea, AND peas with our fish & chips. The fish was better in Dublin, but the chips were fantastic here (we ended our personal potatoe famine last night at dinner when we had bangers and mash). We also got to witness a french woman mime "pee pee" in order to figure out where the toilets were.

We paid our cheque and made it back to the train with about 1 min to spare; we think that the French groups in the restaurant with us were not so lucky! Once we made it back to FW, we bought some books and then got our bags and headed to the bus station. We figured we would take the bus because it would get us to Inverness in only 2 hours, as opposed to having to ride the rails all night (remember Italy?). Alas, the rails may have been the wiser choice as the Citilink bus was more aptly dubbed "The Vomit Mobile". 4 hours later and we are still queasy! The Belgian (?) girl a few seats up from us actually had her head in a plastic bag for most of the journey. Seriously? The coaches here might be cheap, but you pay in so many other ways.

And on that note, we should probably go and lie down and try and regain our strength. Tomorrow we are off to search for Nessie and a bounty of tacky souvenir treasures. Surely we will be successful on at least one count!

The BelFAST update

2005-07-25T08:48:00.000Z

OK, so when we last left off, we were still in Dublin. No longer the case. We're in Belfast and getting ready to head off for Scotland in a couple of hours.

So, what has happened since we last wrote? Well, the fish and chips in Dublin far surpass those from Holyhead, so that debate can be put to bed. Of course, the massive helping there managed to put us into carb/potatoe/huge pieces of fish overload, and we are now sticking to a strict "curry-only" diet!

The big highlight of the day when we left Dublin was actually doing laundry. We've been doing most of it in the sink since Prague, so it was nice to do a proper load. It was a good way to use up some of our euros, since they are no longer good. Of course, I also put mine to good use on sweets as well...

Bought tickets to catch the train up from Dublin to Belfast as our passes don't work here. Thankfully the prices aren't too high (only about 33 euros for the ticket... try saying it with an Irish accent; it's fun!). When we reached Belfast, we walked to our hostel, and then went to get some food. We happened upon a great little kebab/Indian take-away shop, which we made our daily haunt. The prices were good and the food even better, so we didn't feel to bad about it. Like I said, it seems as though the Irish want to prove they have rebounded from the Potatoe Famine beautifully and give you about 5 with every meal!

It's quite cold here in Belfast (think October in Toronto), so we've been bundling up as best we can. Mom & Dad, I hope you don't mind if I use your credit card to splurge on some new jeans as the ones I brought are literally falling off of me and apart on me (I experimented last night to see if I could remove them without unbuttoning them... and yes, I can...). Our first night, we shared the hostel room (very tiny) with a very frightening man that we dubbed "Dracula O'Toole". He was a native of Belfast, and creepy as heck! He came in and said that "we should be getting to bed", then demanded that I remove my bag from the bunk, and then when I scurried out of the room to change, dropped his pants in full view of Laura. Scary! He also, spoke in a slow stilted manner, and said that Belfast was one of the most interesting cities we would visit and that there was nowhere else like it (imagine huge "...." between each word). When I said it seemed like a nice place to walk around, he made this "not really... I am going to kill you" face. We were very relieved to see him gone after the first night.

One good suggestion however was to take a black cab tour of the city's murals. We had been planning to do so anyway, but we definitely had a good time. Our cabbie, Walter, took us around Belfast and showed us all the political/historical/religious murals painted by the two communities (Catholic and Protestant, for those of you not in the know). He was great, and after one mean-spirited camera gag (he pretended to drop mine), we got to hear all the gruesome stories as well as take tons of pictures. Afterwards, he really just reinforced for us that Belfast, although interesting, is still pretty scary. When we visited the "Peace Wall" which divides the two neighbourhoods, you could see all these burnmarks and dents in it from explosives in recent years. It was so strange! Just more proof that religion causes nothing but trouble (with a capital T)! I think it was definitely wise that we took the tour with Walter (and some other tourists) because then you don't feel so exposed when you're taking pictures and asking questions.

Once that was done, we ventured on a Bailey's pub tour, where we visited 6 of Belfast's historical pubs. Our tour guide, was an older woman named Robyn, who rocked! She told us that if she slowed down in front of shoe store windows we should just give her a prod. As if! Anyway, we ended up chatting with this adorable Irish couple (it was the woman's birthday) about our trip, and it was just a very positive experience. Plus, we got a complementary glass of Bailey's, which is a far better reward than a pint of Guinness! So sweet, like candy! Mmmmm.... We should have tried to pilfer more. Our favourite pub was this one that was all literary themed (what a surprise!)... although we were a bit aghast to realize that from afar, Oscar Wilde looks a bit too much like Severus Snape (sob!).

We went back to our favourite little takeaway shop, where we chatted with the staff and were gifted with a free bottle of Coke. Save for Dracula, everyone has been very friendly here, and the people really seem to be making Belfast a far better place than it would be otherwise!

Yesterday, we made a day trip of visiting The Giant's Causeway. It probably shouldn't have taken us all day to get there, see it, and get back, but it was a Sunday which meant that the rail and bus service was hugely diminished. On the train ride over, we had to share a compartment with the most frightful family. One of the daughters was about three times a child her age's normal size and wearing pants that sat so low they could not conceal the crack of her bottom (whether standing or squating). The youngest daughter's eyes rolled about madly in her head and she repeated the same sound over and over again, much to her father's annoyance (which he showed by smacking her and strapping her into a stroller). We think there were definite mental problems at work there, as the mother was the only one who seemed to speak English, and did so in a very slow and stilted manner as though it was difficult for her. We have no idea what the other 3 were speaking, but they certainly rank as the most terrifying people we have encountered along the way. I suppose that is the nasty side of the "class system" at work. In more pleasant news, we got to ride along the Northern coast on the top of a double decker bus (open top), the wind whipping at our hair. It was very much like the scene in the first Bridget Jones movie where she and Daniel are on minibreak and she winds up with the huge frightful hair... But so beautiful! The coast is gorgeous, and we both agree that if we were to return to Ireland, it would be to see more of the countryside since it is clearly Ireland's real draw.

We can't say enough good things about the Giant's Causeway. Although they looked a bit freaky on the web, they were really cool up close. Laura could hardly stop taking pictures, and we both amused ourselves with the little tide pools and lounging about on the warm rocks in our best impressions of lizards. After spending a good deal of our time in cities (although they are quite varied in the UK), it was nice to spend some time in the countryside and be right next to the water. We don't quite understand the people who were swimming in it, but maybe this is warm for them! We were actually lucky to have such nice sunny weather, as it can get very windy and it would have been far less enjoyable if we had been swept out to sea or crushed by falling rocks. As we climbed the steep incline back to our bus, we kept repeating our mantra: Climber's Legs!

It's off to Scotland today; we're catching the ferry from the port here in Belfast to Stranraer, and then catching the train to Stirling. Tomorrow we'll visit the Monty Python Castle, and then make our way to Fort Williams where soon enough we'll be on the Hogwart's Express! Eeeee! Now, if only we could get our hands on some Ice Mice and Bertie Bott's... Honestly, Marks and Spencers... why have you let us down?

The U.K. mega-update

2005-07-21T17:48:00.000Z

First, I should just point out that the breakdown involving reading the end of Harry Potter occurred in Winchester, not Bath, as I wrote in the last entry... And it is in fact Winchester in which we last left you and where we shall now begin updating you about our adventures in the UK (read: All those places that aren't London).

Also, yes, we have heard about the discovery of new bombs in London, and as we are in Dublin, we are once again, safe from potential harm. No need to worry... we won't be back to London for another 2 weeks or so. Plenty of time for them to track down the bastards doing this.

Righty-o... We left London early to get to Winchester. We managed to haul our bags to Tottenham Court Road station so that we were able to take the Tube directly to Waterloo station. We finally got to experience one of the trains where the front half winds up somewhere different from the back half... or we would have if we had gone one station more. Turns out that in order for us to get to many of our destinations here, we have to do a lot of train switching (although Winchester was a direct route... but nothing else has been!). Once we got to the station, we found out that there were no lockers to stow our bags and so we would have to take our 'rucksacks' with us on our Jane pilgrimmage (the Jane in question is, of course, Jane Austen... 'is she some English author?' we were asked by an Aussie girl in Bath...). Thankfully Winchester is a pretty tiny city, although distances ALWAYS feel much longer when you're hauling nearly 20 kg on your back! We made our way to the Cathedral where Jane is buried, but it was closed for mass... we sat around on the front lawn, eating crips and I was personally attacked by a large caterpillar whilst reading HP6 (during a very frightening chapter, too, I might add!). It was so big, and green, and squooshy!

When we finally got into the Cathedral (which was very impressive) we were a bit surprised to find that they claim to require £4500 per day to keep in operation. We both agreed that the air conditioning and automatic doors could probably go... Even seeing Jane's final resting place was not enought to loosen our purse strings because, in case we haven't mentioned it yet, it is EXTREMELY expensive here. And, no one was at the donation desk. Note: The man beside us is currently sucking at his teeth as though there is a particularly succulent morsel of something (gristle?) between them... Ah, internet cafes where it is only 1 euro per hour...

We walked by Jane's grave a few times (that'll teach us to rely on maps!) before we finally found her. Many pictures were taken, and if it weren't for fear that I would never have been able to get up again, I might have very well thrown myself across it, crying (show those girls from Morrison's grave how it's REALLY done). Alas, I would have looked more like an unfortunate turtle, so I refrained. Also, Laura would see my histrionics in full-effect soon enough!

We popped into Presto's for some pasties (We just went with the traditional of meat and veg) and then got to the tourist centre. As soon as we said we wanted to go to Chawton, the woman handed us a pamphlet on getting to Jane Austen's house, and we set off for the bus station. The bus to Chawton only comes once every 2 hours on Sunday, but we whiled away the time by reading Potter (we had JUST missed the most recent bus). By the time it came, we had both finished the book and, were dry-eyed but emotionally drained (I had spent a good while rifling through my bag for Kleenex). The bus driver told us he'd let us know where we should get out, but we kept an eye open anyway. We whirled through the English countryside, and finally alighted... at a roundabout in the middle of a field. If navigating those things is hard in a car, try it on foot some time... As we walked down a country lane (passing a dead fox and a massive pile of feathers... ah, death lanes), we found ourselves in front of the cottage Jane was most creative in and spent the last few years of her life (as we now know, she did not like Bath at all). We went through the little museum (thankfully we were able to leave our rucksacks by the door... although that might have been more for the museum's benefit than ours!) and spent some time in the garden before we had to make our way back to the bus stop... which was (I kid you not), a wooden shack on the edge of a forest. It looked like an outhouse!

Once we made it back to the bus station in Winchester, we then had to trek all the way back to the railstation on the other side of town, and then were on our way to Bath. Thank goodness we had to transfer at Reading, as there was a 'fatality' at Banbury (they kept loudly proclaiming this on the loudspeaker to explain why one of the trains had been cancelled entirely). Once we got to Bath, we caught a bus and made our way up the very winding hill (Bathwick Hill to be exact) and checked in at the YHA. Although we were in a very large dorm, there were only 4 of us in there altogether. One was a native Briton, and the other, the infamous ignorant Aussie girl mentioned earlier. Both were very nice, and we chatted for a bit before heading off to 'Bedfordshire' (see Fil, we can be nice... it just doesn't suit us!).

The next day, we found that climbing down hills can be far more enjoyable than climbing up them. We followed the map given by the hostel and found ourselves making our way through a huge field with only a very crude path as our guide. Seems like the sort of thing Lizzie Bennett would approve of, although neither of us had on skirts that we could muddy. Shame, that. We made our way to the Jane Austen centre (we are getting very good at navigating using an ingenious combination of tourist signs, and the maps provided to us on pamphlets to assist us in reaching tourist destinations). The woman at the centre was very excited and/or flustered, and seemed deeply in love with Jane and her family (which is as it should be). We learned that Jane detested Bath because it was so superficial and they were so confined there (kind of like York University!). We disliked Bath because we were beseiged by a foreign school group that clearly had no interest in Jane but traipsed through her centre very loudly so as to disrupt the largest number of enthusiasts as possible. We wanted to pick up copies of the P&P soundtrack they had playing in the gift shop, but alas, there was only a store copy, and the S&S soundtrack just wasn't doing it. No transparent, wet shirts in that one! Mmmmm.... Colin Firth in a wet shirt... But we get ahead of ourselves...

We then decided to pop into the supermarket and pick up some Battenburg cake (could there be anything more British than sponge cake wrapped in almond paste? or anything mroe delicious?). We then popped into the local market (boasting 'traditional shopping'... whatever the heck that is) for some cheap samosas and pasties. Not as good as the ones in Winchester, but cheaper, so: yay!

We returned to the street to realize that we had made our first mistake in England: neither of us carried rain jackets or umbrellas! How could we forget the cardinal weather rule in England? Stupid! At least it wasn't raining very hard, although we were happy to make it to the Museum of Costume nonetheless! There we learned the secrets of the corset (the 18-inch waist is a myth! They never got below 21!), saw some very ridiculous fashions, and best of all, saw the exhibit proudly displaying the costumes used in many Jane Austen tv/film productions! There in the flesh (ok, not really) were the costumes worn by Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Ehle.... oh yeah, AND COLIN FIRTH!!!! The audio guide tale about the infamous wet shirt was very amusing... as much as we love it, we'd just like to let you know that it was that or NAKED! Yes, he could have been wearing nothing at all, but they had to keep American tv in mind. Argh! Oh, and for this wondering, the Dress of 2003 was the J-Lo hardly-a-dress-at-all dress.

After that very bracing exhibit, we went for 'linner' as it was 5 pm. We had foudn a pub where all meals served between 2-6 pm were 25% off, and we're more than happy to alter our eating patterns to suit a deal! We sat down to a fabulously large English Breakfast consisting of: 2 eggs, 2 sausages (the big ones you put on buns), 2 rations of bacon (back bacon), chips, beans, mushrooms, and tomato! Yowza! So filling... really, it's a good thing we can only afford 1 meal a day because we wouldn't be able to eat like that 3 times daily!

Then we rolled ourselves to the Roman Baths and made our way through there. I amused Laura by quoting Gilmore Girls while we stood in front of one of the mannequin exhibits, and we had a good time relearning about Aqua Sulis. I was disappointed to be unable to find out how to taste the Spa water without paying (dunking your head in the bath itself is not an option, dad...), so we decided to instead make our way back to the hostel. Finding it quite nippy, I slept in my hoody, and Laura herself had to get up and get her sweatshirt. She of course did this while sleeping, and so first was muttering about not being able to find her ticket. When I asked her what the heck she was going on about, she snapped that she didn't need a ticket, she needed a sweater! Whatever, Laura! Even when she's sleep-talking she's snarky! I love it!

Next morning, we made our way to the bus stop (they don't start running until just before 8 o'clock and we had a train to catch at 8:01) so that we could get to Stratford-Upon-Avon. Once more we made our way to Reading where we then transferred to Banbury (no fatalities that day... although a bit of our hearts died when we saw the scrumptious ads for Cadbury Creme Egg McFlurries that we have been unable to procure at any McDonaldses hence... oh the sorrow when we are in the land of Cadbury!). A train tunnel had collapsed somewhere, so we then had to get on a bus which drove us the rest of the way to Stratford.

Once in Stratford, we walked a bit into the center of town and caught a bus (along with all the retired people) to our hostel. We were aided by an old woman who was very determined that we should make it there on the best bus (she was so cute!). Of course, our hostel was not in Stratford proper, but rather in Warwickshire county, just outside of Stratford. We realized that our train the next day was leaving at 7:45 am, but that the bus at the hostel did not leave until 7:35... a little too close for comfort, so we resolved that we might have to walk to the trainstation from our hostel. We did enquire about taxis, but the man working at the desk (who actually seemed a bit misinformed about everything come to think of it) told us that the taxis 'might not run that early'. OK....

We figured that we should try the walk without heavy packs on, as that would probably not be the best time to see if we could do it or not... or how long it takes. After 35 minutes of walking, Laura proclaimed that she could not do the walk (although I think she could, if she were forced to and had no alternative but to stay in Stratford for the rest of her life), so we hoped that we would be able to get a taxi. If we missed our 7:45 train, the next one would not get us to Holyhead, Wales in time to catch any ferry save for the one getting us into Dublin at 10:30 pm. No good at all!

We checked out Shakespeare's Birthplace, and were once again beset upon by the Spanish tour group that could not care less about the Bard. Also, Laura had the misfortune of overhearing an American woman ponder why Willy didn't leave anything to his "daughter [sic] Hamnet... you know, Judith's twin". Unfortunately, she didn't realize that Hamnet had died at a very young age and that Hamnet, much like HamLet, was a boy. Ah well... if Paris Hilton won't read, why should anyone else in America?

Then we went to the Church where Shakespeare is buried (the old woman asked our nationality before exclaiming: "Ah! You're Canadian!?! Well then you'll be wanting the English brochure!"). William and his family have the whole back of the church to themselves, and it's a very impressive memorial what with the cursing of anyone who moves his bones. No possibility of me prostrating myself on the Bard's grave, as they have it neatly roped off. Yet another emotional outburst subverted. Drat!

We then had ourselves another "linner" of sorts as we found a place where you could get 2 meals for £7.50. How can you pass up that bargain? You can't (unless you are the american girls who paid at least £2.50 for a glass of pepsi...)! of course, we didn't really want any of the options that fell under the special, and so we found ourselves ordering yet another breakfast-dinner since it seemed the best option. Once again, very hardy and enjoyable. Although, really, how can anyone pack away that much for breakfast?

After a fruitless quest for the Cadbury McFlurry (and reading an outrageous claim that Harry Potter makes fools of adults who should be reading "better" stuff...), we made our way to the theatre where we sat down for a most enjoyable performance of "A Comedy of Errors". So good! I maintain that the Royal Shakespeare Company can't be beat when it comes to putting on Shakespeare productions. They never fail to amuse, even if it is one of the Bard's "lesser comedies". Also, the whole thing had a very "Tim Burton-esque" feel to it, and was just a great way to spend £5 and a couple of hours. Highly recommended.

Since the bus that would get us to the hostel would not come by for another hour and a half, we decided to hoof it home again. This time in pitch black. Perhaps all that talk about Death Eaters and Inferi, etc., was not the best idea. Although it all seemed perfectly harmless when there were street lights! All too soon we were stumbling through thick grass and trying not to fall into pot holes or get hit by cars. Neither of us admitted it until later, but it was a terrifying walk home. 2.25 km each way it was (argh! pirate speak!), so we certainly got our exercise!

We had to get up the next morning at 5 am (careful not to wake up our roommates who had shown up just before midnight... perhaps they were French Cinderellas... (Cinderellae (?)) because we had to call the cab company at 6 to see if they had any free cars, and if not... we had to start walking. Thankfully, we were able to procure a cab for quarter past 7, and ate our bag-breakfast in the dining room. Our cabbie was quite friendly, and we saved our backs an awful lot of pain. Best £8 ever spent!

From Stratford, we took the train to Birmingham (alas, not enough time to stop off at Cadbury Land... Britain's happiest place on earth as they've not got Disney), walked to a different station (only 5 minutes), and from there we went to Crewe before getting on the train to Holyhead. From Birmingham onward, we were accompanied by an Irish family with the most rotten children. At first Laura was taken in by Tom (or "Tam" as his "Mam" called him) because he had bed-head and wore a mining helmet, but soon his screeches drove us all wild. Also, there were 2 very drunk men on the train from Birmingham to Crewe who kept speaking loudly about hoping no one was a terrorist. Keep in mind they were sloshed before 9 in the morning. You've gotta love the English! Then, on the train from Crewe to Holyhead, we managed to alienate a fellow adult passenger because we think he thought our smiles and giggles were mocking him for reading Harry Potter, when in fact we were only debating as to whether we should strike up a conversation. Seeing others read the book makes us feel a sort of kinship with them (although we felt nothing for the guy from Mississippi in our London hostel who had claimed to come all the way there for the book, and yet did not go to the midnight opening because he "had the flu" (a revelation to which, Laura deadpanned "yeah, I can tell" and then also told him it was a "pretty crappy excuse"). Also, the most terrifying nag woman sat across the aisle from us. She just complained about EVERYTHING, and kept telling her husband(?) to speak up, and then would berate everything he said and swear at him. It was very: un!comfortable!

Wales was great from the train as we got to pass through a castle, see the sea, AND stop momentarily at what must be the town with the world's longest name (and probably the fewest vowels, too!): Llanfairpwllgwynwyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantyiliogogogoch. I took pictures! Once we reached Holyhead, we dashed to get away from Terrifying Woman, and booked ourselves ferry tickets. We then made our way to a fish & chip shop, as Holyhead claims to have the best fish & chips. I will say this, they probably provide the LARGEST fish and chip. The piece of cod they put down in front of each of us must have been at least the length of your keyboard (though not that wide). The vinegar strangely had no flavour, and the fish was kind of bland too (good chips, though). We'll have to see if Dublin can beat 'em!

Then it was on the ferry (after dubbing a tiny, obviously Irish child: Seamus O'Toole... so adorable with his freckles to outfreckle Laura and his gap tooth smile), where I promptly passed out face-down on the nearest table. Every one seemed to be loving their curries, which they all seemed to have been waiting for the ferry ride for. Laura foolishly stayed awake to watch the horrible Irish children misbehave horribly. And if that makes it sound like all Irish children are horrible... well, Seamus was cool. And I felt a little more love for "Tam" when he began making up a song about the escalator.

After making it through customs, we got on a bus to the city center. We got off prematurely though because it was going so fricken' slow and we thought we could walk it much faster. Well, we did walk it, although it would have been less painful to sit on the bus and let it do the work. Our poor backs will be permanently curved into question mark type shapes (as they ask us: Why? Why did you do this to us?)upon our return home.

The hostel here is ok-ish. We are sharing a room with a terrifying man who looks like he spends ever waking moment pumping iron, and who sleeps in his skimpy boxers (he wears short shorts!) on top of the covers and snores something fierce. Also, there was one girl who wore more to bed than she does out and about... Honestly. Also, the man working the front desk is creepy.

After taking some time to recover, we made our way to the Guinness Storehouse. We were one of the last people to be allowed in, and got this cool keepsake (it's like a paperweight that has a drop of Guinness in it). We also got to drink a pint of the stuff up in the Gravity bar (after seeing vintage ads, and learning how they make it in the first place). It tasted better than I remember it, and perhaps better than Laura does too, but it still tastes like... a glass of vinegar that people have boiled gym socks in and dumped an ashtray into? How can roasted barley smell so good yet it taste so bad? We blame the damn hops! It smells evil right from get-go. Best part was definitely the view... AND the shamrock the bar wench (heh!) artfully managed to engrave into the foamy head. Pictures!

Feeling a little foggyheaded, we made our way home, ate the left-over Battenburg cake and some Sweet Chili& Corriander crisps from Marks & Spencer we had been saving, and then promptly fell asleep.

Today we made our way to Kilmainham Gaol, and had a tour of Europe's largest unused prison. The place was supremely creepy, but we learned a lot. Our guide, Paul, told us that to study the history of the US, you look at its presidents; to study the history of France, you look at its Revolutions; and to look at the history of Ireland, you look at its prisons. We learned all about the rebellions and revolutions that took place and all the men and women who were killed to create the Republic as it is today. Now, if only we could figure out why the French don't refrigerate their eggs or their milk... One of the great mysteries of the world...

We had a bit of trouble finding the bus station to get us back to town, but we made it, and then checked out Trinity College Dublin. I snagged myself a t-shirt (I apparently have the proportions of a 9-11 year old... whatever!), and took photos in the Trin Quad... Now if I can only get me a shirt from Trinity College, Oxford, I'll almost have a complete set!

We checked out the Dublin Writer's Museum, the Garden of Rememberance, and set off several theft alarms in the music stores we went into (we don't have anything on us that should be activating them... and yet...). We made a pricey call to Belfast to confirm our reservations at the hostel for tomorrow night, and now we're off to get fish & chips at the place that people apparently visit EVERY night.

Sorry for the Looooong post. Had a lot to update you about. Tomorrow it's off to Belfast, where we are back to the scary sterling pound. Sigh... who thought the Euro would ever look so kind?

Sleep(not)Well in Brussels... HP 6 more traumatizing than ever!

2005-07-19T12:13:00.000Z

First off: Catherine and Taryn - DO NOT STAY AT SLEEPWELL IN BRUSSELS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. The YHA hostel is probably all booked up, since it was booked when we tried to get it 4 months ago, but seriously, if for some reason you feel like staying for extra time in Brussels (which really, what's the point? There is nothing to do there... at all. Seriously), splurge and get a hotel. Why, you might ask, should we get a hotel and not stay at Sleepwell? BECAUSE THERE ARE BED BUGS!!!! Thankfully neither of us were savaged too badly (although I did get a nasty bite on my big toe that swelled up for two days), but the sheer terror of finding bugs crawling around your bed is enough to haunt you forever. Laura smashed one with her fist after seeing it scurrying up the wall at 5:30 am, and the blood... oh the blood. The suckers are hard to kill... unless they are filled with you! Ew! Then they explode very easily... Seriously... the terror. It is still fresh in our minds.

Also, we were being all mean in our last post and were not letting you in on the truth: Brussels sucks. There is nothing there. Go anywhere else. Even Vienna. We would move to NAPLES before ever returning there. The Manneken Pis was... well, I don't know who is reading this blog anymore and don't want to offend anyone, so let's just say it wore no costumes and was way too tiny. And the Grande Place is fug. Super fug. Clinton and Stacey need to go and give it a makeover or something. Honestly... save your hard earned euros and just go somewhere else. We are very sorry that this SPECT thingy is in Brussels... because it is so bad.

OK, moving on... we have never been so happy to leave a place, but most especially because after being chased from the hostel by the vampiric bed bugs, we knew we were going to London. The Eurostar ride was quick and painless, just as we expected. Once we got to Waterloo Station, we managed to get tickets for the Tube, and began our journey up the Northern line (BTW Dad, some of the British pounds you gave me were no good... out dated or something... but I changed them over at a bank for crisp new 20s, so no worries). We wanted to transfer at Leicester square onto the Picadilly line, but alas, this was in the heart of where one of the bombs went off. After verifying with a man that we were not at Russell square (where we wanted to go) but were in fact at Leicester Square (which incidentally, we knew but he didn't seem to understand us at first), we were told we would have to take the bus. Of course, no one in the station could actually help us, either in terms of where to catch the bus, which bus to catch, or how much it cost to take said form of transportation. We hauled ourselves out onto the street and decided we would try to catch a cab. They were all full. So we did what we do in every city we visit, and we walked... from Leicester Square to the British Museum (when we told a girl in Bath about this, she was shocked). We of course did not have a map, and so we just used tourist signs to navigate our way there.

After checking in, we then found our way to Oxford Street where we found the Waterstones. We couldn't figure out why no one was there for Harry Potter, so we finally asked someone where we should queue up and she told us that it wasn't this branch, but the other Oxford Street location that was doing the big party. So we ran. Through the streets of London. And finally, we made it to the other location, where quite a long line had formed.

We waited in line for 6 hours for the book, and while we might not have been the first ones to get our grubby little hands on it, we were numbers 290 and 291, which wasn't too shabby when you think that there were over 2000 people there. We had to endure a scary dirty family next to us (anyone who has read the book: they seemed like Morfin et al.) and an annoying, whiny Canadian dude from Manitoba who was behind us. If we thought we were upset about our place in line, he was a hundred times more. And a billion times more annoying.

Whatever. We got the book, and the stamp saying we had received it on opening night. We were indeed, Very Important Potter fans. Neither of us could read it because we were in such a state of shock, so we wandered home (getting lost along the way and having to approach a bobby for help... who also took a while to locate himself on the map and offered to buy our books for £1... we offered to stay lost) and went to bed.

Next day, we got up and went to Hyde Park (after stopping in at Marks and Spencers for some snacks). We spent the day in the Serringetti grass (so scorched!) reading the book and listening to some band warm up. We thought the stage was perhaps left over from live 8, but we had in fact been smack dab in the middle of an REM concert. Awesome.

Not enough time to tell you about our adventures in Bath. Just know that I had a moment as I finished the book in the bus station. Such tears! We both think it might be our favourite book yet. If you haven't bought a copy, do so.

Update later.

The Mussels in Brussels

2005-07-14T11:49:00.000Z

For anyone reading this post, we have written about 4 other ones since Naples, so make sure you scroll dozn and read about our adventures in Paris!

OK, yesterday was pretty much just a travel day. We checked out of our hotel, and thank goodness we spent four nights there, because that was ALMOST enough time for our backs to heal! We made our way to the train station, and seeing as our train didn't leave for another few hours, settled down to do some writing. Well, that is after we managed to find a way into the train station (after leaving it temporarily to pick up some post cards). In our 5 minute absence, the place went into this strange lockdown, in which you couldn't get in through the main entrance and yet could get in by going through the cafés at the station. Also, there were no announcements going on in the station, and they were not evacuating it, so we have no idea what was going on? Was it a drill or just strange French paranoia (we did see them demand the passports of a few "suspect" looking people (that is to say, not suspicious looking at all... just not caucasian) and frisk them as well.

We settled ourselves on the floor, since apparently benches are hazards in train stations. We made a pseudo fort out of our bags, since we were not going to pay upwards of 4 euro to check them in a locker while we waited. Before jumping on our train, we finally got ourselves a crêpe! Totally worth the wait, and Laura found a place that didn't charge us an arm and a leg! Yay Laura!

The train ride to Brussels was quite quick since we were on the highspeed Thalys train. The tiny child in front of us fancied herself an acrobat and whiled away the hour by running up and down the aisle and bouncing in her seat.

Once we got to Brussels, I was relieved to find that they speak French here instead of Dutch. Of course, the signs are in both languages, which is annoying, but at least we understand one of them! We easily navigated the metro here (and were also assisted by a friendly subway worker), and only hit a temporary glitch when we got off the subway and our directions and map got a little sketchy. We still haven't bought a proper map of the city, but have not found that we need one.

After dropping our bags off at the hostel (which smells funny but is probably not the worst place we have stayed so far) and headed off into the city. Thankfully Brussels really is tiny, so we soon found ourselves in the central area. But NOT before we found an English bookstore with a huge Harry Potter display in the window AND the new books in boxes by the door! Never has a life of crime been so tempting... They were just sitting there! In their embargoed boxes! Must... resist... desire... to... steal...

The tourist signs are horrible here, but even with that handicap, we found our way to Mannekin-Pis, the statue of the little peeing boy. Alas, he was not wearing a costume as they have been loaned to... another peeing statue? We don't know, and are thoroughly disappointed. However, we drowned our sorrows in a fricken huge bowl of mussels (but not before other restaurants tried to woo us with free drinks... and mistake me for a Spanish speaker... again!) and fries. It was soooo good, and we are definitely going back to night. After all, Brussels is a perfect city for eating! We could easily spend 4 days here doing nothing but that! It's great!

We then and sat around in the Grande Place, which really has to be seen to be believed. I don't think we have seen anywhere quite like it in any other city we have visited. You won't believe your eyes... we are never going to forget it! We spent a long time sitting on the curb, and then the cobblestone after a strange man tried to talk to me, waiting for the sound and light show that was supposed to begin... It never did, but we had a good time listening to Pomme and laughing away. We successfully navigated the streets in the dark without a map, outmanouevred a man selling bread that he was eating (we called him The Breadler), and Laura power walked her way away from an overly friendly Belgian.

Today we have been to the CéBéBéDé, which is probably the only museum worth seeing here. Neither of us are huge comics fans, but it was still interesting to see. We have no idea what the rest of the day holds for us EXCEPT it will definitely involve eating more mussels. Tomorrow: HARRY POTTER DAY!!! EEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Paris: Day 3

2005-07-14T11:24:00.000Z

Our last full day in Paris was our "Amélie Day"... or at least the morning was! We took the metro to Anvers, where we then walked up the steps to the Sacré Coeur Cathedral. On the way, we had to fend off numerous vendors, that we dubbed 'string sellers'. They ask you to put out your hand and hold up threads, saying they want to give you a good luck charm. We don't know about you, but we don't give our hands to strange men. Again I was mistaken for Mexican! Curse my non-translucent skin and vaguely "ethnic" looks! The view from the top was quite nice (although it was rather foggy) and the cathedral was, as it always has been, very impressive. We steered clear of the catacombes, however, having learned our lesson in Vienna!

Now nicely ensconced in Montmartre, we made our way through the winding streets looking at the vintage French ads. I was determined to find ads for Absinth to complement the spoon I had picked up in Prague, but while we could find prints for chocolate and perrier, the absinth ones were strangely absent. Was it because all the tourists had bought them, or are they banned? No bother, we eventually hit the jackpot, and found a place where they had not 1 ad, but 4 different ones! Magnifique! I snatched those up, and we also go some ads for the Moulin Rouge (hee! Paris qui danse!), the Paris Casino, and a potentially dirty French paper called "Frou Frou" with a vaguely sinister smoking woman in a can-can skirt on it (it was very chic). We then made our way down the mountain (sacre bleu! cobblestone again!) and found the real life Moulin Rouge to snap some photos. Being that it was broad daylight, there was no topless can-can for us.

We then hitched a ride on the metro to the Place de la Concorde, where we had hoped to stroll along the Champs Elysées. Unfortunately, as Bastille Day is upcoming, much of the city is blocked off and so we had to wander for quite some time through the gardens instead. We did eventually make our way to the main strip, and even browsed in some of the stores... we are of course talking about Zara's and The Gap (calm yourself, Taryn), as the haute coutour shops are now surrounded by these far more commercial establishments. They even have this nasty French burger chain called Quick Burger there, and 2 McDonalds! You know that if the stores are letting us in, they can't be that upscale!

After a few pictures in front of the Arc de Triomphe, we began to look for a grocery store. Although that quest was not successful, we did manage to get ourselves to the Eiffel Tower where the line to go up was crazy long. No bother to us since we wanted to go up at sunset as my Book of Lies recommended that as a "moment". We asked the info booth where the nearest grocery store was, and made our way there to pick up the fixings for a pic-nic (as they like to call it here in Europe). We got a real baguette, some cheese again, tomatoes, baby radishes, and instead of paté, something called "rillette" which I knew was made of pork and vaguely recalled eating it the last time I was in France... funny how I remembered that little red container 7 years later! Thankfully my memory was accurate, because the rillette was incredibly yummy and certainly not anything you could ever get in Canada (we don't think you can buy something with that high a fat content in North America... take that United States and your pork rinds!).

We ignored the Book of Lies and made our own moment by pic-nicking right in front of the Eiffel Tower in the Champs de Mars. It was our best meal yet, and the most incredible experience. We decided not to go up the tower since what is the Paris skyline if you can't see the Eiffel Tower? Instead, we lounged about on the grass and took 'arty' photos of us in front of the tower and enjoyed these 2 troubadors who played such hits as Wonderwall and George Micheal's "Faith". It was great!

Laura picked herself up her coveted eiffel tower in a snow globe, and we made our way back to the hotel. It was so nice out that we walked for quite a while talking about 80s movies and tv shows (we seem to have had identical childhoods), before we realized we had a metro ticket burning its way out of our pockets and we didn't really want to walk all the way home. Deciding to make the most of our private bathroom, we did a whole lot of washing in the sink, hung it up to dry, and got ready to depart Paris the next day.

Paris: Day 2

2005-07-14T11:02:00.000Z

We promised to be kinder to our feet today, and promptly broke this promise by walking over and through the Cemetary of Père Lachaise. True it was close to our hotel, but if we ever thought cobblestone was quaint, we now feel otherwise. It is absolute death on your feet and legs, and makes walking an extreme sport rather than a scenic jaunt. Stupid cobblestone. We got ourselves a map and began to make our way through the cemetary, finding the more famous graves. We soon learned that although the map was handy for getting you to the general area where the grave was, the sure bet to actually finding the precise location was to look for the other tourists AND look for the well-kept grave sites. We saw the graves of Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Sarah Bernhardt, Molière, Balzac, and quite a few others, but the obvious highlight was Jim Morrison's grave. The grave itself is not all that impressive but the freaks who go to worship and mourn there are! There were 2 girls there who could not have been any older than 15, who were sobbing with grief while listening to The Doors on their ipods. The hell? Jim Morrison has always been dead for as long as they have been alive! And yes, we did take pictures!

Realizing that our breakneck pace might actually break our necks what with all the cobblestone, we took advantage of the European Sale month and did some shopping. Hey! Shopping in Paris is like, a cultural escapade on par with visiting a museum! It was like an interactive museum where you can also do some souvenir shopping at the same time! Yes... that's it! Anyway, because the fashion craze seems to be ugly shoes and weird peasant-wear (why do Europeans want to look like Laura Ingalls Wilder?), we didn't really spend any money... well, I bought one top that was on sale for 7 euro... from Zara's. I know! But the chic little boutiques near Lenny Kravitz's fallafel place were way too expensive! Even with 50% off, the items were rarely less than 40 euro. Too rich for our blood, so Zara's it was.

Speaking of Lenny Kravitz's favourite fallafel joint, they do indeed have good fallafel there. We got the "special fallafel" to go, and enjoyed it in a nearby park. Then we headed off to the Centre Pompidou, where we decided after perusing the gift shop (Laura was sorely tempted by some magnetic salt and pepper shakers shaped like little pod men), we decided that we didn't feel like doling out 10 euro or something to actually go into the museum. Besides, the outside is supposed to be the best part. As we left the museum, I was hassled by a street artist, who initially thought I was Mexican. When I told him I was from Canada and that I spoke French, he then assumed I was Québecoise. The nerve! Any hopes he had of drawing me were dashed with that insult, and so I told him I wasn't from Québec, and more importantly, I was not interested.

We popped into a supermarket and picked up some prickle water, and strolled down to Pont Neuf and took many photos of the Eiffel Tower in various stages of illumination. We got ourselves tickets for the Vedettes of Pont Neuf boat cruise (ha! to all the suckers who did not get the 2 euro discount coupon off the web in advance... take that, all you people who mocked our research!)and got ourselves prime seats for our little tour along the Seine. We were a bit disturbed when the two people in front of us began kissing in earnest as we thought they were siblings, but the boat ride itself was really fantastic. We got some great shots of the Eiffel Tower all lit up, and I was finally avenged for those many years ago when Jacques told me that I would never be able to say the word 'gargoyle' in French like an actual French person would. I was avenged because if I can't say it properly in French, our guide could not say it (or many other words) properly in English. Still, Sylvain was awesome, and yes, we have pictures of him too!

Treating ourselves, we bought 10 metro tickets, and used 2 of them to get home. We planned to use 6 the next day to get us around the city, and then 2 on the our last morning in Paris to get us to Gare du Nord to catch our train. All in all, a great day, for both us and our feet!

Paris: Day 1

2005-07-14T10:37:00.000Z

We awoke to a traditional French breakfast: bread, croissant, and your choice of chocolat (for me), coffee (for Laura) or tea (for the British). After a quick meal, we began what would be a long day of walking and set out for the Picasso museum. Although we had talked in Toronto about how Paris was huge and that we should perhaps use the public transportation system when there, we decided that the museum was close enough to the hotel that we could easily walk it. And at first, it was easy! The streets were not paved with garbage, and it was not 5 billion degrees out. It was actually quite chilly!

When we got to the museum, we were pleased to find that the admission was reduced because it was Sunday, but we totally would have paid much more for this museum! It was so cool! Forget the Lovre, Picasso is where it is at! Every room was filled with really interesting paintings that filled us with glee. Little amoebas (ok, they were supposed to be the female form), children skipping rope, 2 amoebas dancing... it was 2 hours extremely well spent. I would say that it was the best museum I have ever been to; who knew art could be so much fun? I am also glad that I took pictures while in the museum, because when we got to the gift shop, they did not feature any of the paintings we had most enjoyed. I guess Laura and I have a more refined taste in art than the general public.

We then began our long walk to the Notre Dame Cathedral, walking through a very artsy district. We found Lenny Kravitz's favourite fallafel joint, and browsed through some of the shops. Most of them did not open until 2 pm, so we decided that we would come back after the days events so that Laura could buy a "happy purse" (it is a little straw bag with a smiling face on it). When we got to the cathedral, Laura continued her tradition of not going inside because of the extremely long line to get in. You know that when people are lining up to get into a church, and this line is longer than the one to climb up to the tower and try and find Quasimodo that it has to be a pretty long line!

After taking some pictures, we made our way to the Quartier Latin, where we checked out The Pantheon (the one in Rome is cooler), La Sorbonne, and the Law School. Then we strolled through the Jardins des Tuilleries and kept an eye out for France's version of Rome's Fountain Police: the Lawn Police. If you even think about sticking your foot onto the grass, a police officer will be after you with the whistle. We then went to the Rodin museum (passing down a street with many armed guards). I guess you need to see Rodin BEFORE you see Michelangelo's David, because we didn't see what the big hoopla was. Sure we took the requisite photos of The Thinker, but we were both glad that we had only paid the 1 euro to visit the gardens (which were admittedly very pretty). Still, with the Picasso museum and The David in the backs of our minds, we weren't really impressed. Thanks again for the recommendation, Taryn.

In order to get back to the shopping district, we had to backtrack quite a bit, so we decided to change things up and stroll across the river and walk along the bank of the Seine. In so doing, we caught impressive eyefuls of the Eiffel Tower, but tried to steer clear of it (it wasn't on the schedule for that day!). We crossed at Place de la Concorde, passed by the Louvre, and strolled along Rue de Rivoli looking at all the shops. How can Paris be the fashion capital of the world? The shoes are so ugly... the best place we saw shoes was in Amsterdam! As we made our way to the shops, we stopped at a bakery and picked ourselves up a baguette so that we could finish off the rest of our cheese and paté for dinner. Laura's bag successfully purchased ( for 3 euro!), we hobbled back to the hotel. It felt much longer walking back than it did in the morning, and we cursed ourselves for constantly doing this to ourselves. 3 weeks in and we still have not learned that sometimes it is worth hopping on the metro and saving your feet. Still, it is true that the best way to get a feel for any city is to walk through it. Sure both the metro and alleys in Paris smell like urine, but the streets are much nicer to walk on than they are to walk under! If you have a map of Paris handy, locate the Cemetery of Père Lachaise, and then find the Eiffel Tower. Draw zig-zaggy lines between the 2 forming a circle, and you will get a sense of just how far we walked. No wonder our feet were sore!

Easy Jet is evil

2005-07-14T10:18:00.000Z

OK, we know we have a lot of updating to do, because the internet was very expensive in Paris: Please excuse any huge mistypes because the keyboard here is the craziest one yet. Who ever thought that you would have to use the shift key in order to place a period?

So, we have never been so happy to leave a place as we were with Naples. When we last left off? we were getting ready to go to the airport. It was not all that hard to get to (we just took a bus straight there), but once we were there, our problems started. There was nothing to do in the airport, and like the Italian train system, they do not tell you where to check in until 20 minutes after you were supposed to have checked in. We found a post office that was open, but not for business, so we decided that we would just try to find a shop where we could buy stamps after we had gone through security. What a joke! By the time we found the counter where we were supposed to check in, there was already a huge line. For whatever reason, the line did not move, even when they opened up a second counter, so we were forced to stand there with our back packs on for over an hour. During that time, we watched a stereotypical Italian fight between older people (someone was trying to cut in line!): it was very loud and the hands were flying! We have no idea why Easy Jet took so long to check in about 40 people, because by the time we got to the counter, the plane was supposed to take off in about 15 minutes and it only took us about 2 minutes to get our tickets. Now we know why that show on TV always shows people screaming at people from Easy Jet!

The insanity continued, as despite the fact that the Underground had been bombed just 2 days previous and Europe was "stepping up its security", not once was our passport checked at any point during our trip. Also, in order to make things even slower, we were not allowed to walk the 20 ft to the plane, but had to cram onto a bus and have it drive us there. Never have we seen such pushing and shoving by adults; the result of Easy Jet not issuing seats (you just sit wherever is free when you get on the plane).

The flight itself was rather benign, although Laura's sweatshirt had to be stowed in the overhead compartment because it was somehow a safety infraction while resting in her lap. Whatever! We were just so relieved when we got off the plane in Paris. It took us about 2 hours to make it from Orly to our hotel, but we braved buses and the Metro successfully to do so. And yes, it was a hotel. For the only time on the trip, we had a private room, with only 2 beds, and a bathroom! Youppi!

We had not eaten anything since our meager and somewhat terrifying breakfast in Naples, so after trying to realign our spines, we went in search of a grocery store. Thankfully there was one not too far from our hostel, and we stocked up on cheese, tomatoes, paté, and bread.... ooooh, and 2 euro wine! Alas, the bread was not the best it could be in France, but that's the price you pay when you do your grocery shopping at 8 pm. I am telling you, nothing ever tastes as good as it does in France! The cheese is sooooo good, and the produce always tastes so fresh. Our days of hours in the sun and eating very little took their toll, for even loading up on food, the wine made us giggly very fast and we went to bed with everything pleasantly fuzzy. We slept well that night, knowing we had big days ahead of us in Gay Paris.

Naples is the new Miami

2005-07-09T08:03:00.000Z

First off, we have heard about all the 'craziness' in London. Nothing has happened here in Italy (thank goodness), so we are both ok. We still plan to make it to London for the release of Harry Potter... it will take more than bombs to scare us off. Of course, we may steer clear of the Underground until August when we return to London at the end of our trek around the UK.

OK, so, our train to Naples was a true example of the Italian rail system. No more German efficiency here, it was delayed by about 40 minutes. We don't know how the trains get so delayed, since it certainly cannot be the weather. I guess the trains get hot too and need siestas.

Anyway, we once again had a compartment to ourselves... that is until an older Italian man, stumbled by and red-faced asked if he could sit down. We still have not gotten the knack for lying to people about whether empty seats are taken (we are going to start saying they are for our burly man servants), we told him it was free. He then kept talking about how the sun tired him out, and how it made his eyes sick (at least this is what we deduced from his broken Italian... that is right, his Italian was broken... we don't think he knew English). We closed the blinds into the compartment, and he promptly fell asleep. Laura thinks he was drunk, but I don't know. Maybe he was drunk on the sun! It can get to the best of us... and judging from the teeth rotting out of his head, he wasn't in that category.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful, although despite the train's claims of having air conditioning, it got pretty stifling in our compartment. At one point, our sun-drunk companion woke up and began offering us cigarettes, but Laura told him neither of us smoked and that he could not either. She then tried to get some sleep because the stuffy, opressive heat was making her claustrophobic.

When we got to Naples, we thought things were going pretty well because the directions to the hostel seemed clear enough. Of course, we soon realized that we could not find any of the streets they had listed on the directions. We began wandering down one street that was entirely taken over by vendors with tents, flogging everything from shoes for €2, to juice and plastic belts. It became fairly obvious that we were going to need some assistance, so we began asking people where the street listed in the directions was. Even though the people lived here, they had no idea. Also, maybe people don't really speak English, or maybe they thought that since we asked for the directions in Italian that they should respond in kind, but although I know the words for left and right in Italian, they were never used. One man grabbed Laura by the arm and began yelling 'acqua' at her; flashbacks of her mom! We did not know where the water was, or why he kept telling us about it. After wandering for about 20 minutes, I looked up and found that we were standing on the street that they had told us to walk to the end of. It turns out that the streets here have 2 names (as does everything in Naples), and the hostel had only given us the last part of it (so, if the street was 'Harry Potter', they told us to go to via Potter.... it changes the way you look for streets!). Eventually a street vendor, tired of us looking lost, got up and showed us where the hostel was. It turns out it was on that first packed street bazar street we had walked down the first time. AAAAHHHH! Oh, two other things: People go shopping on their mopeds here, AND a woman we asked for directions from initially thought we were beggars. Naples is fun.

The hostel here was significantly less impressive than the one in Rome (maybe it's because of the humidity, but regardless, the showers are filled with mould and mildewwwww....). We took a bit of time to decompress and cool down, and then headed off to the Circumvesuviana railway to catch the train to Ercolano so that we could climb Vesuvius. We had no problems making our way there, but when we got out of the station, we had to decide between a cheaper bus that took a longer time to reach the volcanoe, or slightly more expensive option that got there in about 20 minutes. We decided to go with the more costly minibus, and boarded it along with 8 other passengers. Oh man... the ride up was like an amusement ride on crack! We had no seat belts, and our driver just cruised up the mountain's winding roads at about 20 km above the speed limit. As our lives flashed before our eyes, the car stalled. It sputtered to life once more, but soon died again. The guy radioed for backup, and we ended up catching a ride up to the top with another taxi that was on its way back down. In order for us to get in it, however, we had to get back down to the 'turn-around' point... which meant coasting down the hill backwards for about 2 minutes. So terrifying. I guess Laura's mom's claim that if something looks too good to be true, it is!

Nevertheless, we made it to the parking lot, and then began our tiring climb up to Vesuvius's mouth. The road was very steep, and it was covered in sand, so you spent a lot of time sliding. We have no idea how the people in flip flops and platform shoes were making it up. We bypassed the cheesy tourist stands with figurines made out of lava rock (we just pocketed our own samples in their natural form), and made it to the top. At first it all looked rather peaceful and benign, but as we continued to walk, we saw smoke gently curling upward, a sinister reminder that Vesuvius was just sleeping. It was so smokey at the top that you could hardly see the world below you at certain points. It was certainly a tiring endeavour, but well worth the hike. It seems like we just aren't satisfied unless we are climbing up things!

The walk back down was punctuated by my falling into an undignified heap on the road, which caused Laura to (rightfully) crack up and take a photo of me sprawled in the dust. Remarkably, I was unscathed. I guess all that time practicing at university paid off (right, Taryn?).

When we got back to Naples, both of us were so terrified by the noisy streets that we darted into the supermarket to pick up some sandwich fixings for dinner and the next day's lunch, and then spent the evening rotting our brains reading Cosmo and Us Weekly. There were only 2 English magazines at the hostel, but we read them thoroughly. If you want to know the surefire ways to ruin a wedding or tell if a star is pregnant, we can tell you.

The next day, we had resolved to sleep in since we were just spending the day at Pompeii. However, the street market was back in full force, and we soon woke up to their insistent cries. After a meager breakfast (our first in quite a while!), we kitted up and head off to Pompeii. We were beseiged by buskers on the train; one man with a saxophone was particularly insistent and spent a good 30 seconds serenading me. Awkward!

When we arrived at Pompeii, we had intended to get a real-life guide, but thought the prices a bit too steep. We decided to go for the audio guide instead so that we could tour the city at our own pace. Then we opened up the map to the 6-hour projected itinerary, and set off into the ruins.

It was the most amazing thing, being there. It was a very advanced city, considering Vesuvius wiped it out before 100 AD. Ironically, the ash that destroyed the city and killed its citizens is also what managed to preserve the buildings so well. We had a great time looking at the casts of petrified bodies, and not such a good time looking at all the gentle abandoned puppies within the city walls. We don't know where all those dogs came from, but it was so hot out, that we couldn't help but feel so sorry for them. And yes, lizards did abound for Laura, too. It was fascinating walking through the old homes, and seeing the preserved paintings. We even got to see the place with the infamous 'Cave Canem' sign in the entrance (Beware of Dog).

We ended up unwittingly taking our lunch break on a grave site, and made our way to the far end of the city to see the amphitheatre. After about 7 hours wandering about the ancient city, we finally made our way back to the train station to head home. It was blazing outside, so we are incredibly luck to have not turned into lobsters as so many others did.

Naples is a far more derelict city than either Florence or Rome. At many points, we have remarked that it doesn't even feel like Italy. With the palm trees and excessive wearing of neon colours, we feel that you just have to change the language and you've pretty much got the seedy atmosphere of Miami (though neither of us have been there... or care to go). It truly is the city that you visit simply to go elsewhere. In retrospect, we probably should have gone to Sorrento instead (also in close proximity to Pompeii and Vesuvius), but then again, we can fly out of here (and are, in a few hours!) for Paris.

On our way back from the train station, a frightening guy approached Laura and insisted that she give him the time. When she told him that she did not have a watch on, he did this weird hand gesture suggesting that he wanted her to look him in the eyes. It was all terrifying, and we scurried off for the safety of our hostel. But not before stopping at the supermarket and buying a gelato-cake. It was so hot, we could not bear to eat anything that involved actually chewing. We had fully intended to go for pizza while here, but the boisterous streets and sweltering temperatures more than killed our appetite. Our sense of adventure is not greater than our sense of survival!

It would have been nice to have seen the Archeological museum here, but there simply wasn't time because it closes at 7 pm and we often did not get in from our day trips until just before then. So, we have been doing what Fil would approve of, and have just stayed in and socialized with other travelers and caught up on our sleep. Last night we talked to this guy named James who was from Detroit and was in Italy doing some kind of art program. He was a weird punk-rock guy, dressing like an extra from Grease (with rolled up jeans, high top sneakers, and Danny Zucco hair). He also spoke in a very flighty vague manner about art that had Laura and I nodding our heads (despite having no clue about what he was talking... something about the Renaissance) and trying not to laugh. Ah, you've gotta love the pretentious art types.

Anyway, it is off to Paris in a couple of hours. This means braving the public transport system here in Naples, which is pretty much guaranteed to be a horror story. We are hoping that the airport has some shops for us to browse through while we wait to check in. We can't wait to get to the City of Lights, drink some wine, and do some real laundry! Ciao, Italy - it was mostly great. Glad we threw those coins into the fountain in Rome (and fished them out here in Naples... ok, not really!). Next stop, Paris.

We who are ready to die, salute you: Our forray into Ancient Rome

2005-07-06T19:14:00.000Z

Despite the morbid title of the post, don't get your hopes up (TARYN). Things are still going swimmingly here in Italia, Rome specifically, and are as far from pear-shaped as possible.

Our last day in Rome was far more leisurely than any of the other days. We actually slept in this morning (until the mature hour of 7:30 am!) and spent some time just chilling at the hostel, and taking some time to relax. After the queue-horrors of yesterday, we decided that there was really no point in us racing into the heart of the city with the throngs of people and the heat only to have to wait on our feet. No, better to have a day of little indulgences, and spend some time having a cappucino and reading email.

Soon enough we were out on the pavement, and then fighting our way onto the Metro. FYI, Line B is far less classier than Line A, but neither line has air conditioning. My book had made this poor joke about getting smashed flatter then fettucini if you ride the Metro while the Romans are on their way to work, but we assumed that at 9 in the morning they would already be there. We were wrong. We don't actually know when the working day begins or ends here, but it seems that if you can get someone in Rome to work for 3 hours consecutively, that's impressive. The subway was so packed that I actually had to cling desperately (while on the tips of my toes) to the rail that hangs across the ceiling as opposed to the pole. The crazy driving here extends to the subway as well, so I knew that if I didn't hold onto something (or someone! As some people chose) that momentum would have me hurtling from one end of the train to the other... regardless of the number of people I barreled into in the process!

We got off at Circus Maximus, and then proceeded to make our first navigational error in about 5 or 6 days. Thankfully, a kind Roman told us where we should go, and we soon found... a large field with a vague circular pattern in it. Ah well. We caught it on the first pass, rather than walking by it 5 times asking where the heck it was!

We then braved the terrifying Roman traffic and made our way to the river side of the street and strolled along the Tiber river. Apparently the key to transversing the streets here is to just have no fear... or to have a death wish. You're just supposed to step out into traffic, without turning to look at the cars. If they see you look, they know you're a tourist. The only way they slow down is if you're in front of them. You've got to have guts to cross the road here. Chickens need not apply! (Note: Laura has not had any traffic altercations whatsoever. I am so proud of her!) Our other tip is to walk with other tourists, preferably using them as a shield (read: keeping them between you and the oncoming traffic). Our theory is that if the cars don't stop, then the other people will get hit AND that the collision may stop the cars or at least slow them enough so that we can get across. Brilliant!

We spent some time wandering around the Jewish district (per another not-so-great suggestion by someone we can all guess without naming, but her name rhymes with "Karen"). Maybe it was just dead because it was 10:30 in the morning, or maybe it was just a poor idea. You be the judge. Either way, we had things to do and other places to see, so we said goodbye to that and began our trek into the past.

We began in the Roman forums, wandering through the ruins that we had seen about 3 times from behind gates as we had strove to avoid ruining the adventure. I am happy to report that seeing them from the sidelines did not compare AT ALL to the actual experience of walking through them, and I regaled Laura with tales of 10th grade Latin class and the little family we read about. Puellae in foro ambulabant (translation: The girls were walking in the forum). As we walked through the forum, we made our way to the base of Palatine Hill and purchased our joint ticket to that and the Coliseum. We strolled up the hill, enjoying the sights of orange trees and other ruined buildings. Laura was particularly enamoured with the speedy little lizards that darted out from rocks, although I was the one lamenting our lack of a net to catch them. Really though, it was far too hot to chase anything. We are clearly gatherers, not hunters.

When it came to be about 2 pm, we decided we should perhaps get something to eat before venturing into the Coliseum. After all, if you're off to fight lions and the like, you need to have a full stomach! We went to another of the restaurants recommended by The Beehive (finding yet another one they suggested to be abandonned and out of business), and had an actual meal! We had a roasted vegetable appetizer (oh vegetables proper, how we have missed you!), and then had the largest plates of pasta (fresh and homemade) we have ever seen. Despite all my reminders to Laura of when the last decent meal was and when the next one might be, she could not finish it all (but came very close). I guess she was rightly saving room for gelato.

After our very enjoyable lunch, we finally made it to the Coliseum. We already had tickets, so we got to bypass the long line and go straight in. I don't think I am exaggerating when I say that it is possibly the coolest and most amazing building I have ever seen. Take that Eiffel Tower? Were you built a bajillion years ago? I don't think so! Did people get mauled by large animals for sport and the amusement of bloodthirsty crowds in your enclosure? I don't think so! The Coliseum was all kinds of awesome. The true testament to this is approximately the 50 combined photos that Laura and I now have of it (which has incidently, passed the number of photos I have of random puppies and that Swedish marching band).

Our visit to Ancient Rome was incredibly rewarding, but it was also quite a long, hot day. No day in Rome is complete without gelato and a siesta (in that order), so we returned to the gelateria we discovered yesterday. Today's choices: Fig & Pine Nut (Laura), and Chestnut & Blueberry (me). Mmmmm.... gelato. Then it was off for a nap, and then a chat with Nick, a fellow Canadian in the dorm.

It's an early start for us tomorrow as we head of to Naples, and then straight to Vesuvius. The next two days will be a continuation of Historical Italy, and of course, Adventure! We both have packing to do, and I am going to try a hand at washing clothing in the sink, so that'll be it for now. Ciao!

"I think the sun gave me Mono"

2005-07-05T20:43:00.000Z

Duuuudes. It is so frickin' hot here in Rome. Even though it was overcast today, we made the mistake of taking the subway which is made up of little sweatboxes of death. The ride to Vatican City was only about 10 minutes long, but it felt like a neverending trip to Hell. Oh man. If it weren't for our midday siestas, I don't know what we would do!

Sooo... we also made the collosal mistake of taking the advice of TARYN (again... when will we learn? We still have the foul taste of the Topography of Terror fresh in our mouths...) and made our way to the Vatican Museum early in the morning. We arrived about half an hour before it was scheduled to open, and found an incredibly long line snaking around the wall enclosing the city. Of course the line was hardly shaded, and so just standing there caused sweat to trickle down our backs. Lovely. We must have stood in that line for at least an hour, and had little more to do to pass the time than to eavesdrop. The couple in front of us had a little Goth Girl, who was decked out fully in black in a skimpy tank top and short pleated skirt. It looked like she would be purchasing an entire paper outfit! The family behind us had a weird overbearing Australian dad, who kept reciting random facts about the Vatican and proudly crowing about his various previous visits to Rome. At one point, the eldest daughter (clutching a Balenciagia bag, while her younger sibling held onto a Louis Vuitton purse) asked if the Vatican Museum was going to be the family's "last historical thing". Her father (?) kept telling her that the great thing about this trip was that she could get all the touristy things out of the way, since the next time sh came she could say that she had already done them and there was really no need to see any of the attractions more than once. Of course he then contradicted this story, by saying that all the times he had been to Rome, he had gone to the Sistine Chapel 6 times. Freak. He then got all moralizing with his wife (?) by talking about how so many people in the line were going to be denied entrance to the museum because they were wearing shorts and sleeveless tops. He then began talking to the couple in front of us (with Goth Girl), telling them that he thought they were going to have to buy pants and scarves in order to get in. Thanks a lot Sartorial Security Guard. Although this wasn't totally horrible (despite him doing this several times), his smug know-it-all attitude was unbearable. What was worse was that his wife began saying how she couldn't believe that the couple let their daughter dress like that, and that with her, there would be "no question" (whatever that means). Then pompous Aussie dude was all, "They're probably just glad that she's not pregnant...". Say it with me: Dick! Also, sweet irony would have it that his daughters were all tarted out, and looked like such ignorant prissy princesses that you couldn't help but shake your head in complete bemusement.

Once inside the museum, we took care not to "rush" through it, but man is it big. The Egyptian collection was really impressive and remarkably well-preserved. Laura remarked that there must not be anything left in Egypt, what with all the pillaging done by the Vatican and the British Museum! I had to wonder whether the Popes could have been doing something more worthwhile with the (clearly) large amounts of money at their disposal than buying ancient artifacts. ANYWAY... it was all very nice and beautiful and extensive. I think our favourite room in the whole place was "The Map Room", which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It was a long corridor with ornate ceilings that had these ancient painted map all down the sides. It was really remarkable and not like anything I had ever seen before. The Sistine Chapel -- and we hate to agree with Taryn -- was also nice (obviously), but didn't really seem to be any more spectacular than many of the other rooms in the museum. We expected it to be bigger and perhaps more vaulted. Also, the sea of people really detracted from the experience, since if you looked up for too long while walking, you were bound to slam into someone or get run over by the many tours that take huge groups through the place.

After sending postcards from the Vatican Post Office, we made our way to St. Peter's Basillica, where we wandered through the catacombs and saw Pope John Paul II's tomb. They seemed to be enforcing the dress code more rigorously here (don't worry: our research was helpful here and we were both appropriately dressed). We made our way into the cathedral proper, and were suitably creeped out by the wax effigy of PJP II they had on display. It seemed kind of sacreligious to me, but what do I know about worshipping false idols? The Cathedral was huge and extremely ornate; no mistaking any other church as the headquarters of the Catholic faith, really.

We took the subway one stop to check out this restaurant recommended by the hostel that serves rice balls. Of course, like everything in that book only printed 3 months ago, this restaurant does not seem to exist, so we instead popped into this little hole-in-the-wall pizzaria, where we each got some... pizza. You buy it by weight here (unless you ordering a whole pizza), although we just gesticulated making "smaller" motions with our fingers, until they got it right. Laura used the universal "thumbs up" sign to indicate when her slice was just right. Maybe it was because we were having our first meal of the day at 3 pm, but that pizza rocked!

Then we got back into the death box, and made our way back to the hostel for a siesta. Several hours later, we reemerged into the city, and headed to the Campidoglio where my book of lies claimed we could get a nice view of the city. Of course, if we had read the fine print, or rather the print at all, then we would have realized that the Capotoline Hill really just gives you a spectacular view of the Roman Forums, which is still not on the schedule until tomorrow. However, we have decided that Ancient Rome is like a magnet and that no matter how hard you fight it, you end up there even if you don't mean to. Giving in, we walked along the forum taking pictures and made our way to the Coliseum. We had intended to make our way across the river Tiber and go into the Jewish Ghetto for some food, but neither of us were super hungry so we instead decided to stave off the strange not-hot but will make you sweaty and sticky weather, by getting some gelato. We found this awesome place, where you can get 3 scoops for 2.20 euro! Amazing! I had: pine nut, chestnut, and pear (All soooo good!). Laura had: coconut, peach, and almond (also very good). Probably the best gelato we have had anywhere... ever! So, we'll be going back tomorrow, since you can't beat the heat or that price! Also, we will actually go into the Coliseum, the Forums, and up Palatine Hill. If only the weather tomorrow were like today, that would be tolerable since it was mostly overcast (of course we spent a good portion of the day inside the museum, or sleeping).

We wanted to head to the Trevi Fountain to see it lit up at night but the A line (Metro) is closed at 9 pm, because it too is undergoing rennovations. We will try and find out how to get there by bus tomorrow so that we can get some night shots as we did the Coliseum (which really is incomparable. Nothing like it. At all. Soooo cool.).

So, we've been up for about 5 hours since our last nap, and that's plenty long in this city. Have to get our rest since we'll be exclusively outside tomorrow, working on contracting skin cancer. We'll be the finest Italian leather you've ever seen!

When in Rome...

2005-07-04T19:42:00.000Z

We read an article in the free newspaper here at the hostel that said that the increased heat (approximately 2.5 degrees Celsius) this year in the Mediterranean is expected to keep tourist numbers low in Rome... Well, we took the heat, but the amount of sun our skin has absorbed today has adled our brains quite a bit and destroyed our short-term memory. Although we got plenty of sleep last night, it feels like we have not slept for days. I guess that traveling to 4 cities in as many days will do that to you (5 cities if you count Innsbruck... which we choose not to).

We remember getting to the train station in Florence about 25 minutes before ours was scheduled to depart. The problem was that they don't like to post the platform number until approximately 3 minutes before the train leaves (or in some cases, 3 minutes after the train was supposed to have left). Our Italian vocabulary is expanding at an alarming pace, and we were able to discern that several other Eurostar Italia trains were delayed by about 35 minutes, so we feared that this might also be true of our train to Rome. Thankfully, we found out the platform of our train with 2 minutes to go, and Steph used her BBC Italian language lessons to ask where car 9 would appear on the platform.

Once on the train, we fell asleep to the symphony of cell phone rings. For some reason the Italians really like techno-songs or muzak versions of classical oeuvres. When we got into Rome Termini, we made our way to our hostel, the Beehive, which is fabulous. The place is really clean, and our dorm even has a ceiling fan to help stave off the hot Italian sun. It is really more like a hotel (with a little art gallery in it! and a cat!), and we certainly won't mind spending some extra siesta time here (and, because it can't be said enough: Take that, Wombats!). One really nice thing about the hostel is they provided us with a free map of the city and also a recommendation guide of places to eat and things to see. After perusing through that for a little bit, we decided to get a move on and start working our way through the itinerary for the day.

The American girls we had met at YoHo (in Salzburg) had told us that above all else we should take the bus while in Rome. However, we don't take advice well (especially from people who eat Pringle sandwiches and survive on Nutella), so we decided that the best way for us to get a feel for the city was to walk it. We've been building up quite a tolerance to long distances, and we figured we could handle it. As it was noon, just a few minutes outside, we realized that it was going to be very hot, but we had the whole afternoon ahead of us and just wandered along at a lazy pace. Also, we are super backpackers who don't let weather get in the way: rain or snow, hot or cold... we'll withstand it all, and have fun while doing it. Take that, American postal service! And the weather! We have realized that traveling through the city is just as enjoyable as seeing the destinations, so why be so worried about getting directly to point A? We just look at the map, ascertain the general direction we should be heading for, and walk. Take that, map!

One of the results of our laissez-faire navigational attitude is that instead of making it directly to the Spanish Steps as we had planned, we actually stumbled across the Trevi Fountain (stop 2 on our planned route)! We took some pictures, filled our water bottles (not in the actual fountain, of course), and obviously did the requisite coin toss over the left shoulder so that we may some day return to Rome. It was here that we really faced our first rush of tourists; although they were in Florence, nothing ever felt overrun by them, but they were literally crawling around the Trevi Fountain.

We then made our way to the Spanish Steps, where Steph began to get angry at the large number of tourists who were just sittting on the steps, and were therefore ruining her photos. Even postcards of the thing have tourists on them! This was also our firs encounter with the fountain police (who can be identified from the regular police, as they wear white instead of blue). One lady had the gall to stick her feet into the fountain (a huge no-no!) and got a whistle blown at her. She scooped her shoes up and skulked of in shame. I remarked that some tourists seem to be taking the whole "The fountains have clean water" a little too far, as the extent that people go to fill their water bottles is a little ridiculous... and yet.

Next stop was the Pantheon. We took a short break from the heat by perusing some shops. In one we found the best shirt which said on the front "Don't take a diet", and on the back said "Believe in Jesus!". Another great one had the Virgin Mary on the front and it said "My son is fabulous!". If they weren't so expensive, Steph would have bought them because offensive shirts are always great. It is up for debate as to whether she then would have worn one to the Vatican tomorrow.

It took us a bit to find the Pantheon because the map we were given from the hostel doesn't have every street listed on it (strangely it is missing the streets that have establishments that they recommend for gelato and food...). We therefore had to rely on the tourist signs placed about the city. The Panthenon is really spectacular to behold from the outside (we understand why invaders chose not to burn it down), but the inside is marred by the reconstruction that is going on. One side was covered in scaffolding which really detracted from the whole experience.

After this, it was off to the Piazza Navona. It seems to be the Mont Martre of Rome as it is filled with cafes and artists. The fountain police caught a few more people sticking their feet into the fountain, and as a means of exacting revenge, forced them to put their wet feet into their shoes rather than letting them dry first. We looked at the cafes and contemplated getting gelato right there, but we knew the telltale signs of poor quality gelato. First, anything extremely brightly coloured means lots of artificial additives, and the pistaccio was electric green... certainly not seen in nature. They did at least have the metal tubs, rather than plastic, but we decided to find a different, less expensive, place. As we were leaving, we heard a large commotion as a group of Americans tried to figure out why the woman at the counter would not accept their money. They couldn't understand why she kept saying it was no good. Of course, it turns out that they were trying to pay the 10 euro bill with 10 british pounds. Nice. One guy got really frustrated, and asked her if she wouldn't just take American money instead. Dick!

We ended up finding cheaper and really good gelato just outside of the piazza. We tried some of the local speciality flavour which is custard mixed with marsala wine. Yum!

We began looking for a place to eat dinner, as we were feeling like splurging for a real meal having spent no money all day (except on ice cream). Unfortunately, it was only 5 pm, and most restaurants here don't open until 6ish. So we began to wander back to the hostel. Again, without the aid of the map, we ended up stumbling onto the Imperial Forums, in the ancient part of the city. We hadn't really planned to ever see these, but since they were there (or rather, since we were there) we wandered through and took some pictures. We ended up getting kicked out because they closed at 6, and it was about 6:30 pm at this point, but we hadn't seen any signs from the area we had entered from. Ah well! As we made our way up the street, we realized the Roman Forums were across from us and the Colliseum was peeking out from the base of the street. Although we were tempted to check them out, we figured we did not want to ruin Wednesday's itinerary. After all, if we did everything we had planned for two days in one, what would we do with ourselves? The schedule would not stand it!

After spending some more time people watching, waiting for the city to cool as we planned our route home, we set off once more. Nothing really interesting happened, although both of us are rather disappointed in Italian shoes so far. If your frickin' country is in the shape of a boot, you'd think they would design some nice ones, but no!

We eventually did find a place to eat dinner (I got to have real vegetables! That were green!), just around the corner from our hostel. It is only 10:15 pm, but we are completely exhausted, so it is off to bed. We have a big day ahead of us (hopefully we won't see the Pope) in Vatican City, which opens at 8:30 and is at the complete opposite end of Rome. We were probably only 20 minutes away by foot today, when we were at Piazza Navona, but we will splurge tomorrow and get a bus card.

So... who is this David guy?

2005-07-03T19:19:00.000Z

First off, you all had better be scrolling down each day to make sure we haven't posted more than once. We have the feeling some of you may have neglected to read the post on Vienna, which was right below the one on Salzburg. Whatever we post first gets pushed down the page when we post again, so make sure you take the time to check. This means that under this post, there will be one on our adventures in Garmisch-Partenkirchen that you won't want to miss.

We arrived in Florence at 5:30ish am. We had arrived at a station far from the city center and so had to take a bus to reach the one near our hostel. We weren't sure where to catch this bus, and when we did find the stop, we then were not sure where to buy tickets since most places are not open at 5:30 on a Sunday morning. An old Italian man seemed to know what our problem was, however, and took us to a little stand and told the man that we need to buy tickets. I then was able to use my Italian, to tell him we wanted 2 tickets to Santa Maria Novella station. Hoorah for knowing what he was asking, and knowing how to say the number 2!

The bus ride was one of the most frightening driving experiences of our collective lives, as our driver was curt and drove like a maniac while talking on his cell phone. Also, unlike the other cities we have visited, the buses here don't stop at every stop. You have to request that they stop, and I had no idea where we were. I was just hoping that we would at least see the train station, and that it would be a popular enough stop that the driver would have to let us get off because people wanted on.

Once we safely made it off the bus, we then faced the common problem of not really having a good map of the city. We often find ourselves in piazzas/squares, which makes it difficult to figure out which way you should walk and locate yourself on the map. After taking a bit of a round about route, we did find the hostel, and after ringing the bell several times, we checked in.

Our rooms were not ready, since the occupants were still sleeping, so we just quickly freshened up in the bathrooms, and then made our way off to La Galleria Dell'Accademia, the home of Michelangelo's David. There were not very many people in line, as the museum did not open for another half hour, so we made our way to La Piazza Duomo, and took some tourist-free photos of that and the Gates. The line was a bit longer when we got back, and we found ourselves surrounded by American tourists. We eavesdropped to pass the time and mimicked Yankee accents (aht = art, etc.,), but soon enough we made our way into the museum. I once again used Italian, and we got ourselves tickets.

What can we say about David? He was much larger than we expected (he is 5.12 m in height). Seriously though, all the hype is totally justified. All the sculptures we saw afterwards just did not compare. You can totally understand why people spend hours staring at it because Michelangelo really knew his stuff and did not gloss over the finer details. Absolutely beautiful, and definitely worth, not just the price of admission, but the trip to Florence in the first place.

On the way out, Laura overheard a girl say (in all seriousness): So, who is this David guy? Oy. And hence a blog title was born.

We then made our way to La Piazza Della Signoria where we saw the Fountain of Neptune, a statue of Perseus, and a plaster replica of our pal David (or Dave, as we call him) which they placed when they moved the original to La Galleria. We then strolled by the Uffizi (but didn't go in... medieval religous art isn't our thing... don't tell us if there's other stuff in there. We don't care.), and took some shots of Ponte Vecchio. We walked along it (sadly, we did not see any poison rings), and then made our way to the Piazza dei Pitti, hoping to wander through the Boboli Gardens. Alas, you had to buy a ticket to the museums to gain access, so instead we began the arduous trek to the Piazzelle Michelangelo. The nice thing about Florence is that everything really is within walking distance, but this square is somewhat out of the way. However, we had plenty of time to kill before we could go the Il Duomo (since it did not open for tourists until 1:30 pm), and we were promised the best view of the city if we could make the climb. What is with us and all this physical exertion and climbing? Several times I did not think I could make it to the top, but Laura reminded me of the view and the prospect of gellato, and so I soldiered on. We work well as a team because one of us always manages to be determined and focussed when the other one's interest/stamina begins to wane.

The view at the top truly was awesome, even though we are still insane for going all the way up there. We saw our friend Dave again, this time in bronze. Apparently there are 5 Davids throughout the city. The ice cream was also pretty good, but we'll reserve judgement as to which Italian city has the best for when we've experienced them all.

We then made our way down the hill, and headed for the Santa Croce, hoping to see the resting places of Gallileo, Dante, and Macchiavelli. Unfortunately (and strangely enough), the monument was closed due to a Historic Florence Soccer game that would be later taking place outside. We actually were able to go into the church, but a service was in session and we did not want to be disrespectful (although I did consider pretending to pray just so I could kneel down and get off of my feet. I didn't though.).

Getting pretty exhausted and with aching feet, we made our way to the Duomo. We sat on the main stairs and people-watched for about an hour. We then realized that a line was forming, and joined the queue. I was a little worried as there was a dress code sign out front, and I was once again wearing the verboten shorts, but really, people were dressed far more scantilly (and had to wear paper ponchos upon entering the church).

Completely exhausted and sore, we made our way back to the hostel and took a little siesta. People were not joking when they said that it gets hot here in Italy. Such a drastic change from Austria! I am not sure how I will make it through the next 5 days here without frying my skin to a crisp (despite copious amounts of sun screen). Once it was a bit cooler out, we went to the train station and paid the supplement for our Eurostar Italia train tomorrow. At €12 extra, it better be a really nice train!

For dinner, we went to the Italian (!) place accross the street where you could get great deals if you got your food to go (take-away) rather than eating in. The old man working there was absolutely adorable! He came over and chatted with us while our pizzas cooked, and I gave him my Canada flag pin. He was so excited that he gave us both a tomato each as a souvenir from Italy. This was by far one of the best moments of the trip so far (Take that, Frommers guide book!). It is doubtful such an enthusiastic display of emotion would have ever occurred in Germany. Oh, and the pizza was really delicious... and we have enough for another meal tomorrow.

It is off to Rome tomorrow, and we have a lot of sleep to catch up on. Ciao!

Steph & Laura: 1; Weather: 1

2005-07-03T18:34:00.000Z

In order to make our train to Garmisch-Partenkirchen on time, we had to get up at 4:45 am as our train left at 6:11. And this is supposed to be a vacation? When we woke up -- after thinking it was a cruel joke -- we realized it was still raining with a vengeance. Hoping that the stormy skies were localized to Austria, we went left the hostel... but not before checking out. We had been told that YoHo had 24-hour reception, but when we got downstairs, there was simply a sign on the desk saying that if you wanted to check in you should go into the bar. As we had not gone to the bar (not even to celebrate Canada Day the night previous), we didn't really know where that was. A group of kids were loitering outside the hostel ringing the night bell. Laura began asking people if they worked at the hostel, and one of the guys went inside and began yelling at a man passed out on a bench in what we assume is the bar. He then came back into the lobby and told us apologetically that the guy was out cold. We both rushed into the room, but I sent Laura back outside to "look after the stuff". As soon as she had left the room (I did not want any witnesses), I began shaking the guy and yelling "GET UP!!!" at him. He started out of his drunken stupor and began to trudge over to the desk. Meanwhile, Laura was screaming in the lobby at anyone she saw, "Do you work here? Who works here? Does anyone work here?!?". It took the guy a little too long to find our room, after Laura had ordered him behind the desk and told him to get our safety deposits, so Laura also pointed it out for him on the reservation sheet. At one point, he said, "I am not stupid, you know," to which Laura was tempted to reply, "Wellll...." But she didn't. Too bad.

Finally, with €5 bills in our hot little hands, we made off for the train station to catch our train to Munich. The ride was innocuous, but we arrived with only 12 minutes to catch our connection to GP (after debating as to whether we should get off at the Ostbahnhof station or the Hauptbahnhof station... we chose (correctly) the latter). We were on platform 9, and had to somehow get to platform 32. Or so we thought. As we began making our way to the very end of our platform so that we could walk along and find the other platforms, I stopped briefly to check the Departure schedule. I found our train, but found that it was leaving from platform 28. I began shouting this at Laura, as I began running! With a pack on my back. Laura followed suit, and people began to stop and stare at us, as we doubled over with the exertion, we barreled through the station. It was an effort worthy of winning the Amazing Race, as we made it onto the train with only about 2 minutes to spare. Let us to tell you: Munich is a blur. All we can say is that the station is far too big and the platforms are far too long.

Oh, but for all of those people who are still betting against us? I think we just raised the stakes again. Also, this just goes to prove that the itinerary really cannot be denied.

We made it to GP with no further adventure in the interim. We made reservations for our night train that evening when we reached the station (we decided to just get seats rather than a sleeping compartment as this was cheaper... only €4 for that night's accomodation! But was it worth it? Read on and find out!), and found a locker large enough to stow a couple bodies for our packs. We then made our way to the Zugspitze station, where we bought our ticket for the cogwheel train and cable cars that would take us to the top of Germany's highest peak (at 4962 m!). In true European style, we ate our lunch on a bench in the station, slicing up the meat and cheese and bread with Laura's handy and extremely frightening Husky knife. One passerby remarked that our meal looked very good. She was right!

We got on at the very front of the train, along with a huge group of Japanese tourists. The ride up was amazing, as the scenery just got nicer and more impressive the higher up we got. At one point we passed the Ebsee lake, which was ridiculously blue (it looked tropical! and like it was from a movie) and every one oohed and ahhed as they scrambled to get their cameras in time.

Once we got to the first transfer station, things changed, as we were already so high up that there was a good deal of snow on the ground. Unsurprisingly, it was freezing! We didn't leave Canada just so that we could experience winter in July! Also, neither of us was really equipped to deal with subzero temperatures, despite bringing several layers of clothes and having read in advance that we would stop at a glacier. Yay for research and advanced planning! Imagine what might have happened if we had not planned ahead... Scary.

Things did not really improve when we reached the summit, as there continued to be snow (having only gone higher), but there was also vast quantities of fog. Or maybe we were just smack dab in the middle of a cloud. Either way, the visibility was non-existant, and our 4-country view was depleted so greatly, that we couldn't even see Germany which we were standing on. So, on the one hand, we didn't let the weather stop us from ascending to our destination. But, on the other hand, Taryn and her negative thoughts made it such that our enjoyment at the top was somewhat lessened. Well played weather. Well played. Regardless, we still get to now crow that we have been to the highest mountain in Germany, which is a pretty cool deal, no matter how you slice it. And, that is what postcards are for.

When we descended, we stopped at the lake we had seen on the way up and took some pictures. We also got to experience an Oriental woman decked out in biker apparrel screaming at her paramour in German. Surreal.

When we got back down to the village proper, we stumbled upon the best grocery store ever. It was massively discounted, but the quality was good. It was like a Costco mated with a Loblaws. We picked up some cherries, some nectarines, rice pudding, and our staples: odd-flavoured chips (tzatziki!), and chocolate! We decided not to go on the gorge walk because of the weather and the dearth of buses going to Olympic Ski Stadium, and instead worked on getting some postcards mailed out.

We then hopped a train to Innsbruck where we would catch our night train. We had several hours to kill before our train arrived, so we wandered out into the city, completing the hatrick of Austrian cities recommended by my travel book. We ate our hodgepodge meal by a dragon fountain while a man had a nervous breakdown on a bench nearby. We then went and saw The Golden Roof, the one cool thing to see in Innsbruck (and we just happened to stumble upon it during our wanderings). Then we ambled through a park where there was a concert going on where women dressed in traditional bavarian costume served people shots of something out of hip kegs. We want hip kegs! (Note: these are not "trendy" kegs, but rather tiny ones affixed to your hip). I was really enjoying the music, but we soon got into a laughing fit when it stopped and I asked, "What the hell is going on here?" Also, a father told his child that climbing on a nearby tree was "verboten" and she started to apologize... to the tree! Because we were laughing, and Innsbruck is the city with no laughter, people began to stare at us. We think that they believed we were drunk tourists who could not hold our hip-keg liquor.

As we left the park, we saw a large group of younguns sitting in the bushes drinking from 2L bottles of Coke. Scandalous! Next, we wandered through a "Rastafair", where reggae music was played at high volume while people played hacky sack. We never wondered what happened to those two things, but it's nice to know that they are well and alive in Innsbruck.

Having wandered around the entier city in 2 hours, we returned to the station and awaited our train. It is strangely freezing in Austria at night, so we shivered out on the platform. We were happy to find that our reserved seats were in a compartment of 6 seats, but that there were no other people in the compartment (I guess everyone else went with the couchettes that provide sketchy pullout bunks that are super embarassing to get onto when people are watching you through the window... as we did). Laura got a little frustrated when the door to the compartment jammed and would not open. We thought that there might be someone in there who had locked it, but it turned out the door was just sucky. Or was it? Read on to find out!

In fact, the sucky door saved the entire evening. We ended up sharing the compartment with a woman who alighted at 1:30 am, but for the entire 6 hours we were on the train, people would walk by when they go on the train and try to get into our compartment. Because the door would not open, they would jerk at it for a while, and then give up and move on. This meant that we got to have a private compartment and could stretch out on the dirty seats and actually lie down. Take that neck kinks! We were particularly thankful for our safety door, when a group of loud Italian men got on the train and rather violently and loudly attempted to make their way into our compartment. We would both have been too terrified to sleep had they succeeded, so thank goodness they did not! Crappy door prevails!

Although it was certainly not a restful night, we did both manage to get a solid 4.5 hours of sleep(more or less), so we are greatful to crappy door for that. That being said, we will check into how much a sleeping compartment costs for our trip from Fort Williams to Inverness.

To hear about our adventures in Florence, scroll upward.

Raindrops on Roses... No longer one of our favourite things

2005-07-01T19:46:00.000Z

The train to Salzburg was pretty uneventful, except that we had some weird Asians sitting next to us. One girl had the most annoying voice known to mankind (a breathy, baby, cryptkeeper type voice) and was a human bottle opener as she used her teeth to open a bottle that should not even be a twist off. Scary! Also, the woman across the aisle ate an entire package of coldcuts in like, 2 minutes, all before 7 am. Impressive!

We had absolutely no difficulty finding YoHo Hostel from the trainstation. Maybe it was the mountains rising up as we walked, but Salzburg immediately seemed far better than Vienna. We pretty much dropped our bags on the bed after checking in and then hauled ourselves back to the train station so that we could get on a train to Werfen to visit the Ice Caves. We verified with 2 different rail officials that we were on the right train, and they even announced the station in English when we arrived (which we believe was entirely for our benefit).

With little difficulty, we found the stop for the bus that would take us up the mountain to parking lot from where there was a 20 minute walk to the cable car. What neither of us knew was that the walk was almost entirely vertical... Thanks for neglecting to share that bit of information with us, Fil. Perhaps luckily, an Australian guy named Andrew had befriended us at the bus stop (note: we don't seek these people out. Rather, friends just seem to gravitate towards us), and neither Laura nor I wanted to look like wimps or seem whiny, so we sucked it up and continued to drag ourselves, keeled over, up the mountain while fit Austrian children skipped along merrily. Weezing and red faced, we reached the cable car (amazingly in about 20 minutes... all thanks to Andrew). The trip was short but fun.... except when we looked up and found we were not at the cave entrance, but had another 20 minute hike ahead of us. What the hell? They don't tell you about that walk until you have paid your €17, or else we would have turned around and lied about going into the caves since you can't take pictures anyway. Also: Andrew. When we finally reached the caves, we had to fight our way past some German kids who were blocking the entrance, and then waited for our tour to start. Our guide had previously been rude to us when we had mistakenly attempted to enter through the entrance, so we were a bit wary of what was to come.

Before entering the cave, they handed out lanterns (real ones! with fire!), that every few people were supposed to carry. Thankfully, they ran out right after they gave one to Andrew who was in front of us, meaning he carried it so we could use our hands for the railings. Another cruel trick they played, was informing us that we would continue to climb upward, but this time in the dark and the cold. Thanks for mentioning that part Fil.... oh wait. You did not. Also, all the pictures on the website only show the flat parts of the cave... not the 1400 stairs you travel over. Clearly that is misrepresentation or something we could sue them for!

Anyway, the ice caves were really neat, and potentially worth the hike up to them. It really was quite cool (ha!) to see ice formations that were 45,000 years old. Plus, it was all glittery! Pretty! Like we said, you can't take photos in the caves, but we both bought some postcards as momentos, so we will have those to show when we return. We do, however, have some gorgeous panoramic shots from the top of the mountain we climbed, so you will have that proof that we did it.

We were completely exhausted when we got back to Salzburg (we were not made for that kind of exertion, but hopefully we will now be sporting Climbers' Legs), but you know us. Got to stick to the schedule. So we walked over to Mirabell Gardens to take some photos of one of the fountains and the steps seen in The Sound of Music (It's featured in the Doe a Deer song). As we walked over, a marching band in full regalia also joined us on the street. They ended up putting on this awesome concert in the park, that I took many many pictures of. The girl band members danced, and used tamborines as props (like they were a gang from West Side Story). It was the cheesiest thing I have ever seen, and have no idea how I will pare down the photos since I have about 15...

One of the really nice things about Salzburg is that it is really quite small so you can easily walk the city in little time. However, we had climbed a mountain (Take that, Mother Superior! We climbed one mountain.. YOU can climb every mountain yourself!) earlier that day (did we mention that?), and done so on a pastry and a quarter bag of chips... so we were starving. We couldn't really find a place that served food good enough to pique our interest for the prices they were asking, so we ended up returning to a place we had seen about a 2 minute walk from our hostel. They had an English menu and locals were eating there so we figured it had to be good. Of course, there was only one man running the place who did all the cooking right there behind the bar, and he spoke very little (read: no) English (I ended up ordering mineral water, when I really only wanted tap... ah well). However, the portions were large and good! Our schnitzel took up almost the entire plate, and we got potatoes and salad (NOT potatoe salad). The man next to us did not want his salad (he scoffed when the owner asked him if he wanted salad. We gobbled ours down, as it is not often that you see vegetables in restaurants here. Sure it had potentially tinned beans, and a strange pickled dressing on the carrots, but I don't know if I've ever eaten anything more delicious.

We then stumbled home, determined to go to bed, even though it was only 8:30 pm. However, the girls in our room ended up wanting to chat, and since they are all nice enough girls, we ended up staying up until the ungodly hour of 11. Only one girl kept to herself, and she is strangely high-maintenance, what with wearing a face mask to bed, and packing the largest bag of marshmallows known to mankind.

Day 2:

Rain, rain, and more rain. This has been the first time on the trip that the weather really has not been on our side. But, the schedule will not denide (or made a fool of!), so we got up, put on our rain jackets, and headed to Hellbrunn. By the time we got there, we decided that rather than doing the trick fountain tour first, we would go into the castle to warm up. The castle was really interestingly decorated, and it was just a lot of fun. Really pretty views of the fountains, and we had it all to ourselves.

The tour of the trick fountain was partly annoying because of the American highschool group we were paired with. Our annoyance soon turned to amusement, when we realized that none of them knew that the trick fountains are all about tricking you into getting wet AND they all seemed to fear this despite it being a torrential downpour. Stupid. At the first fountain, we knew the trick because we had heard about it up in the castle, so we delighted from afar when a girl (wearing her ill-fitting lingerie outside of her clothing) got hit in the face with a powerful jet of water. We then enjoyed watching the sissy boys act like fools as they pranced about attempting to keep out of the fountains' trajectory despite wearing no coats or carring umbrellas. Hurrah for our German tour guide, who made sure they got the most wet from thereon in. Laura and I just took the water in passing, since we were well-protected by our coats anyway. The fountains themselves were so cool that they kind of made up for the dismal weather, although it is a bit sad that we didn't have a nice hot, sunny day to appreciate them.

After the tour we went looking for the gazebo featured in Sound of Music (you know the one). It took us a few tries to find it, but we eventually did and being the only tourists around, got in a quite a few good shots.

Then we went on a bit of a walking tour of the countryside as we made our way to the street where we could take a bus to Frohnburg, which was the front of the Von Trapp house in the movie. The girls in our room had told us to walk around the building, but buildings move for us, not the other way around, so we went through the building instead. If we weren't supposed to, then they should have locked the gates and the doors and had security.

We stopped at the supermarket to get some food for the trains tomorrow and put something in our stomachs as it was now 3 pm, and we had not eaten anything all day except a meager bad Czech cake that morning at 8. Then we took the bus to Leopoldskron, which is the back of the house (seen from across the lake). Think of the pink lemonade scene or the falling in the water with the Baronness. Then we headed back into the city center where we saw the Catacombs at St. Peters (where the family hides from the Nazis... think 'Rolf, please.'), and walked up to Nonnberg Abbey (I think we have reached our mountain quota... which doesn't bode well for tomorrow in Garmisch) where we befriended a little wiener dog! As we walked back down through the city, we went to several fountains featured in the movie scattered about town, and witnessed the most frightening case of domestic abuse in a public venue ever. The man was shouting at his (in)significant other like she was a 2 year-old, and then embracing her tightly for photos. We name him Captain Creep.

Keep in mind, that we set out from the hostel today at 9 in the morning and returned around 6 pm. It rained the ENTIRE time we were in the city, and is still raining now. That said, it is still incredibly beautiful here, and we both agreed that this is the first place that we wish we had a little more time to visit and would definitely want to come back to. We wanted to go up to the mountain that Maria runs down at the beginning of the film, but because it was so rainy and foggy, we didn't think the view would be that great.

We ran to the train station to try and get a reservation for our 6:11 am train tomorrow morning, but the jerk at the ticket booth closed it just as we arrived. Dick! We'll just have to chance it and get there early and hope no one else is crazy enough to leave for Münich at such an ungodly hour. If the train is full, we'll just sleep on our feet for the 2 hour journey.

Oh, and for all the people placing bets on when we'll crash and burn, the odds just got higher in our favour of never doing so. We climbed a frickin' mountain people (do you know who else did that? The Von Trapps... when they were fleeing the Nazis. We did it for fun.) and saw every Sound of Music site possible without a train in a day and a half. We braved the rain and the cold, we lost our feet somewhere around noon today, and yet we never called it a day. As long as we have a schedule to keep, you're going to be paying us in spades (make up for the time we have spent on the internet rubbing this in your faces!).

We probably won't write again until we get to Rome, because there just won't be time. So, hopefully you'll be hearing from us in about 2 days.

So long. Farewell. Aufwiedesehen, goodnight!

P.S. Happy Canada Day. Andrew reminded us that that was today.

The Vienna Opera is no place for a lap dance...

2005-07-01T18:54:00.000Z

First thing first: Sorry for the lack of updates recently, but Austria is expensive. Too much for us in Vienna, and we have been so busy here in Salzburg that this is the first chance we have gotten to write.

Secondly: The clothing is all ok! We may have over-exaggerated when we last posted; after we tried everything on, things were in fact a little loose! That is what only eating 1 'proper' meal a day does to you!

So, here is our story about Vienna. We know you have all been waiting patiently for it.

We caught the train from Prague with absolutely no problems (take that, Dad!). It was a good thing we got there early because it was pretty full, and we did not have reservations so we scrambled into the first compartment that was open. Soon enough people came in and claimed to have tickets for our seats, so we picked up and moved on to the 'non-reserved' seating section, and just sat with the commoners. When we arrived in Vienna, we really didn't have much of a problem getting the tram from the station to the one near our hostel, although we did make the mistake of not buying the daypass for the transit system. It only cost us a euro more, but in Vienna, we could have used it!

It was ridiculously hot out (everything seems hotter and longer when you have a pack on your back) but we made it to the hostel with no navigational problems at all! First time ever! I think we see a new (positive) trend beginning! We are really coming into our own as travellers and all you naysayers will be eating dust cake with only your words to wash it down!

Despite everything Fil has ever said about Wombats, it was a crap hole. We don't know where he stayed but this place was sketchorama. We had horrible roommates (oh, you'll hear about it), and the bathroom was soooo filthy (think of the one in Trainspotting...). We don't think it had ever been cleaned, certainly not while we were there, nor the stained comforter Laura found waiting her on the bed. Also, the locker we were assigned, did not close. And it was like, a thousand degrees in the room, and for the first day, we could not open the window all the way, which we think was a safety measure on the hostel's part to keep us from throwing ourselves out of it.

Needless to say, our first hour or so in Vienna, was underwhelming in one sense and overwhelming in another. Neither of us were really 'feeling' the city, at first. It just felt kind of blah after Prague and every other place we had been. Nonetheless, we refused to be deterred, and set off for Schönbrunn Palace. It was actually really nice on the outside (too bad you had to pay a fortune to see the gardens), and the audio tour we got for the 22 state rooms we saw was informative and fun (if only the damn group tours would leave us alone. The spanish one didn't even seem to notice when I shouted out 'Dios Mios!' when they crowded us out of a room.). On our way back to the subway, we were actually approached by a fellow tourist who asked in German where the palace was and we successfully understood the German and gave correct directions. (Take that, Taryn! I don't know why, but it seems appropriate).

After Schönbrunn, we had plenty of time to kill and we did not want to face the hostel, so we decided to dip into the next day's itinerary (departing from the itinerary! Sacrilege! You see the depths of our desperation!) and went up to Prater, where the Reisenrad (Europe's oldest ferris wheel) was. We were super excited about this sight, prior to actually seeing it. It was really a let down, as it didn't seem all that cool or all that different from countless other ferris wheels at that carnival. Speaking of which, the carnival was super creepy too. It was pretty much abandonned, although all of the rides were running. It reminded us of how when we were little all tv shows featured bad things happening (i.e., kidnapping, forced drug taking) at carnivals. We left, extremely hungry, and very disappointed.

We then hit rock bottom, when we began searching for a place to eat. We (foolishly) assumed that since our hostel was not really in the city center that things would be cheaper to eat there, but we were wrong. A slice of pizza was €6! The hell? After walking around and getting increasingly desperate, we settled on an eatery called WienerWald. We thought it might be the Austrian version of KFC, but it is so much worse. Both schnitzel burgers that we ordered, came on a bun that decomposed as we ate it (take that, dust cake! - schnitzel burger), and mine heavily featured mayo, while Laura's was all about the ketchup. So disgusting. I still convulse when I think of it days later. It seems that all people eat in Vienna is ice cream. Seriously. We tried it out, to drown our sorrows, and it was indeed good. Pistaccio, Mango, Ferrero Roché... they were all yummy. The final gustatory insult came when we got our complimentary drink from the Wombar. We chose Orange Soda, which was orange syrup with tonic water. Very bad. We hate you too, Wombats.

As for the roommates, there was one Korean guy, who took 30-min long showers, but in 2-min intervals. He also horked his lungs up while doing so. Nasty! Then there was Brazillian guy, who sat around in his boxers in the middle of the floor and slept at 3 in the afternoon. To top it all off, when he came traipsing in with our two other British roommates at 5 in the morning, he had the gall to turn on the light and start screaming at the top of his lungs. Laura shushed him, but that didn't work, so she told him to shut up, and that did. Dick. We hate you Wombats and your seedy clientelle.

Day 2 in Vienna:

We had noticed a free walking tour in the elevator at the hostel, so we decided to go on it, since free things are always good (except for the drink at Wombar). Also, since the tour in Berlin saved that city for us, we thought the same might be true for the Vienna one. We took the subway to St. Stephan's Cathedral, and met our guide 'Dan' who was clearly an American. We really hoped that others would show up so that it would not just be the 3 of us for 2 hours because that makes it harder for us to make snarky comments.

We checked out the cathedral, which was pretty cool (we decided to return later for the Katakomben tour) and headed back out for the tour. On the way we were accosted for the second time by the same person trying to sell us tickets to a classical concert that evening. Vienna is full of these people dressed up like Mozart doing things like this, and although we try to be polite, it is annoying and ruins our schedule! I must say that the way the woman approached me was gold, however, as she came up and said 'You speak English, lady?'. Awesome.

While we were waiting for the tour to start, we overheard an American couple raving about the salt mine tour they had done earlier in Salzburg. I only relate this, because their big selling point, was that prior to the tour, the 'didn't know how salt worked'. Seriously. That's a direct quote. Also, our tour guide's name turned out to be John, not 'Dan' as his name tag said, because he had stolen off a coworker, so we nicknamed him DJ.

The tour was pretty laidback at first; not quite as polished as the one in Berlin. This soon became clear when right in front of the Hoffburg complex, a woman with a badge came up and began interrogating DJ. Turns out we may have been on an illegal tour as he did not have a permit, and it was not clear whether he needed one. They made arrangements to meet later (after she repeatedly tried to take his driver's license -- his only form of identification), but she then proceeded to tail us for about 20 minutes while calling for backup. It was terrifying, but also hilarious.

On the tour we visited most of the major sights in the city, including: Stephensplatz, Hoffburg Palace, Museum Quartier, Volksgarten, Rauthaus, the Theatre, some Law place, and the Jewish Area. The tour then concluded with the most horrible story about why the South tower of the church is shorter than the North tower. We won't tell you the tale, but one reason why this story is bad, is it is really the North tower that is shorter than the South. I guess you get what you pay for... nothing of value. Still, it was fun, and we have a fondness for our Tennessee-born DJ, with his use of y'all (which confused the non-native English speakers) and refering to the church as 'this gal'. Cheers to you, DJ. We hope you are not in an Austrian jail or being deported. We don't even know what you were doing in the city in the first place. We still hate Wombats.

After the tour, we did the National Treasury because we really wanted to see pretty and extravagant jewlery. Mission accomplished. We cheated the system by only buying one audio guide but then cranking up the volume so we could both hear it. Take that ridiculous fees for necessary guides! The crowns were amazing, and we learned quite a bit about the royal families and processes in Vienna, but our favour things were the bees on Napolean's wife's dresses and items, and the golden fleece order necklace that was depicted by this limp sheep. Sadly, neither of these symbols were featured in the gift shop.

Hungry again but wary from the previous night, we dared to try street meat (always a sure bet) and had a käsekrainer, which is an ingenious food idea: sausage injected with cheese. Then they stuff it in a whole baguette (oh we have pictures) and slather it with ketchup and mustard (dijon). Mmmmmm.... cheese-sausage. It was just the thing to hit the spot.

Next was the Catacomb Tour back at St. Stephan's Cathedral, which was pee-your-pants frightening. The tour guide was nicknamed (by us) 'The CryptKeeper', and he clearly spent all his time (alone) in the catacombs. He also had this scratchy high voice that sounded like his larynx had dehydrated several centuries ago. I got yelled at for taking a picture of this weird hand that all the portraits in Vienna seem to feature, but it was an honest mistake, since we had not been told that pictures were 'verboten' beforehand. But, I dared not cross The Crypt Keeper and put the camera away. It was so scary; we were underneat the city next to huge stone vaults filled with Plague bones. Not at all charming like Bone church!

We then had to decided between going to the Modern Art Gallery or trying to get tickets to the Opera. We decided to see if we could get cheap seats for the Opera, since we can see modern art in London (and probably many other cities, too). We could not get seats cheaper than €157, but we did manage to get standing tickets for only €2 a piece. There was this old man in line who tried to cut us off, so we made it our mission to get into the theatre before him. Take that, old man!

We ended up seeing 'Werther' by Mozart. For the first third of the show, the french was translated into German, but then we managed to switch the teleprompter so that it was in English. The opera involved children, Maralyn Monroe, a treehouse, a love triangle, and of course, suicide. Pretty much your standard fare for an opera (well, we are not too sure about the tree house thing). I was worried about my outfit because I was wearing shorts and we had heard there was a pretty strict dress code, but no one seemed to mind and maybe that is because the Viennese have no fashion sense. Must be a thing for people who speak German. There was a flagrantly gay man who wore jeans so tight (and tapered) that we called him 'Silence of the Lambs' Man. I think you can use your imagination as to why.

As for the name of this blog entry, the couple next to us were on some kind of date and made things quite awkward (!) for us by talking about going to see each other's apartments (wink, wink), meeting parents, sitting on laps, and then a strange gyration and thigh stroking all within my immediate line of vision. Creepy! All in all however, we had a great time at the opera, and not just because it kept us out of the hostel until late at night (We still hate you, Wombats!).

That night it rained dramatically, which seemed to freak out British dude #2, so he slammed the window shut, effectively making our room a sauna. We have never been so relieved to leave a place as we were Wombats. We filled out their comment card, with some pretty choice comments and some devil/angry faces for good measure. Take that, Wombats! When we checked out at 6:20 am the next morning, we pretty much dropped the keys on the desk and ran!

OK, scroll upward for our entry on Salzburg (spoiler: much better!).

Gonna wash the size right out of my clothes...

2005-06-27T20:03:00.000Z

Just got back from the "Wash Cafe" as the laundry facilities at the hostel are broken. The very solicitous worker there took it upon himself to put our clothes in the dryer while we were out getting a bite to eat. We came back to our clothes not on "low temperature" but "normal temperature" and the "extra dry setting". It's not our fault we stepped out for a bit! The wash cycle alone lasted 40 minutes! And who knows how long that dryer was on for!

Now I have a shirt that may or may not fit, and my pants thats were just above the ankle look like they might sit mid-calf. Laura may have capris when she had none before, and a top that she made need assistance getting into.

Honestly. Can't wait for Vienna. We won't have enough money to eat, which will be good since maybe we'll shrink to fit our clothes, as we certainly don't have the funds to buy new ones.

Day Trippin'

2005-06-27T16:40:00.000Z

Today was a departure from our normal travel style, as we were quite spontaneous. We actually did a large excursion that was not accounted for on our calender (the holy grail of this adventure). A girl here at the hostel had asked us if we wanted to accompany her to Kutna Hora, famous for its "Bone Church". We had been looking for something to do on our last day here in the Czech Republic, and a Bone Church sounded cool/creepy enough. This morning Mae (the girl) told us that she didn't think she could come with us after all because she had met some guys last night, and in a drunken stupor, agreed to change hostels... We weren't that concerned, because we didn't know how much time we would want to spend at the Bone Church and didn't want to be accountable to another person (who is clearly insane, even if she seems nice enough).

At breakfast, we watched music videos (they love Jamiroquai here), but we also attempted not to laugh outright at this German guy sitting at the table next to us. He had the worst hair ever. It was long like Tarzan but featured Joan of Arc bangs. If you're a guy and have long hair, you must part it in the middle and not have bangs. It will still look dumb, but not quite as dumb as this dude.

One nice thing about Mae dropping out is that we were able to take the train to Kutna Hora instead of taking a bus. Not only did this mean shorter travel time (only about 65 minutes on the train compared to a 100 minute bus ride + a 40 minute walk from the bus station), but it also meant we got to use the leftover day on our Czech Rail Pass, so we didn't have to pay for transportation (or at least, we had already paid for it). When we got to Hlavni Nadrazi (the central station), we had to go to the three different counters before we found someone who could -- or at least was willing to -- help us. He told us it was cool for us to just hop on the train, we didn't have to pay any extra, and we also didn't have to make a reservation (or pay a supplement) for our train to Vienna tomorrow. With all the logistics out of the way, we now had to find the platform. Apparently no one working at the rail station knows where trains will appear until 20 minutes before their scheduled arrival. We wandered around trying to find a platform with a train departing at 10:15. We found one, but it didn't have Kutna Hora listed as a destination... so we went back to information, but this time stumbled upon one that claimed to only give out info in Czech. We just wrote 10:15 on the card we were carrying around with a picture of the church and the city name and shoved it into the window. The woman told us to go to platform 2, which was where we had originally been. We then hopped on the train, which actually had compartments like in Harry Potter (!), and fell asleep as we tend to do when we're on trains. We shared our compartment with an English couple, although it took both of us about 3 minutes to realize they were speaking English... maybe our belief that the UK leg of our trip will be easier communication-wise was not correct.

When we reached Kutna Hora, we were happy to see that the Bone Church was only a 13 minute walk from the station. Take that, bus rides! The church itself was really creepy, but also impressive. It's actually kind of amazing what you can do with human bones. It seems like some guy decided to decorate with them after the plague, making a huge chandalier, a coat of arms, and numerous pyramid-like structures. We later remarked that this was a "Hildi Church" (Hildi being the designer from Trading Spaces who is infamous for sticking hay onto walls).

We decided that we didn't really want to see anything else in Kutna Hora, so we headed back to the train station. On our way, we were attracted to a store with this huge Orion mural in the window. Orion is this brand of chocolate that they sell here, and each type of chocolate has a different person on it. I bought a dark chocolate bar and it featured, what we though was a little school boy (as he had a slate under his arm). We now think that he might be a slave to the Orion chocolate factory, as he was depicted in the mural as cowering (or maybe questioning) a man who was poised at a chocolate making machine (although from afar, it looked like he was brandishing a whip!). Steph bought a hazelnut bar with a little boy in a sailor costume on it, who looks like he is either about to pick his nose or ponder something deep and meaningful. He was being escorted to the chocolate factory by his grandmother on the mural, and she also appeared to be preventing him from pondering/picking. We decided to enter the store to see if we could get the whole collection of Orion characters, and lo and behold, we had entered another grocery store! Realizing we had about 700 Kc each, we decided to be frivolous and buy whatever captured our fancy. Banana-filled chocolate? We bought it. Chocolate covered marzipan? Bought that too! Fruity Lentilky (Lentilky is the name for Smarties over here)? Turns out these are Skittles mixed with Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans... we giggled for 2 hours at the train station waiting for the train back to Prague while braving these little treats. There are several different colours, but no colour has the same taste twice. Without the aid of the legend to tell us what the possible taste options were, Steph said she tasted: puffy sticker, caramel, soap, and squash (note: they were only supposed to taste like fruits). I bought these candies that had fruits making faces on the bag, that ended up tasting like perfume, tree, and roses. Now we know why the fruits were making those faces! We also bought 2 other bags of chips, one that was "Garlic", and one that is best described as "Summer Barbecue". Awesome.

On the train back to Prague, we ended up riding with a bunch of school children. It so happens that we ended up riding with the Czech version of Harry Potter: Terry Totter (From the ripped/downloaded version of the movie that I own). He wore his plaid overshirt like a toga-cape, and all he was missing was a scar and round glasses. We're telling you, Prague really is Harry Potter land!

We finally bought stamps for the cards we bought in Berlin, so those will be heading your way soon. As we exited the post office, what should start playing? "Back for Good" by Take That. Clearly they played that specifically for us.

We should mention that the metro stations here have really long, really fast escalators. Like theme-park fast and long! We are not buckled in, but we can't understand how/why people here run down them. Who needs to go faster than the speed of light?

Our hostel has a Suggestion Book in the lobby. Last night while waiting for the internet, we flipped through it to see what other guests had said. After a few pages, Steph, disgusted by the American's grammar, began correcting it. Enjoyable.

So, with approximately 500 Kc apiece to spend, we're off to find the laundromat. This is a dangerous amount of money, since we could pretty much buy the entire city if we wanted to. Tomorrow it's off to Vienna, where the value of the euro and the high prices will quickly make us long for Prague. We better eat now, while we have the chance and the funds.

P.S. Sorry if anything in this entry offends you, Fil!

Prague Castle is the New Hogwarts

2005-06-26T17:27:00.000Z

Today marked day 2 in our 3 day stay in Prague. It looks like we will be taking that day trip to the bone church tomorrow, because we've essentially seen everything we care to here in the main city (sorry if that offends you, Fil!). We allowed ourselves to sleep in a little bit (to the mature hour of 8:15), although because our hostel is situated on a very busy main road, screeching tires and honking horns were the soundtrack to our sleep so who knows how much good the extra time lying in bed did.

We set off for Prague Castle right after breakfast, and because it was slightly raining, there weren't very many tourists there (Note to Fil: No American tourists were present. Sorry if that offends you.). In order to get to the Castle, we had to not only take the metro, but a tram as well! Not only did we pull this off with no problems, but we got to watch this woman from our hostel miss the train, which was good because we don't like her (Sorry if that offends you, Fil). I told Laura that if she came over to talk to us, I would pretend to be deaf. Ahhhh, good times.

Anyway! Prague Castle was quite picturesque, although not literally because we did not want to pay for the photo permit (which seemed like a rip off anyway, since most of the buildings that you were purportedly allowed to take photos in should you buy the permit then had huge "No photo" signs in them). Alas, we weren't able to take the guided tour because the first one in English wasn't taking place until 1 pm, and it was 11 am when we arrived. We also didn't want to pay for the audioguide, because while I'm a big believer in paying slightly more to ensure yourself a good time (rather than saving a few bucks and hating it), it seemed a bit ridiculous tha the audio guide cost more than the entrance fee itself! As it was, we paid almost $10 to get in... we didn't want this whole excursion to cost nearly $20 (because it really wouldn't have been worth it... sorry if that offends you, Fil). Instead, we contented ourselves to wander through the buildings, narrating it as though we were at Hogwarts. We found the Hufflepuff common room, and the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, complete with wardrobes for boggarts to hide within (we kept waiting for Berlin to pop out at us... one was so big we expected the whole of Germany to appear!). I also serenaded us with John Williams medelies, which was prompted when we saw a man wearing and Indiana Jones hat. We got some really nice panoramic shots of the city (yes dads, we have been using "panoramic assist" on the cameras), and had a nice stroll through the castle's gardens.

We decided to take the tram back down the mountain, and then make our way to the Jewish Cemetary. When I tried to buy my ticket at the vending machine, the machine ate my 20 Kc coin (for an 8 Kc fare! That's like, 60 cents it was ripping me off!) and it didn't give me my ticket! We began fishing with our fingers up into the machine, and Laura eventually managed to pull out a wad of sponge someone had shoved up into the machine to catch people's spare change. Jackpot! We managed to abscond with 75 Kc... which amounts to about $4.50... which amounts to a large meal. Take that Prague thieves! Outsmarted by two "clueless" Canadian girls.

When we finally made it to the Jewish Cemetary, we were rather hungry, and decided that we didn't really want to pay $10 to only see the Cemetary long enough to take a picture (you have to pay admission to see all of the Jewish-related sites in one lumpsum) (oh, and: sorry if that offends you, Fil), so we decided to head back over the Charles Bridge so I could try and get myself that Official Absinth Spoon I had seen yesterday. Mission accomplished (it's so cool!), we bought the makings for sandwiches for tomorrow's day trip, and actually have enough bread to eat for the next few days. We were going to buy the entire loaf, as it was only 17 Kc, but it was too heavy to pick up with one hand, so we opted for the half loaf. We also picked up some juice (so Laura could fend off her imminent scurvy) and some potatoe chips (in order to fend off our impending malnutrition and subsequent fainting). We ended up getting a bag of "bacon and horseradish" (I thought the white vegetable on the front might have been turnip... I guess horseradish makes slightly more sense) and a bag of a flavour we can only describe as "roast dinner". For 55 cents, how could we say no?

We then headed back into the Old Town to eat a proper meal at The House of the Little Bears (which we had been dying to eat at ever since we found out that was its name in English). We splurged a bit on lunch (or, "linner" if you prefer, as it was at 4 pm), but the food was really good and well worth it. We figured you could tell who the tourists were based on the size of beer: only tourists were ordering the 300 mL Budweisers (hey! They were only 75 cents!).

Since today could also be dubbed "The Day of Food", we headed across the street to Tesco, to pick up some snacks and try to find some appropriate breakfast food as the hostel does not provide meals in Vienna (our next stop). Of course, we pretty much kids in a candy store, focusing mostly on cookies and chocolate, but it was also just fun to wander around and remark at how incredibly cheap all of the food was. You get so used to things being like, 25 Kc, that you sometimes forget that 100 Kc is only 5 dollars... and so when your grocery bill comes to that (as mine did) and you have almost a weeks worth of food... well it's a little bit crazy.

We still haven't figured out how to exit the subway station near our hotel in such a way that we leave through the door we enter, and despite our constantly trying new ways to get out, we always seems to find ourselves in the exact same spot. It's completely bewildering. On the way home, Laura almost got killed as the traffic lights weren't working and she (foolishly) assumed that all Czech drivers would be as curteous as the one that stopped to let us cross. Thankfully, she escaped unharmed (and untouched) but I think both of our jaywalking days are over (even if the crosswalks here are ridiculously slow and you can wait for 5 minutes without being given the right to walk even if all directions have a red light).

That's pretty much it for today. Day trip to bone church tomorrow, which should be interesting. So this is what it feels like to have "down time". Weird.

Sorry if that offends you, Fil.

Drunk on Prague

2005-06-25T21:04:00.000Z

So it's our third country in five days. Some might call this a crazy pace, but we're actually a little concerned because things are slowing down. We don't have that many things to see here in Prague -- we chose to spend extra time here because it was the cheapest destination on our whirlwind tour, so we're trying to think of things to do to pass the time. We considered doing a day trip on the Monday to a castle that's about an hour from Prague, as it would also allow us to maximize the use of our Czech Flexi Pass. However, we were just accosted by a girl in our new hostel (Arpacay Hostel) who wants people to accompany her to visit Kutna Hora, a church made entirely out of bones. It is just weird and creepy enough to entice us, so we're thinking of tagging along and moving our visit to Prague Castle and the Jewish Cemetary to Monday instead. [Note to Fil: See! We have now chatted with four (4!) people, and we're even thinking of daytripping with one of them! Aren't you proud? Also? The keyboard here is exactly like the one we have in North America...]

Anyway, we made it to Berlin Ostbahnhof station with absolutely no problems, now that we have made the metro our bitch. We even managed to find our platform and the place where our car would arrive, without asking for any help (part of this is self-sufficiency, the other is a bit of our anti-social nature, and our fear of speaking to German authority figures... some things never change). Or so we thought... because at 9:40 (our train was due to depart at (9:42), I had the foresight to check the destination announcement on platform 3, only to find that our train was there instead of on platform 2! We scrambled on board (after helping an American family by giving them the head's up), and then struggled to find our streets since they weren't really in numerical order, or in any numbering system we could discern. Then, we essentially settled down for a 5 hour train ride to Prague.

Steph and I slept in shifts (without deciding to do so beforehand, it's just that we are that good at travelling in potentially dangerous situations), although we were both awakened by a screaming baby... thankfully its mother decided to stand between cars rather than annoying our entire (German) car. Then when we reached the German-Czech border, we both received snazzy new stamps in our passports, one from German (why they didn't stamp our passports when we entered, we don't know), and one from the Czech Republic. Man, those border patrole people are scary what with their guns and their clubs.

When we got to Prague, we were harassed by several locals who wanted us to come stay with them for accomodation. We politely but firmly declined as we already had a hostel and are also not stupid. Then we successfully procured money from the ATM, but of course the smallest bills we got were 200 Kc, and it only cost 12 Kc to ride the subway... so we had to buy water to get some smaller coins (since the metro woman with her lazy eye and cigarette did not have any change). We then continued our streak of rocking with foreign public transport by making it to our intended station on the first try... But once we were there, the fun began. I got us lost on the way to our hostel, as we ambled about aimlessly trying to find a bridge crossing the train tracks. At one point, I led us up a steep ramp, only to be almost run over by a car. However, we did find the bridge, and the hostel (although our confirmation email had told us we were staying in the building across the street, and we trekked up 6 flights of stairs only to find out that this was not so). It was ridiculously hot, but then it always seems to be hotter when we're carrying 12+ kg on our backs, and it started to rain a bit, but we finally made it, and none too worse for the wear.

The hostel is really nice here. We're sharing a dorm with about 6 other people, but the room is much larger. We have been given perhaps the world's smallest toilet (there is a door separating it from the sink itself), but it's clean and all the furniture looks new. We even have a kitchen at our disposal. We are very tempted to make use of it because groceries are so cheap here, but it is hardly any more expensive to just go to a restaurant and get a filling meal prepared by someone else. Best of all: Free internet access!

After we had recovered a little, we decided to brave the streets of Prague and get acquainted with it. It turns out that Prague is incredibly beautiful and not at all frightening. Everyone speaks English here, and even tourists from other countries where English is not the main language communicate with the locals in English. The girl working at our hostel told us that there are actually more tourists in Prague than there are people from the Czech republic itself! We took the metro in for 8 Kc (approximately $0.40 Canadian), and then made our way to the old town square. It was so gorgeous, that it almost didn't seem real. Steph later remarked that it looked like something you would expect to see in Disneyland (like that street they have called something like: Main Street, USA), except there is not Mickey or Minnie Mouse wandering around. We just missed the sounding of the hour by the Astronomical Clock, so we ambled away from the main square having been told that it was more expensive to eat around there. We found a side street with a restaurant that seemed to have decent prices, so we decided to be decadent and eat there, even if it was a rip off. It turns out we couldn't have made a better choice! Sure, Steph thinks the place's name makes reference to prostitutes, and there were dirty comics framed and placed all over the walls, but the food was good and cheap. The total price for both of our meals and one Czech beer came to 250 Kc (tip included). That boils down to about $6.25 per person! Our beers were only $1! For half a litre... Bloody hell! I can't believe we each drank half a litre of beer.

After dinner, we strolled over to the Charles Bridge, which was filled with vendors and street performers (a man playing Bach on wine glasses, etc.,). When we got to the end of the bridge, we wandered into a supermarket because it had a huge Absinth display in the window. We were soon enraptured by all of the strange Czech foodstuffs, the most expensive of which seemed to be $2.50... you could buy 1.5L of bottled water for $0.45, or many chocolate bars for $0.35 each! Steph is now covetting an authentic "absinth spoon", and apparently you can get red absinth too! We will be heading back on Monday, if not tomorrow.

The sky was getting cloudy again, and thunder was rolling, so we decided to head back towards the old square to catch the Astronomical Clock ring in 9 pm. A bunch of figures appear from behind these windows, and little skeletons begin to ring bells. It was all very "Pirates of the Carribean", but awesome. We also got to enjoy two scoops of ice cream, our first true food splurge since arriving in Europe. Once the show was done (it really is a show! People gather around just to watch the clock strike the hour, and clap when it's done!), we returned to the hostel. We figure that we don't want to do everything Prague has to offer our first night here, since we're here until Tuesday morning. If we keep going at the pace we have, we'll have to be on a train tomorrow... In fact we might be, to check out that bone castle, but Prague will still be our home base!

That's pretty much it for now. We don't know how to say anything except "please" in Czech, and we can now recognize the word for "exit" (but don't ask us to pronounce it! We like it here, and don't want to incur any ill will!). Maybe if we can successfully upload the pictures from my camera, we'll have a link for you to enjoy them at soon.

Ich bin ein Berliner (aka "I am a jelly donut")!

2005-06-24T17:53:00.000Z

So, despite our talk yesterday of giving our feet a rest and taking it easy today... we lied. Sure, we bought ourselves the gift of unlimited Metro travel, but even then, there are only stops every so often, so our poor little feet were pounding the pavement once more. We thought we had seen everything Berlin had to offer yesterday, but we definitely had a packed day. Let's begin...

Breakfast was packed with more prepubescent German boys, and the fashion was exceedingly horrendous today. For some reason, European men feel that capris are a uni-sex look, but lest any of you get the idea in your heads as well, let us be frank: they are not. However, we saw a guy at breakfast who made his TIGHT tapered jeans into capris by rolling them up, then we saw a guy at the Reichstag (more about that in a bit) wearing powder-blue ones... will the madness ever end? Then a guy sauntered into the breakfast room wearing a shirt so tight that his very protruding belly strained the seams, and perfectly complimented his acid-wash jeans. He clearly thought he was hot stuff (probably thought it the reason we were averting our eyes), but it made me remark to Laura: How do people get married in this country? Seriously. So unattractive.

We then dashed off to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, which was bombed during the war and never reconstructed (one of the few genuine buildings in Berlin). Then we had to make some reservations for our train to Prague tomorrow, and with that, we essentially conquered the Berlin Transit System. Take that BVG! I actually used some German today, and both Laura and I have decided that no matter how awkward and bizarre it is to end conversations in English with these people with "danke" we do it anyway if it means they won't yell at us. Also, after we ascertain (in German) that people speak English, we then say everything in English in a meek and apologetic fashion. It seems to work. I think sometimes people say things that are essentially them making fun of us because they know we won't understand, but I guess that's their perogative. ANYWAY, we made our reservations, and then used both the U- & S-bahns heavily today. We had been tipped off that because the Berlin metro system works primarily on the honour system that we really didn´t need to buy tickets, but we saw that the fine for fraud was €40, and thought we would suck it up and be good little tourists. Oh, and how did we get this tip? We made friends with Wayne, the guy in our room who left today. Probably best that he did, because our 2nd stop on the S-bahn was accompanied by a ticket check (although we were a little confused at first because the person conducting it was not dressed in any kind of official outfit... rather, he was in an 1980s acid-wash jean jacket... come to think of it, perhaps acid-wash denim is a Berliner uniform!).

We jetted off to the Reichstag, the home of the German Parliament, and stood in line for quite a while just so that we could go up to the top of its clear glass dome for a panoramic view of the city. It's a shame that it was so hot today, because it really precluded us from spending too much time up there for fear of passing out! Also, we had to stand behind a girl wearing the shortest denim and what looked like scarves skirt ever. It was ruffled! And had cut-off pockets because it was so short! And she was wearing a studded belt! And she was wearing macrame shoes and was 45! What is wrong with these people?

After the Reichstag, we bought the best souvenir one can get in Berlin: a jelly donut keychain, with the words "Ich bin ein Berliner" on the back, to commemorate JFK´s infamous speech. We then went for lunch at a little pub, that we had read about in our Berlin Walks pamphlet (another good reason for the tour!). We chose it because we had read that they served traditional German food -- Laura and I have the goal of eating one traditional meal in each city that we visit -- but more importantly, they provide English menus! We both had parboiled sausages and potatoe salad, both of which were really good, and not all that expensive. Once again, there was some confusion about whether to tip or not, but we just followed what the patrons around us were doing and hightailed it out of there!

Then it was off to the Einstein exhibit, which we thankfully got student prices for. They had these really hightech audio tours that just somehow knew where you were in the exhibit and told you what you needed to know. The best parts were: the tiny room where you could conduct an experiment to experience how sound requires air to travel, and the movies on each floor in which you watched actors embody famous scientists and insult and yell at each other while providing you with backstories about people's theories. The one featuring Plank, Lorentz, and some other guy was so good, we watched it twice. Also, the one involving Niezsche finished with him storming off screen in a fit of rage. Awesome!

To end the day, we took the S-bahn to the very eastern edge of the city to look at the East Wall Gallery. We had heard from people (read: TARYN) that the murals covering the remnants of the Berlin Wall were really cool, but they were all peeling and not interesting enough to make the pain in our feet go away! Seriously though, all the paint was flaking off which made it very hard to appreciate the artistic intent. Our tour guide yesterday told us that the German government really doesn't have the funds to maintain the city, and often it shows. It is also really funny how they have all these impressive looking buildings in very ornate styles, only to find out that the original was destroyed and you are looking at something built under 10 years ago.

We returned to the hostel only to find that our keycards were no longer working, but we got that sorted out. We also have a new roommate, Patrick Dubois, who is from Montreal. I already hate him because he threw my towel which had been drying on my bed, completely defeating the purpose. So, I did the same to his, because it was blocking my ladder up to my bunk. Take that Patrick! I am not above petty warfare! Also, we are leaving for a 9:42 am train tomorrow, and I'll be sure to rock the bed a lot when I get up so as to disturb you as much as possible.

On the way to the internet cafe, we passed a child with a full-blown mullett. A girl child. Who was also wearing one hooped earing in one ear, and a long dangly one in the other. She was maybe 8. I guess you have to get them while they're young. Just thought you would want to know. Also, did you know that Camden, NJ is the most dangerous city? The girl at the other internet terminal felt like sharing that with the entire cafe.

2 days seems to be about the perfect amount of time for this city. We leave seeing everything we planned to, and perhaps most importantly, no longer fear Berlin. Yesterday morning, we never would have been brave enough to venture about on all the various transport options or say a few short phrases to people in their native tongue (the information lady at the train station actually complimented my German... all one sentence of it!). We are truly growing as travellers, as today we didn't make a single navigational error using the map! This was our goal, so it's nice to know we are improving. Also, we are supreme budgeters, as we only spent about €14 yesterday, and we are maybe at €20 today. And people said that to try and make it on less than €40/day was crazy. Take that people!

All right, that's pretty much it for now. We have an early day ahead of us, so we need our rest! Also, our feet hate us and might go on strike unless we placate them. I suppose the next time you hear from us will be when we're in Prague! Bring it on!

Aufwiedersehn!

(Pots)dam you! And: Sarah Saves Berlin!

2005-06-23T18:46:00.000Z

So, we took the train in from Amsterdam Centraal Station yesterday to Berlin's Zoologischer (?) Station. The train ride was actually quite peaceful, and even though it was the same amount of time as the flight, it seemed to go much quicker (and was far more enjoyable!). We bought good sandwiches at the station prior to departure (Mom, they were just as good as you said they would be), avoided a fellow English-speaker (whatever "Joe" from Idaho, we don't want to know you! Sorry Fil!), successfully got our rail passes validated, and Steph had a mild heartattack when we arrived at Osnabruck station. We were feeling pretty confident when we go to Berlin, but that faded quickly when we realized that Steph's book was lying about a Tourist Info center in the rail station and the police woman that we approached for help was typically German (i.e., TERRIFYING! She seemed to take great pleasure in informing us that there wasn't a tourist center, therefore 'goodbye!'). With no map of the city and no useful German vocabulary to our names, we braved the U-Bahn and actually managed to make it to the hostel (but not before we encountered weird drunken (?) men making chicken calls on the subway, and a traveling accordion band as well. Also, when we reached the hostel, we knew we had to check in across the street, but across the street was a river and then some scary looking thicket (one of the very reasons we did not stay at JetPak hostel! Damn those German forests! We know there is a famous cake named after them... but honestly!). Thankfully (or so we thought at the time) a friendly German man, told us where we needed to go. We were so relieved to have met a friendly German (oxymoron?), but that soon dissipated when we walked into our tiny room only to find that he was our suite (overstatement) mate. In fact, he has the bunk right under me. We are also sharing the very close quarters with 2 German girls, a guy named Wayne (possibly American), and some guy who apparated during the night and sleeps on the sofabed under the window. On the one hand, we have a "private" bathroom (that we only share with those 5 other people), and we have an impetus to get up really early and stay out of the hostel. On the other hand, it's pretty sketch, and save for us & Wayne, everyone else appears to be German. This is very different from Shelter Jordaan in Amsterdam!

One nice thing about the hostel is that it provides a complimentary breakfast, which suits us just fine. We have noticed that not just have we travelled in distance, but also in time... backwards in time, as people in Germany are dressing like it is the 90s. We are talking about Doc Martin boots with tight pants, strange mullety hair, and just mismatching and unflattering cuts. Also, all the guys look to be either 14 or 40. Something must skip a generation.
We have yet to master actually leaving the hostel, as the only door we can find to get out is not the one we use to get in, and leads into an alley, but it does the job. We set off for the Jewish Museum, marvelling at how terrifying we found the city to be. (Note: our map using skills are dramatically improving!). Perhaps the most notable thing about the museum is its architecture; apparently it was designed to look like a lightning bolt. It is very disorienting to walk through, especially the Memory Void which features a modern art exhibit at the end called "Fallen Leaves". It is these little metal faces scattered all over the ground that you are meant to walk over. The Garden of Exile was also niceish (it smelled good!), if not still slanty and terror-inducing with respect to broken ankles. Most freaksome of all was The Holocaust Tower, in which you are thrown into a dark pit with only a tiny sliver of light at the top that you can never reach. Also disturbing (but in a different way), were the 2 men who made it seem as though we had stumbled into the "Barbie Museum" as featured in the movie Rat Race. Oh, and the fact that only 52% of people don't hold a grudge against Jewish people (according to the museum's informal survey). Still, a worthwhile visit and a good way to spend the morning... since it was not the hostel.

Next was the Topography of Terror exhibit which is situated next to the last vestige of the Berlin Wall. This was WRONGLY reccommended to us by Taryn, who said she had to go back twice in order to finish it. The highlight for us was the pink car with pigs stencilled on it, parked out front. We were done pretty much as soon as we started (we clocked it 20 minutes, and that was pushing considering how fricken hot it was outside), so we continued on our way to Hackescher Market where we were meeting a walking tour group at 3 pm. We stumbled our way there, and confusedly walked about the square trying to find something to eat. It's awkward approaching people when you don't speak their language, and even moreso when you want to eat something but don't recognize any of the words on the menu!

The tour was really awesome, and we were relieved that Taryn had finally given us some good advice! Seriously, our tourguide, Sarah, was so good that we forgave her for not being the male British guide we had seen conducting the tour earlier. She even managed to compensate for the horrible other Canadian girl (sadly, Steph snuck a look at her notebook -- which, by the way, who takes detailed notes on walking tours?-- and her name was Stephanie), whom we unaffectionately named "Poodle Girl" due to her unfortunate hair. The tour was 4 hours, which allowed us to take in all of the major sites/sights in the city. We both admitted that we would not have been compelled to walk that much today if we hadn't paid good money to do so. So, the sights that we saw were: Berlin Cathedral, the Museum Island (where all the important museums are that we won't bother seeing (especially the Pergamon... take that Taryn!)), War Memorial, Babelplatz (this was really cool!), a parking lot where a big palace used to be (and is currently hosting a beach volleyball tournament), Hitler's Bunker, Tiergarten, Bradenburg Tor, Reichstag (superficial view, we are going back for the real deal tomorrow), Holocaust Memorial, Checkpoint Charlie, Gendarmenmarkt, the Opera House, Humboldt University, and a lot more that we are probably forgetting (good thing we were both taking pictures!).

In Gendarmenmarkt where the tour finished, there were two teens busking for money. The song choices were extremely questionable (as are most things here), being that they were: "I Wanna Be Like You" (from the Jungle Book), "Light My Fire", and "Love Shack". Then a dueling busker appeared on scene, but he only played one song (the one with the words "Now I've gone and ruined it all by saying something stupid like 'I love you'). We decided it was time to leave, so we hobbled off back to the hostel, determined to find Doner kebaps that Taryn (we really need to stop taking her advice.... although she was right about this one) kept babbling about. They were very good, especially for €2,30 and being the first thing we had eaten since breakfast... 12 hours ago... Anyway, we are now on our way back to the hostel, and we thing we have walked about 10 km (at least) today and have potentially broken our feet. All we want now is some water and to lie down!

Tomorrow's agenda: Reichstag (it is free to go up to its glass dome), Kaiser Memorial Church, Einstein exhibit, Victory Column, and the dome in Berlin Cathedral. Maybe we'll take the subway a tad to spare our feet. So, as they say in German: Chuß!

Dust cakes and Apple

2005-06-22T09:44:00.000Z

Ok, after one thwarted attempt at Shelter Jordaan, we're trying to post again. This time from the lovely Apple store on... some major Dutch street!

As you may have already heard, our flight was delayed by 6 hours, so although we are currently in A-dam, we're going to be leaving it in about, 3 hours. Months of careful planning, but we've learned our lesson: Air Transat is evil. While stranded in Pearson International, we saw many weird people who we hope to never see again. There were several tiny children, who we named thus: "Milk Junkie" (because he was wearing a shirt with that on it), "Ron Weasley" (because he had bright red hair), and Ron's sister "Scooter" (because she would propel herself along the ground with one hand at lightning speed!). There was also "Duty Free Swigger" who, upon hearing we were at Pearson until 9:45 pm, started drinking his whiskey he had purchased.

The plane ride itself was tolerable, although we did not appreciate the staff telling us that we should be thanking them for "sticking around". All right Air Transat, we'll "thank" you once we're back and have your customer service number. Even the free bottles of wine and headsets (saving us a whole dollar!) were not enough to placate us. Although, at least they did not show "Hitch" (they were going to!), but instead switched to "Cellular". Never heard of it? Good. The food was so bad: the cake coated our tongues in dust and tasted as though it had been in an oven... at some point (I exclaimed: It tastes like baked!). The pasta sauce actually managed to remove any flavour whatsoever, no small feat! Thankfully, we managed to get some sleep.

Once we got to A-dam, things went relatively smooth... until Laura got us off the tram one stop too early. It was a bit of a hike to the hostel, but we made it, our backs aching. We ended up missing the bike tour in lieu of showers, but we don't regret it since we ended up going to the Van Gogh museum, and then travelled for dinner at this little place famous for it's apple pie. We were a little unsure about the whole tipping thing, since it varies based on where you are in Europe, but ended up assuming tip was included in the price (along with taxes). We had this "lentil" soup, that was supposed to be curried, but was neither curried nor made of lentils. The bread was ok. However, scrumptious apple pie made up for it. Then it was off to the Anne Frank House, which was really neat, and if any of you ever get to A-dam, make sure you check it out. Surprisingly there were absolutely no lines, and in fact, the city itself wasn't that busy. Later that evening we went off to find the famous "Skinny Bridge" which has an identical bridge cousin that we first mistook for it. Then we found "Bridge with a (not so great) View", and walked back to the hostel (considerably easier when we're not lugging 12-15 kg packs on our backs!).

This morning, we went to the flower market, saw Beguine in the gutter, and the mysterious statue (in the Red Light district... To our fathers: don't worry! We weren't buying (or selling) anything!). Now it's off to try and find some "frites", pick up our bags, and then head back to Centraal Station where we'll depart for Berlin.

Keep the comments coming! We don't know how to say "bye" in Dutch, so: "Laters!"

Free Wheeling!

2005-06-20T17:04:00.000Z

Ha! Take that Dad! I totally can ride a bike! We have pictures and continued use of my limbs to prove it!

OK, off to the airport.

AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2005-06-20T14:58:00.000Z

muuuhuuuhaaaaahaaaa!!! The day has finally arrived and we are off to Europe to start our amazing race! With our break-neck pace we hope we don't actually break our necks! Speaking of which, Steph has to go "practice" "riding" a "bike" (I don't know what all the extra ""s were for), so that we can go on a 4-hour bike tour 5 hours after we get off the plane in Amsterdam (or as they say on Travel Punk, "A-dam"). Don't worry folks, Laura is taking lots of pictures of Steph trying to ride a bike (... into the canal).We leave for the airport in 2hrs & 15mins... Here are the things we look forward to:

airplane meals (ok, that one is just Laura)

trashy magazines! (that one's both of that... Finally an excuse to read about Paris Hilton and the "hot feuds" of the summer (do you think they are "icy feuds" in the winter?) and of course, Crazy Tom Cruise, guilt free!)

a good "current release" on the plane (wishful thinking... Laura's going to make them turn the plane around if it's Hitch)

Europe... I guess

Catch you on the other side! (Yes, the trip has turned us into big(ger) dorks)