The Europe Trip

Prague, Cesky Krumlov, Kutna Hora

2009-06-10T10:16:00.001-07:00

Prague Blog

On our arrival in Prague, Lins and I floundered as usual in our efforts to get to the hostel while navigating the new language, transportation network and culture- BUT - this time with the very reassuring knowledge that our dear (now especially dear) friend and eloquent Czech speaker Joel would be waiting to meet us back at the ranch. Though jet-lagged and modest, he came through with the mad language skillz we'd been looking forward to, and made it all a breeze. Even the rrrzzz's and trrch's. Prague is as lovely as everyone says. It has a kind of classic, genuine feel, due to the fact that so many of its historical buildings have survived the years and European wars unscathed.

However, my Czech Republic city of choice for this trip was definitely Cesky Krumlov. The architecture of the whole town was medieval to an extent that I didn't dare dream still existed outside of fantasy novels. And speaking of which, I got to try hot mead! It was always my favourite imagined fictional drink, and the reality didn't disappoint. Truthfully I'm kind of glad it's not all that common around here or I'm sure on my return I'd have become Toronto's most idiosyncratic drunk.

I'll leave it to Lins to tell her Prague tales-of-woe-that-are-actually-quite-funny-in retrospect, and there was a certain "picnic" that ended with our backs against a stone wall trying to edge our way down a steep hill in the pelting rain, but overall it was a blast and a half. Watching Jaws from the loft section of the hip Globe Bookstore cafe, camera wars to nab the best shots of the obsession-worthy scenery, ice-cream-based desserts with random garlic... and for the rest, let's get on with the pics.

Czech crystal. I think? I know Czech crystal is famous but I confess that I never totally figured out what it is.

Lins and Joel surprised me with this adorable marzipan pig. It was extra-special because I remembered my mom telling me a strikingly similar story of her friends surprising her with a Marzipan pig on her birthday during a trip to Provence. I was so tickled by the coincidence- until mom told me that none of that ever happened. So one or both of the mother-daughter team are a little loopy. Or forgetful. Or both. So no surprises there. Good thing this one's been documented. You see it, right? Right?!

The Golem... he's the robot-monster of Jewish lore you definitely want on your side. I like that he's brought to life by a word (usually one of the names of God, or truth) that I think in this case is inscribed in the middle of his forehead.

This was during our spook-tastic ghost walk, which turned out to a personal tour for the three of us. (In other news, sorry about the underlining, its a random blogger bug. )

We sat down here and our guide Carmilla proceeded to tell us of Ulrich, the over-zealous ghost whisperer who was murdered in this very alley by a horde of spirits who'd been inconvenienced by his conjurings over the years.

We'd been such a good audience for her tales that Carmilla brought us through a series of courtyards and passageways to her local watering hole. As you can see, it was single-naked-bulb authentic.

The night wore on, and I was confronted with that question every traveller must someday face while drinking in exotic locales: Should I try the flaming absinthe? But- Did You Know That- the flame is actually involved to make the whole experience less hardcore? While absinthe isn't made with wormwood anymore, it is 80 proof, which for someone like me means it might as well be. So, you burn some of it off to make for a refreshing anise-flavoured nightcap. Now You Know!

Flame in spoon

Flame in glass

The ossuary of Kutna Hora. It was OK I guess, but there wasn't really enough crazy bone furnishing for my taste.

For future reference, this isn't how I would prefer to be immortalized.

Cesky Krumlov

This must have been that time we ran into a hookah-smoking caterpillar and Lins ate some of his mushroom. Oh, she was bumping her head and out-growing rooms all day. Good times.

This is what my old Oxford Street band apartment looks like now that I'm not around to take care of it.

It looks like I was using a fish-eye lens. Seussian.

Bike Beauty

Cruisin' the Vltava

Sometimes it's the simple things.. Paddle-boating is so cheap and easy to do, but this time the view was so stunning and the ride so relaxing that it was way more memorable than many of the pricier things we did.

Lins of Arabia

Frieburg, Berlin

2009-06-10T09:52:00.000-07:00

Frieburg & Berlin

We were once again greeted by a familiar smiling face when we landed in Frieburg, a small city in the midst of the Black Forest. Frieburg is an ideal university town, not too big or small, fun night life (hillside beer garden= smart), arts, and hiking/greenspace within bike's reach. Some gorgeous walks, girls' nights in, an apartment move and a birthday later we drifted on to Anita's hometown, where her parents have lived for many decades. Unfortunately its long name is lost to my memory banks -please feel free to send a comment and correct the situation, Anita. However, I haven't and won't forget a lovely community, fields webbed with bike paths* and the elegant backdrop of huge white silent windmills always spinning in the background. As Anita's dad is fond of mentioning, the Champs Elysee's got nothing on it.

I think we've both been impressed with the planning in all the towns we saw in Germany... Generally the feel is of cleanliness, openness, plenty of greenspace, a focus on walk/bikeability... everything seemed geared towards sensible ways of making you and your movement comfortable. We have a lot to learn, Pickering.

And- oh yes- we experienced the legendary three-cake-a-day hospitality that my brother Dan (Den, to the Schneiders) has always raved over. Anita made sure we never went for too long at any point without a break for beer and incredible baked goods and cheeses, and Anita's mom's drool-inspiring hearty home-cooked meals couldn't have contrasted more with our usual slap-dash hostel fare. Of course, she would always respond to compliments with "Bah!", in what I'm told is typical German fashion. Other cuteness highlights include Anita's mom demonstrating how "Yo." is a common German greeting, and Anita's dad telling us stories (somehow with great success) in full-fledged German, insisting that our German was perfect.

Exercise, great food, beauty, warm welcome... am I raving yet? Maybe I should mention that as I'm writing this in a net cafe in London at around 8:15 local time the night before we head home and...

-We were in Galway yesterday, planning to travel to London today, and realized suddenly-under circumstances I'm willing to relate to you only after I've gotten home and had a long bath- that we needed to catch an overnight bus-ferry-bus trip to London... and we needed to catch it in an hour and a half if we wanted to get to the London airport on time for our flight tomorrow. Oh good.

- Then when we arrived here in that numb speechless state of exhaustion where you can only respond to more annoying news by staring dumbly and just hoping things will somehow resolves themselves on their own, there was a good 45 minutes of wandering with our huge packs tugging at our travel-sore backs to find the internet to find our hostel details followed by- no joke- two hours waiting and wandering in the rain and heaving rat race of a London crowd trying feebly to catch the confusing busses being mobbed by people on account of the Tube strike.

So if I wax a little sentimental about leisurely bike-rides with Anita through bright idyllic landscapes and otherworldly cakes, you'll understand! Anyhoo, on with the pics, and please do stand by for the rest of our blog... Because even though you can call us up and ask, how much more fun is it to have seen all the pics and stories online and ask about what you're into than to wait for our sieve-like memories to dredge up something interesting from our whole big trip? We won't be long, dear followers!

*Feel free to read on if you're in the mood for a mini rant: Why oh why don't we do that?! If we were to run some decent bike paths through Seaton and the Agricultural Preserve in Pickering, maybe the Pickering residents could actually use and see those spaces instead of the 5-minute blur of green on their 80k/hr way to somewhere else. I think such a simple physical change could make a big psychological impact and change the numbers and force of the argument against paving them over...Erg.

See? Smart.

Lots of nice rivers for a barefoot pondering of the big questions. Or at least pondering why that strange girl is taking your picture.

Anita's birthday goodies.

A beer with a view.

Train ride to incredible Black Forest hike. Lins and I agreed, it was an official Trip Highlight. Stamped and sealed.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, I noticed that our little picnic guests were honest to goodness Wood Ants! Aren't you excited? This is my favourite kind of ant. I had no idea I'd be visiting their native lands. Unfortunately I didn't find one of their big forest mound nests, but still. The scene below is actually a bit of a tragic drama- the one ant's abdomen was smashed into the rocks and she's flailing to get up, and her nest sisters are trying to help her out, but there's no hope of it unless German ants happen to have evolved complex surgical methods. Wipe that look off your face... when you have your own blog you can rant on about your boring interests, but until then you just have to deal.

Black forest cake, designed to replace any calories you might have misplaced during your Black Forest hike.

A jolly bunch of what I take to be religious figures? On a related note, Germany is so beer-oriented that not only are you allowed alcohol for lent, but the Black Forest monks have a special seasonal brew for the occasion. I tried it- holy yum!

Ok, 10 minutes left in the net cafe, and I forgot to mention almost ANYTHING about Berlin. If you're curious, check back soon and I'm sure Lins will have thoroughly amended the situation, it being her fave city. Below... a random concert I wandered into... Boss Hoss?

Poignant pic of Checkpoint Charlie

We took an "alternative walking tour", read graffiti tour. T'was cool, for the most part.

Although we sympathized with this classic artist-commune about to be torn down for re-development, we didn't approve of the decor. The smothered in messy graffiti thing again, really? Still? It's just so homogenous looking- the same from room to room, country to country even.

Wow. A vending machine for the most evilly marketed, utterly-submissive-posing-as-rebellious, public-health-nightmare-for-no-reason corporate product...covered in The People's graffiti. Cynicism meter overloading- can't stop spewing dashed adjectives- cough, pretensious-payola-garbage, hack. Don't be offended my smoky friends... I just want you to live. I'll admit that perhaps my London mood may be kind of "shining" through in this post, but still. Point made.

Free store? Bonus! Erg, on second thought...

Lins in the Kensington Market of Berlin, Kreuzberg. The Kensington Market of Toronto of Berlin, to be more precise.

Yes, this is as crazy nice as it looks.

Ew!

Fields of Mustard

2009-06-04T00:59:00.000-07:00

As Jules mentioned, Dijon was a nice break from busy Parisian life. The train ride there was particularly beautiful - fields of mustard seed abound! Dijon is the captial of the Burgundy region (Bourgogne), as well as the historic capital of the Province of Burgundy. From the 11th-15th centuries this province (located in what is now France and Switzerland) was home the Dukes of Burgundy and was a very wealthy and influential place.

Fun fact: 90% of mustard seeds used in dijon mustard are imported, mainly from Canada.
The shops were crazy-cute and chock full of mustard and herb-flavoured goodies.So... If you like decorative owls, you should probably check out Dijon. After walking around for about 10 minutes on the first day it was clear that they had a thing for the wise bird of the night. I busted out my francais and asked a shop owner,"Le owl c'est le animaux du Dijon?" and miraculously he understood me. It turns out that after the construction of the city's Notre Dame church, a small owl carved in the side of the church gained the ol' European rub-for-goodluck reputation, and ensures you will return to the city one day. There's the rub:
On my second day in Dijon, I took the Owl's Trail (Le Parcours de la Chouette) which guides tourists though the city's highlights.Get ready for more owls.
Anis and cassis are also grown around Dijon, and make tasty candies. Check out the candy-making machine. Still in use since 1850!A foreign, yet oddly familiar landscape near our Hotel. I guess a stripmall's a stripmall. It took 20 minutes to get to the city centre by bus.
Just a sample of the dijon selection at an average grocery store.

Part of the Owl's Trail went through the city's Museum, the Musee des Beaux-Arts. Some portraits of Burgundy nobility.

Wicked painting.Portrait of Hugues de Rabutin and Jeanne de Montagu.
The museum also holds the stunning tombs of Dukes Philip the Bold and John the Fearless and Margaret of Bavaria. The tombs took decades to complete and were sculpted by Flemish masters Jean de Marville, Claus Sluter, and Clause de Werve.

Tomb of Phillip the Bold.

Tomb of John the Fearless and Margaret of Bavaria.
The definition of detail.
Notre Dame church.

Polar bear in a park.
Leaving Dijon, the only train we could catch to Munich left at about 5:30am so we had to leave at an unforgivable hour from a hotel in the middle of nowhere that had Do-It-Yourself night staffing - that is to say, a pitch dark reception area and a keypad lock on the front door between the hours of 10-6am. The cab we ordered the night before didn't show up in the morning so we got a bit freaked out that we wouldn't be able to get to the station since payphones in europe don't seem to like us. However, we thankfully stumbled into HotelF1, where a delightful receptionist made us coffee and called us a cab. Love you HotelF1!

Much needed coffee and the beam of cabbie-promise.

Dijon and Munich

2009-06-03T09:07:00.000-07:00

I decided to lump Dijon and Munich into one post, because although they were lovely and fun, I had an odd feeling of not quite being "somewhere" in these two cities.
In Dijon's case, I think it was a matter of having just left a massive cultural epicentre for one of these quiet quaint towns with an impressive historical skeleton intact but not a lot of internally-based activity. In fact, we kind of appreciated its tiny-tourist-core-surrounded-by suburbs structure because the strip mall motel we stayed in reminded us of our native Pickering. We ate junk food and struggled through some french tv. Aaaah yeah, that's the stuff (it's amazing what you can miss after a while). It actually managed to out-genericize Pickering in the chip department, as you'll see below.

Dijon was... nice. Nice flowers, nice shops, nice parks.

Funny story about this bug: I grabbed it up in some little packet for mom (because doesn't it SO look dead in this pic?), and then when I took it out a day or two later to take stock of my souvenir stash, it started crawling! I'm fairly glad I discovered it that way, as it was a big 'un.

Beautiful last views of France from the train...

on the way to...

Munich. This town was large, had an impressive infrastructure, wild night life, and a thriving economy that outpaces a lot of the other cities in Germany, so when I first arrived and started exploring I didn't know understand why it all felt so oddly anonymous. In a later walking tour I learned that after it was mostly destroyed by WWII bombing, Munich was rebuilt as faithfully as possible like its former self. To me this explains its feeling of facelessness. I understand the desire to restore and retain historical roots, but one would think that to reproduce most of a place in a shape of the past could dampen its ability to grow into the future the way a city like Berlin has. Knowing that the city had had most of its previous architectural and economic character wiped clean in a war that doesn't bring it pride made all the fresh clean new faces of the old buildings seem a little ghostly and artificial (to me, the totally ignorant tourist).
But despite its architectural character, there is of course lots of real and happenin' stuff going on in in Munich. There is the famous beer scene... literally every person we met in Munich told us to go to the Hofbrauhaus, the famous pub where it's Oktoberfest all year round! ...we didn't go. But we did try the seasonal beer the monks brew in the Black Forest, which you can only get during lent. Holy yum! Also exciting was the Museum of Science and Technology, in which I discovered some ridiculously precise miniatures, posted for your enjoyment below. It's funny to me that they went to so much trouble when the exhibits weren't even about displaying miniatures... they were just using the miniatures to demonstrate agriculture techniques! This was another fulfilled stereotype-German designers do seem to think anything worth making is worth making very well.

Weird sculpture in the station

Almost poetic, eh?

That's totally how I felt that one time I forgot to wear pants.

Think this is a miniature? You haven't seen miniature yet.

This church has one of my favourite (or at least only) church-related stories ever.

Ok, so it was said that it only took 20 years to build this church, which seems preposterous. BUT, as the story goes, the devil saw said church from the angle shown in the picture just below. You can't see any windows, right? So he thought it was windowless, and thus appropriate for his devilish deeds. The devil told the builder he'd help him if he would just agree not to add in any windows, and the builder agreed- knowing that really there would be plenty of windows and natural light already.

When the devil realized this deception, he stamped his foot where you see imprint below and left Munich forever, which is why the city only has 20 murders a year! Maybe our city council should adopt a more devil-pact-oriented policy.

Lins in the hydroponic mall.

Baroque and Rococo garishness usually isn't my style, but when this church combined the ornate thing with an almost entirely pure white colour scheme, it changed everything. It was one of the more hauntingly beautiful churches I think I've ever seen.

A mysterious batch of chaps. One of them had a genuine mink- with face and all- wrapped around his bike handles.

What the?! Notice that members of Fairport Convention and the Pentangle are involved. Did I mention my birthday's coming up??

The museum of Science and Tech

And the wonderful miniatures. I have sooo many more of these amazing pics to show you when I come home. And in high-res too (sorry but sometimes upload speed has to take priority over quality when you're on the fly). Sometimes I'm flicking back on my camera pics and I'm like, " Hey, when was I in that cheese factory- Ohhhh, yeah."

We're still looking at miniatures. Just in case you were wondering.

The instrument science wing reminded me a bit of a Conconquidore Truidore stage.

Zut!

2009-05-28T16:27:00.000-07:00

Finally the Paris post! We arrived in Paris bright eyed and bushy tailed and the city didn't disappoint. I stayed in 3 different hostels over our 10 day stay here, all in the Montmartre district. Our first hostel was near the Sacre Coeur and the fabric district.
View from the Sacre Coeur.

This chat noir wandered throughout the area and chilled with us while we ate our crepes at a cafe. As we kept seeing black cats though, we started to wonder if the district had a secret black cat stash and was just pumping them out for us tourists.
If only all graffiti were as whimsical as Parisian graffiti.

Markets and cafes were everywhere. The neighbourhood markets tended to look like this:Une fromagerie.

Centre Les Halles with view of Notre Dame in background.
We caught our first French protest at Les Halles - from what we could gather it was a Sarkozy-critical demonstration raising awareness about the wrongful deportation of immigrants from France.
I went to a great contemporary art gallery and saw the work of (will remember artist's name soon) who covered canvases and the buildings huge windows in her work.
One of my absolute favourite spots was this canal in the northern part of the city that was always populated with locals hanging out by the water. There were great cafes and restaurants, and even a two-building movie theater on each side. It had an especially relaxed vibe at night when the canal became lined with 20-somethings having late night picnics. We're talking gourmet picnics with wine, pasta, fancy salads, and the oh-so-necessary checkered blankets. Those kids could cook!
It was a love from afar... Croque Monsieurs were calling my name everywhere in Paris. But their insistence on containing jambon complicated matters. We both knew it could never be anything more than a shopwindow romance :(
A made the day trek to the Palace of Versailles. After the first — and very brief — time I traveled to Paris I regretted not seeing Versailles immensely. I didn't want to miss it this time. It was a full day of grandeur and absurd opulence.
This was the room of a few different queens throughout history. The green upholstered chairs were commissioned for the birth of Marie Anntoinette's first child.

The famous Hall of Mirrors.
I couldn't believe how massive the gardens of Versailles were. I could only walk about a quarter of the area, it was just too vast.

The base of the Eiffel Tower.
Modern Art Museum of Paris

I checked out the Palais du Tokyo contemporary art gallery which unfortunately was between exhibits, though I did get to hang out at it's wicked restaurant and gift shop. I love that lamp!

The smelliest museum in the world! It may seem weird but the Paris Sewer Museum was quite cool. There was a lot of information on how the system needed to change during the growth of Paris from Roman times to present day. I found out that along with friend Emmanuel Bruneseau, Victor Hugo spent a lot of time surveying and mapping this underground network in order to gather information for Jean Valjean's adventures in Les Miserables. Apparently the book is of major historical value because of his accurate depictions of the system at a time when few people ventured into the poorly understood maze.

Mom, this one's for you. Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris! The very spot Angela Lansbury picked up her very own Dior gown despite all snooty Parisian obstacles.

A highlight of Paris for me was La Cinematheque Francais which I've wanted to check out since watching Bertolucci's The Dreamers. The Cinematheque was born out of Henri Langlois's attempts in the 30s to prevent films of the silent era from being lost. During WWII he and friends smuggled a large collection of movies for safe-keeping in France that were ordered to be destroyed by the Nazi party. After the war he continued to archive films and items relating to the film industry in general and amassed a museum collection which got funding from the French government. The museum also functioned as a movie theater that is famous for giving members of the French New Wave their film history lessons. A neat story about Langlois: In 1968 the powers that be at the Cinematheque were fed up with Langlois' disorganized work habits and arrogance and fired him from the institution. Students protested and letters of complaint from directors like Hitchcock, Kurosawa, and Felini came in threatening to no longer show their films at the Cinematheque. It worked! Langlois got his job back.

The new Cinematheque building was built a few years ago by Frank Gehry.
Replica of the metallic suit Brigitte Helm had to wear in Fritz Lang's Metropolis.
Early tickets to screenings from Langlois's film club.
There was a large collection of early experimental animation gadgets by people like the Lumiere Brothers and Edison.
Can you guess this famous skull?
Jules and I checked out the city Aquarium. Those are jellyfish in that blue tank, and some scarily still piranha.

Star Trek. Opening Night. Amazing.

Montserrat

2009-05-28T02:40:00.000-07:00

While in Barcelona Jules and I got up early to take a train to Montserrat, which we had heard from a fellow traveler was gorgeous."Montserrat" translates to "jagged mountain" in Catalan, and is composed of pink conglomerate, a form of sedentary rock. The site is home to Santa Maria del Montserrat, a Benedictine abbey that treats its guests to a legendary boys' choir concert every day at 1 pm. Every day that is, except for the day we decided to go. Unbeknownst to us the boys were on a day trip that day. Nonetheless, we were breathtaken by the mountain and the view it offered once you take either the funicular up to the monastery, or the cable car. Being slightly freaked by the intense slope of the cable car, we chose the funicular (a train that winds its way slowly to the top). Get ready for some serious scenery!

Early morning mist at the top of the mountain.

Views from the funicular.

Funicular station at landing of the mountain.

The monastery.

The view was incredible.

A bunch of teens were climbing this sculpture at the edge of a cliff while we watched with motherly concern.
Then this dude came and gave them a talkin' to.
Ahhh. Death avoided. Scenic beauty restored.

2009-05-23T14:29:00.000-07:00

Paris: Some dates... um, I don´t remember anymore, we´ll have to wait for Lins´post. Anyway, 10 days in Paris!

Well, this won´t be an original sentiment, but I fell in love the instant I landed in Paris. What might be surprising is that my first experience of it was the pee-smelling subway car, but the amour still managed to get through to me. That first impression would soon prove to be more than skin-deep.... My first night I wandered aimlessly into some street performers. The performers themselves weren´t really that exciting- it was just a hacky slapstick sort of show- it was the audience I was impressed with! Every time they asked for a volunteer they got upstaged... they´d do funny walks, dances, sing songs... I thought it was a weird phenomenon of that particular square, but then after some more wandering I ran into this ska concert and more of the same sense of flamboyance and fun. There were minivan moms full-out ska dancing behind their strollers!

Adding to my enjoyment was the now very familiar feeling French everywhere (in contrast with Barcelona). It was so good to get REAL french practice, and people appreciate when you´re both struggling through a more or less equally french-english conversation.

There was once again more to see than I can say, but I will mention that I randomly visited the Pompidou Centre one day and ran into one of my old favourites- Alexander Calder (you can probably find some of his work online, he sort of animates junk- but not like stop motion, he just moves it himself). I had always been a big fan of his circuis movie, and was surprised to see it playing. Then I walked into the next room to see the real pieces from the film right there!!

It wasn´t all fun and games I suppose... At any given moment if you turn 360 degrees in Paris you will see at least one couple making out, so that´s annoying... the keyboard was difficult, as I demonstrated to my sista-friend Allie in an email:

" Right now I'm struggling with this zut-full french keyboard... let me show you what I mean by re- writing this sentence as I normally would. Right noz Iù, struggling zith this wut6full French keyboqrd:::: let ,e shoz you zhqt I ,eqn by re-zriting this sentence qs I nor,qlly zould: Ridiculous, non?"

And food was prohibitively expensive. I mean ALL food, so I went on a crepe and fruit diet to save money. When I heard the walking tour guide talking about all the Van Gogh and Picasso types literally living as starving artists in Monmartre where we were staying, the whole thing felt a little too authentic. By crepe trois you´re pretty tired of crepes.

interlude: actually we´ve accumulated a few travel quirks as a result of the little discomforts like this, maybe they´ll sound familiar:

a) As my friend and travel guru Kerri advised, I´ve left most of the clothes I unwisely brought behind at hostels to lighten up. And it feels great! I recommend paring down your worldly possessions to anyone who needs a life freshen-up.

b) Every once in a while after a particularly grody hostel, Lins and I will suffer a kind of two-perosn mass hysteria and convince ourselves we have lice or some other kind of cooties, which leads to ape-like hair examinations every hour or so, when we feel a suspicious itch.

c) I´m now at least 17% composed of Nutella.

But mostly it was amour. France is the one place I´ve felt a truly burning need to return to so far, and at least I´ll be spending more quality time with our Little France next door in Quebec. But it´s true that it did kind of smell like pee sometimes. Just sayin.

ps- There are so many more truly beautiful pics that I didn´t include, PLEASE request a slideshow on my return.

pps- sorry this is turning into a bit of retrospective vs. a live blog!!

ppps- also sorry for some confusing sentences, I´m stealing some time at night so as to feel less regretful for taking hours on the computer

pppps- sorry for all the ps´s.

Dalida, a famous singer in 10 languages, but not English, so you don´t know her.

Lins and I visited a sewer museum, which was one of the oddest but also most interesting we´ve seen yet. This happy (if lumpy) family of rats for instance... what´s that all about?

It was a very genuine sewer experience. I had to leave early to get some smelling salts.

A pic of Lins forgetting that we were there to see Star Trek!!! Which was AWESOME. We had a great chat with an astrophysicist and her IT boyfriend right before- it was nerd-core TO THE MAX. The max, I tell you.

I spend a lot of time just chillin´ ´n´ parks. This one was unusual (Luxembourg, I think) because there were chairs all over the huge sprawling park, and this one crowded strip where you were permitted to use the lawn for sprawling.

The Calder exhibit was no photography, so I busted out some rusty sketchin´and gave it a whirl. This is a wire sculpture, so, hard to go wrong.
The Pompidou Square, my favourite lounging spot.

Cut that out, jerks.

Les femmes. La lune.

Our opera house experience...

We bought seats for 5 € where you have to crane your neck down to see the stage- it was more of a hole in the ceiling than a seat really. Until...

... they closed down our section and we were moved to the orchestra seats!! It was like being bumped from Ryanair economy class to Air Force One. I meant to have a pic of the improved seating in there, but Lins will have to cover me.

Sitges

2009-05-04T11:25:00.000-07:00

Our week in Sitges was so fun! It was so nice to see familiar faces and to be so welcomed by Julia's family and friends. It was great to be able to relax after a lot of wwoofing and hosteling and I found that the town quickly felt familiar. We did a lot of eating, suntanning, shopping, walking, and hanging out. Downtown Sitges is fairly small and easily walkable. My favourite store in town was Casablanca which was filled with pieces that were hand detailed, beaded and embroidered. They played early Billie Holiday tunes on a loop too - it was bliss. I spent a lot of time in there with a very patient shopkeeper and ended up getting my outfit for the wedding that Jules has posted. Some other highlights:

A shot from the train from Barcelona to Sitges.

Jules waiting out the rain before trekking downtown.

When we first opened the door to our room in the apartment we just laughed - it was such a treat to stay in a place so beautiful.

Yep, that's a chandelier in the bedroom.

The view from the living room to the balcony.

Our breakfast tended to look like this.
The beaches of Sitges.

The church.

The first time my toes touched the Mediterrannean. Yes, I'm a dork.
An example of Catalan. This plaque was in the wall next to a canon outside of the church area.
This is the pathway that runs the length of the beach.

Along the beach this group of kids sang Spanish folk songs and played guitar together really softly. It was sweet.
The Three Carneys of Frigid Waters.
After the jump.
This guy was awesome. He made really intricate and realistic sand sculptures and then camped next to them overnight to make sure nothing would happen to them. The dragon one was for St. Jordi (St. George's) day (April 23rd) , which is sort of like Valentines day in Spain - except the traditional things exchanged are roses and books. It's been declared International Day of the Book by UNESCO. Saint Jordi is the patron saint of Catalonia and you can read his story here.

A couple of hip cats.
What what!! When you order hot chocolate in Spain this is what you get. I don't think I can ever go back - this was delicious.
One of the many awesome restaurants we tried out. I ordered the curried rice and veggie dish - so good!

Unfortunately I don't have nearly as many great wedding shots as Jules. But here are a few.

The reception was held in the hills of Sitges - and man were they hilly. I took this picture level, the street was practically on a 45° angle.

Jules and Bill.
The view of Sitges from the reception.
Some of the gang chillin before Jules and I were catching our train back to Barcelona.
How I spent most of my time here.
With a liberal amount of this.
Love those palms!

Barcelona April 19th-21st, Sitges April 21st- 27th, Barcelona II April 27th- May 2nd

2009-04-30T12:28:00.000-07:00

Barcelona- Sitges- Barcelona-

I think we were both a little dizzied or even stressed during our first stint in Barcelona. It has this strange, disorienting quality to it where there's always a twist on your expectations, even beyond the fact that they speak less english than you might imagine. The streets are almost entirely gridded but have curves and diagonals running throughout so that you always end up at the wrong end... ordering macaroni and cheese gets you penne and tomato sauce... lemonade usually ends up as orange fanta... a bottle of champagne typically costs less than a cup of coffee... and the men are stylish. Zing!
Not at all to say that it was unpleasant. The people and weather were warm, the architecture gorgeous, and the street life bustling... but sometimes it just gave one a sense of being on unsure footing. I did see a more sinister side to the city's tricky nature during our second stay in the city- but I'm going to preface this story by saying for all my various "moms" out there that everything's 100% A-OK.
I was walking down a broad pedestrian strip and no one else was really around- which, in itself, had me feeling a bit odd, because everyone seems to be walking everywhere at every hour in Barcelona. Then this well-dressed guy but somehow "off" seeming guy approached me for directions to the Sagrada Familia. I was explaining it to him when this other man walked up and said he was with the Policia and began hassling the other man and accusing him of selling drugs, and looking through his bag, etc. Then he asked for my passport and to see in my bag, and I kept it at my side but kind of showed him from where I was... he didn't try to touch anything or go through it himself, but at one point he asked whether the 10 € he saw was all the money I had, at which point I inwardly freaked out but told him truthfully that I don't carry much on me for safety. Then he basically told me to watch out for pickpockets and sent me on my way. Maybe it all seems obvious reading this that there was some kind sketchy set-up- especially given that I'm writing it in retrospect including little suspicious details- but in the moment everything goes so fast, you're unfamiliar with the authorities, and it's just intimidating (especially when everything's in broken english). Only afterward did I even have my little Usual Suspects moment and thought about how the cop was in plain clothes and I only saw the badge for a second, and how he just popped up out of nowhere- even when he asked about my money I just thought he might be a corrupt cop looking for money. So its nerve-wracking to wonder how things would have gone down if I'd had a worthwhile bundle of cash on me, but as it turned out it's just a good ol' cautionary tale (I think the moral is that good packing can be the best protection for traveller's naivity).
Again, I don't want to give Barcelona a bad rap, and I think you'll see why from our pics. We both had a great stay and fond memories, especially near the end when we were more used to things and had our ten words of spanish. As for Sitges... it was just beautiful, beautiful, beautiful and wonderful and too much fun, and I think the pics will say more than I can here. I will mention that it was really something to be suddenly surrounded by so many familiar and loved faces in the midst of drifting around another continent. Endless thanks to Uncles Bill and Ross for their always ôverwhelming hospitality.... And for finally making it official!!

Barcelona April 19th-21st:

Santa Maria del Mar- a no-miss church in the gothic quarter

I think I'll do my living room like this when I get back.

Obligatory Sagrada Familia

As I think Lins mentioned in her posting, one of Barcelona's major charms is that there are nice little touches everywhere... what would otherwise be a bare patch of concrete usually has flowers, and most of the balconies are tiled underneath (thoughtful!)

You tell 'em, bin.

Sitges April 21st-27th:

The balcony from our Sitges apartment, sigh. So easy to get used to that... so hard to re-adjust to sleeping within graffiti-covered walls and staying awake listening for the swarming of the blood-stealing masses.

Lins and our young padawan, Maya

Lins keepin' it real... 80's style.

I ordered this, but then there were so many sad little fish faces!!! I was totally disturbed, but I had to eat them all, because imagine being killed and breaded only to be tossed in the trash. Sniffle, munch.

... about the "Cheese Bags", however, I have no regrets.

When the "expensive" cava is 6€, well... the rest is history.

From the country that brought you 3-pronged subway bars, here comes a less brilliant idea: the auto-mat, an all-night vending machine for burgers and other fast food.

going to the chapel...

This dapper pair of professionals have sung in prestigious halls packed with the discriminating upper-crust, and yet now they're nervous. And they don't even have to perform!

Mom decided to fill in the bridal gown gap by making me this gorgeous number.

Lins was glammin it too with a spanish-style outfit she'd collected around town.

A pair of six foot pianists... but I guess I shouldn't tell that one on here.

Barcelona April 27th to May 2nd

Anyone with a teenage son shouldn't look too closely at the upper- left of this pic (except do, because its an awesome photo catch, if I do say so myself).

My last couple days I geeked out at the aquarium AND the natural history museum. So much niftiness-drool.

Cuttlefish love. Or murder. Or both?

See, I wasn't hyperbolizing earlier about our hostel.

Montserrat

El Monasterio Bar

Glastonbury- April 17th to 19th

2009-04-30T10:32:00.000-07:00

Ok, truthfully, Glastonbury seems like a world away right now, but I´ll recollect what I can. Check back with this post later because I have another memory card`s pics still to add. Glastonbury is England´s all-purpose spiritual mecca. If you want meditate, read esoteric books, work your groove thang to some hip world music (or in my case, sway timidly in the corner), practice paganism, buddhism, whateverism, or explore some mystic history, it´s the village for you.
Speaking of esoteric books, I scored a Jack London novel about a real guy who survived the tortures of Folsom prison by either exploring his past lives through self-hypnosis (or going nuts, up to you). Laugh if you will, but on this trip I´ve ditched a book of Italo Calvino short stories, a Jorges Luis Borges, and Martel´s Life of Pi (sorry EVERYONE in the world, it´s wonderful, I know, I know). Maybe the constant movement is making me too restless for serious books, or the feeling of independence is bringing out my not-impressed-with-pompous-rockstar-dude-writers, but I´m interested to hear if y´all have your own quirky book preferences when travelling.

Anyhoo, there was a lot of kitsch in Glastonbury but it was fun. And when you see the pictures of the Tor (a distant peak with an abbey tower at the top), you can imagine how it adds a certain genuine mystique to the haze of spirituality and psychedelia.

Here`s the Tor, towering over Glastonbury (¿Tor-ing over... ?). And guess what. Because Lins wasn´t with me for this leg, I had to learn something! Did you know that: Glastonbury and its surroundings are the supposed historical inspiration for the mythical Avalon, King Arthur´s final resting place?¿?

If you´ve seen and loved Excalibur-which, as my friends and loved ones I´m certain you have- you´re probably asking yourself, "¿hey, isn´t Avalon supposed to be an island?" Good question friends. As it turns out, Glastonbury USED to be surrounded by a watery wilderness. (Perhaps you`re really asking yourself why my apostrophes and question marks are all upside down and backwards. Really I´m in a Barcelona net cafe...it´s hot and there´s latin music pumping in the background, and the guy on the computer beside me`s wearing a hip leather jacket and smoking...I´m never going to wait this long to blog again, it´s all too incongruous from week to week.)

Genuine, card-carrying pagans. I´m serious- they had a convention and I wanted to go but couldn´t because it was members only.

The church where the remains of Arthur and Guinevere were said to have been found in the 12th century. Most historians believe the discovery was a hoax the church perpetrated to raise its funds after a fire, but most pseudo-historians dismiss their skepticism as "no fun".

The original site of the find.

The tomb where the lord and lady were reburied.

Some local kids informed me on my last full day that the REAL resting place of Arthur and Guinevere was up on Wearyall Hill, and I still had a morning, so I climbed up. There was a lone tree next to a cracked, overgrown grave on a trail that no one was visiting. In my imagination this is a much better place for a king´s grave.

Tower of Avalon

Macro of Avalon

Lammies of Avalon

Tourist Girl of Avalon (ok, I´ll stop now)

(bun-bun of Avalon. sorry.)

Buenas Dias!

2009-04-29T09:14:00.000-07:00

Greetings from sunny Catalonia, Spain! Since we´ve had two stints in Barcelona, one before Sitges and one after, I´m going to condense them both into this post.

Our first hostel was just off of La Rambla, a long stretch of tree-lined walkway that rests between two traffic lanes. La Rambla is a popular tourist spot and has plenty of attractions along it like shops, cafes, buskers, some museums, etc. It was a nice place to start in Barcelona.

There are a lot of statue-people along this strip.
Also along La Rambla is the St. Josep la Bouqueria, an amazing marketplace - I haven´t ever seen displays so beautiful. Jules surprised me with some chocolates from there which were de-lish.

It´s still a happening place in the night.

There are scooters and mopeds everywhere.

The Sagrada Familia. This church has been under construction since 1882. Even with the cranes towering over, it was still a really stunning sight to see poking out of the trees when I wasn´t expecting it (which I wasn´t on my bus tour). Apparently this was Gaudi´s passion which he worked on for over 40 years knowing that he would never see it´s completion during his lifetime. Admission fees go towards its construction.
The more modern side of the Sagrada.
Jules and I also took a day to wander around the Passeig de Gracia, a street with a lot of Gaudi architecture and design. Below is La Predrera, known for it´s warped iron balconies.
A highlight of Barcelona for me was definitely my trip to Gaudi´s Park Guell, more north in the city. It´s a multi-leveled park that has Gaudi designed buildings and elements like benches and statues interspersed within it.

The park is on a hill in Barcelona, with a great view of the city and the Mediterranean.
This was my favourite part of the park - a grand area of columns underneath a park platform. the ceilings were all mosaic, with extra-detailed pieces dispersed throughout.

Everywhere you walked in the park there were buskers and musicians.

During my walk to Park Guell I saw this grafitti. While the second biggest city in Spain, Barcelona is also the capital city of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia (or Catalunya). We had a Sitges resident explain Catalonia´s relationship with Spain as sort of similar to Quebec´s relationship with Canada. Catalonia´s official languages are Catalan, Aranese, and Spanish.

When Jules and I aren´t busy getting lost in the city, I do take the time to appreciate that Barcelona has some great design elements going on. Many of the major streets are set up similarly to this, with either lane of traffic alongside a pedestrian strip in the middle. They are also big on lining streets and pedestrian walkways with lots of greenery.

The other striking thing about the streets are that nearly all the intersections look like this - with the very corners of the blocks "cut off". It´s sort of hard to tell in these pictures what I mean, but the intersections are more like octagons rather than squares. Apparently this was originally done for greater visibility for cars to turn, but it seems like now it´s more about added parking space.

The metro system in Barcelona is vast and reminds me of London´s in scale and design. It´s pretty simple to use once you understand it´s system. The metro also has neat design elements that add to the experience though, like their handpoles. Why have one, when you can have three at once? It may seem like a trivial thing, but it just makes so much sense!
You can also read an e-book while on your journey. That´s just plain nice.
And, the winner is.... How handy is this panel? It tells you where you are, what direction you´re going, and what stops are along the line.
Since we´ve learned that shopping at grocery stores is cost effective ;) we eat breakfasts like this.
And lunches like this. Whoever thought France was the land of the baguette sandwich was wrong, it´s Barcelona - they´re everywhere!
Check out this gelato!

ahh... the Spanish. Do you think this cover could make it in North America?

Oink
All in all, it´s been sensory overload in Barcelona. It is beautiful, packed full with public art, layers of old and new buildings, and bussling areas. Though, it can feel too big sometimes. There are so many sections to visit, and from one area to the next is not always very walkable. If you don´t plan out exactly what you want to do in the day, you can feel you´ve wasted your time not seeing much. Also an issue was a lack of English - both signs and speakers. I don´t mean to sound like a typical english-speaking tourist but there is a lot less english that we had imagined here. It just makes ordering food, following signs, asking for directions etc much more difficult. Also confusing is that the streets are laid out as grids in some sections, and not in others, which can make following maps hard for map-challenged people like ourselves. The experience has been awesome though, and we´ve even learned a bit of Spanish!

Until next time, adios!

Brilliant

2009-04-28T04:59:00.000-07:00

Hey all,
I know it´s been awhile since our last update but fear not, we´ll be unleashing the blogger floodgates within the next few days. Prepare yourself!

So, I´ll fill you in on my last few days of Cardiff. I couldn´t get enough of those arcades! During my time in Cardiff I was lucky enough to stumble across the brilliant Arcardes Project by artist Jenny Savage, an audio work that documented the nature of the Victorian and Edwardian arcades in Cardiff.

How it works is that you get an MP3 player and headphones from the city Visitor´s Centre and listen to pre-recorded tracks that correspond with different arcades as you wander around them. The tracks were an amalgamation of thoughts, feelings, history, anecdotes, etc about specific arcades by shoppers, urban planners, historians, landlords, etc. The idea was to wander around (which I did with a mocha or two), listen, and chill. It was by no means a guided tour, but I learned so much about the function of these indoor shopping streets, and people´s unique relationships with them. I really liked the way the information was being presented - it was sort of like walking through a busy marketplace and getting different voices and perspectives. For instance, I learned that this wig shop is the site of Cardiff´s first gay club during the early 80´s. The audio recording had a dude talking about the club´s decor during that time and him sneaking in to the club when he was 14. These types of stories really personalized the space, especially for a tourist.
More arcade pictures.
Cardiff Central Market, part of the arcades complex and a beautiful Industrial Era building.

Here is the finalized garden we made for the Royal Horiticultural Society show. Every single plant in the garden in edible! The show was a lot bigger than I had expected - there were some amazing plants and gardens there.

Here are some other gardens from the show.

A fellow Canadian in Wales! A bird sactuary had a booth at the show with different birds of prey on display. I got to pet this cutie pie, a Canadian Grey Owl (Amy, are you jealous? ;)
After the garden show a bunch of us Woofers went to the Cardiff Castle, whose website says is over 2000 years old and "has been a Roman Garrison, a Norman stronghold and in Victorian times was transformed into a gothic fairytale fantasy."

The top of the central tower... whose staircases were dangerously narrow and windy.

Since Jules left a day or two ealier than I from Cardiff, I was on my own for a few days and decided to check out Cardiff with the other wwoofers. One particular day we had intended on going to Brecon Beacons, a beautiful-sounding National Park, but time management was not our friend that day so we decided to find something closer and settled on Southerndown Beach, about an hour outside of Cardiff by train. It absolutely floored me. Gorgeous!
Cautiously dangling ourselves over a cliff.

Our lodging situation in Cardiff had us living and working with people from all over: Australia, England, Vietnam, New Zealand - all but Wales! We had a dinner party once and it was a strange revelation that no one at the table of 14 or so people were actually native Welsh. We did get to add some great British words to our vocab though:

Twee (overly cutesy)
Brilliant
Lush (sort of like "cool". Apparently this is a Welsh teenager thing).
Boot (which means the car trunk)
Satsumas (what they call clementines)
Posh (apparently when I attempted a British accent I sounded "So posh!")
Rubbish (I always laugh when I hear this one)
Minging (ugly)
Winge-ing (whining)
Jumper ("sweater" isn´t a word there)
Pants (are underwear, which I think is more of a New Zealand thing)

That´s all for now folks, hope you all are well!

WWOOF Wales- 10th to 17th

2009-04-16T05:49:00.000-07:00

note: WWOOF= willing workers on organic farms... the idea is that you exchange a certain, hopefully FINITE amount of farm/garden work for your room and board.

Wales is a bit of a sleepy town, but the whole WWOOFing situation has provided more than enough "experience" for this leg of the trip. I'll start off by mentioning that overall it's been a pretty good deal for us. We've gotten muscle tone, humour, and wisdom out of the WWOOF deal, (in addition to a cheap place to stay) for only a few six hour days of fairly light gardening. I have important words for anyone considering WWOOFing, however. Clear the details- what your accomodations are, how many hours you'll be expected to work, what kind of work you'll be doing- well before you get there. We just happened to have confirmed with the host (in an assertive fashion) that we were doing 5 six hour days in exchange for 7 days of lodging, as her ad had suggested. If we hadn't, it would have been a NIGHTMARE, whereas for us it turned out more like one of those disoriented, carnival-like surreal dreams that are alternatively disturbing and hilarious.
The other WWOOFers did not check their details. They had indefinite amounts of work and usually ended up working well over 12 hours, and no set reward days in exchange. One extra-meek girl got an especially raw deal... she arrived, essentially worked for eight days straight without stopping, and then only had 2.5 days off at the end. I remember one day she worked her huge shift at the garden site (which started at about 7 am), came back to help us make dinner, was interrupted to do more work in the yard (after dark), and when we finally saw her inside at around 9:00 pm and asked if she could sit down to the now cold dinner, she said, "One minute, I just have to get her a glass of wine...". There was a bit of exploitation going on for sure. We felt bad going off at 2 pm and leaving them to their at least 6 hours or more of work, but not as bad as if we'd stayed. So, word to the wise.

The Site

Sad sacks wishing they done better planning so they could be on our side of the fence.

It's neat/scary to be tossed into a real slice of life in your host country. You have to navigate the dynamic of your host family, their friends, and your fellow WWOOFers in a fairly intimate setting. Truthfully there were some family issues making themselves apparent, and things could get fairly awkward and tense around the hosts. I won't get into specifics, but let's just say even with our pacificist values we were understanding towards the youngest son's obsession with hunting and guns. Although initially Lins wasn't overly impressed that her intro to the house was a 12 year old boy pointing a large air rifle in her face.

As if the hunting-ethics blend wasn't odd enough, everyone in this supposedly sustainable lifestyle-oriented house- including the hosts- kept trying to force meat on us.

Not much to see in Cardiff, but it had some cute stuff, generally warm people, and character. There is a bit of a fondness for public drinking. Oo, here's an anecdote: On the last day I was in the city we tried to find a breakfast spot and ended up wandering for over an hour. We discovered that nothing opens for food before 12, but the beer is already a-flowin. When we finally find a spot to eat, this was me trying to order-
"I'll have a vegetarian breakfast and a large mocha, please."
"Ok, breakfast and a large vodka."
- to be fair, he was busy pouring a lot of beers at the time.
You'll see the distillery for the local brew below... Brains. We tried it- turns out it's about as appetizing as it sounds.

Nice park life, sunny day. Check out the THREE accidentally caught-on-camera couples sunning. Sigh.

Cool castle beasties

I'd like to see even our comedic genius Zicheng make a pun out of this sign.

Purdies!!

Knackered

2009-04-15T11:48:00.000-07:00

Howdy,

This will just be a fairly short update. We're at a net cafe now and don't have too long. This is a sleepy town and we haven't been able to get to internet cafes often. Also, we've been pretty tired lately because of the work here in Cardiff. We've been working on a show garden - details later. For now, here are some pictures!

Cardiff

Bute Park, next to where they're holding the garden show

Cardiff Castle - it's in the centre of the downtown core of the city - I haven't visited it yet, but will within the next few days.

Cardiff is known as the 'City of Arcades' - which are sort of like indoor streets. They have the best shops in them, and are quite stunning. You can weave through city blocks using them - kind of like winding alleyways.

Neat plants I walked past on peoples front lawns.

Jules wwoofin' in the garden.

The wicked dinner Jules, I and Emma, a fellow wwoofer made a few nights ago.

Post soon!

Wwoof

2009-04-11T10:01:00.000-07:00

Just letting you know we're well and safe in Cardiff!
Will post soon!

7th- 9th

2009-04-09T04:05:00.000-07:00

*note: When you're looking for new posts, please check a few posts back... I'm finding that if I saved a draft a couple days ago, the new post shows up behind the other ones. Also, I might add pics onto old posts a bit later.

We took the Auld Reekie ghost tour the night of the 6th, and even I didn't get scared (except by the hygiene of the bar where we got our free drinks afterward). Until.... I saw my pics afterward!!! Ooooo....

Ok, lame jokes aside, something kind of spooky did happen to me the other day: I was wandering around and ran into an old acquaintance- Robin, who used to ride with Allie and I at ol' Southbreeze Stables. What! I can't believe I didn't have the presence of mind to take a pic, but I was too surprised.

Botanical Gardens

National Geographic worthy crane photos, if I do say so myself.

Moody auld buildings

The hottest tatties in town apparently. I think by "hottest" they mean "most smothered in butter and cheese", but hey, works for me.

Thistle-aneous

Lins wants to get a ring in every city, and my version will be brooches.

There are eerie little nooks in the narrow alleyways

Pidgeon in meta-nook

I went to a punk show by the name of Danananakroyd, which I picked mostly for the name. I would love to have a better reason to go to a show- espcially now that I've tried finding one arbitrarily- so if you know of any upcoming where we'll be, PLEASE do let us know. If you're a big Dananan fan, sorry, but I find I can't get into punk since the original In It For The Shoes disbanded... when you've had the best...

Southern Cross Cafe (where we were excited by the thought of veggie haggis, only to find it suspiciously similar to the glob of beans veggie burgers)

A bunch of cute safety conscious Scotkins, all toddling down the street going "HIYA!!.... HIYA.... HIYA!!!.... HIYA!!...". Which they continued in double volume and intensity after I said Hiya back... Kids that other people have to deal with are so cute ;)

Greyfriar's

A Wee Edinburgh Update

2009-04-08T10:24:00.000-07:00

Okay, maybe not so wee.

Yesterday I went to check out Greyfriars Church. Greyfriar Presbyterian Church opened in 1620 and has a few more modern stories associated with it. One is the Greyfriars Bobby, a little Skye Terrier whose owner John Gray died in 1858. Apparently the dog was so attached to his owner that he followed the funeral procession and ended up guarding Gray's grave for 14 years, leaving only to eat and drink. Here he is commemorated below in a statue. There's a pub named after him now too.

And here's his tombstone.

The Kirkyard next to the church also has some serious ghost stories attached to it, the most famous being the MacKenzie Poltergeist who is supposed to be violent. The story goes that while he was alive MacKenzie sentenced a lot of Covenanters to prison/death and is also buried in the graveyard. In 1999 a homeless man disrupted his grave, and ever since people have felt threatened when they go into the graveyard.

This is the gate to the locked off portion of the graveyard. A few tour companies unlock this portion of the cemetery to take people on tours here at night. People claim to have bruises, scratches, been suffocated, fainted, rocks thrown at them, etc. I never went inside, but I hung around for a while. The City of the Dead tour boasts that this site has the "best documented paranormal phenomena" ever.

View through the bars.

From apparitions to appetizers!
This wee restaurant has the best potato!

If you look closely you can find a potato under all that cheese'n'beans.

Our breakfast spot, Spoon. Love the decor!

We're taking the overnight bus tonight to London, then another bus to Cardiff. Too much bus!!

xoxo

Ta!

2009-04-07T03:30:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! I'm so happy we have blog followers! Thanks guys - it gives us more motivation to do the net cafe thing and do updates.

So after our last day in London we took an overnight bus to Edinburgh, which we narrowly avoided missing due to a tube mixup. We literally had to run full speed from Victoria underground station to Victoria Coach station with our packs on (about one major city block in TO). Not fun. The bus definitely wasn't the greatest experience of my life - mostly because we got stuck in the back with a bunch of rambunctious teenagers getting drunk. Kids these days... We're pretty sure they were Russian and kept wishing Joel were there to translate for us! We got into Edinburgh at about 8 am, and the city was still sleeping, and not much was going on. We had to wait until 1 o'clock to check in so we left our bags at the hostel and wandered the city. It's strikingly different from London in that it's mostly one colour - a brownish-grey, and the buildings are all pressed closely together, with not nearly as many gardens or even flower beds interspersed throughout the city. It has it's own unique charm and is full of friendly people and lots of fellow travellers. Edinburgh's known for its stone tenements, which are everywhere and very tall. Here are some pics of the city:

There are all sorts of free museums in Edinburgh. I went to the Museum of Childhood, which was a great find. Here are some highlights. (Side note, the woman at the counter here called me a 'lass' and said 'ta' when I gave her money for postcards!)

Child chimney sweeps.

On the first night here we checked out an open mic night at a pub close to our hostel.

In my first 2 days here I took 3 different bus trips aroung town to see different sites and learn a bit about the town. Jules and I were doing different things one of the mornings that I took a tour, but I managed to spot her from my bus hiking up a hill! If you look closely you can see a blurry Julia in this pic:

I took a trip the Edinburgh Castle, which was a delight to see. There were different museums within the castle grounds, which was basically like a smaller city within walls built on a cliff. Here are some highlights:

Approaching the castle.

Inside the castle walls.

View of downtown from a look out.

In the Military Museum within the castle is the painting The Thin Red Line.

The Military Museum had a great contemporary photography exhibit.

A truly massive gun. It would fire thouse BOULDERS to the left.

Last night Jules and I went on the Auld Reekie Terror Tour which took us into the underground vaults of Edinburgh. 'Auld Reekie' is apparently an affectionate name for Edinburgh, meaning Old Smokey because of the plumes of smoke it used to release from so many wood and coal fires. The tour guide also told us about the city's filthy, murderous, and torturous past. It was pretty grusome and a lot of fun. Some pics: The poorest people of the city used to live in these caverns - with absolutely no light. They couldn't afford candles.

Ghostly!

So we have 2.5 more days in Edinburgh and there a still a bunch of places I'd like to visit. I might not get a chance to blog again before we go to Cardiff, Wales - our next stop. We're staying there for at least 7 days to WWOOF by helping to set up a permaculture show for a woman who specializes in edible gardens. I miss you guys, and hope you all are well. We'll be in touch soon!

I'll leave you with a Robert Louis Stevenson poem about a leerie (lamp lighter):

The Lamplighter
My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky;
It's time to take the window to see Leerie going by;
For every night at teatime and before you take your seat,
With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street.
Now Tom would be a driver and Maria go to sea,
And my papa's a banker and as rich as he can be;
But I, when I am stronger and can choose what I'm to do,
O Leerie, I'll go round at night and light the lamps with you!
For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door,
And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more;
And O! before you hurry by with ladder and with light,
O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him tonight!

Edinburgh 5th- 6th

2009-04-06T12:22:00.001-07:00

End of London Stress Madness pre-amble (also check last london post for a few more pics): On the 5th we decide we have "just enough time" for a special meal before we caught our train, so we sit down at a hoity-toity Indian place, where the menu informs us that, " Guests may be asked to leave at any time for no reason." We are subtly but persistently made to feel as though this was directed at us. The service is so slow "for our kind" (unpressed pants, american-like accents, too many bags?...), that we head back to our hostel to collect our bags from the baggage room a little flustered. We head up to Overzealous Night Manager's desk only to be informed that there are no bags at all in the luggage room..............................................................................................................................but of course what feels like ten minutes later he lets on that it's just an HILARIOUS joke! So we hustle and bustle to the station, quite nervous at this point with the realization that we only have 45 minutes to deal with the Tube AND find our bus (if you've ever taken london transportation you'll understand). We pick out what we think is the right train, ask TWO people to confirm that its heading to Victoria Station, only to have it go out of service two stops later on the wrong line. Things were starting to look pretty seriously daaaaaannnnnggg by this point: 20 minutes to head back to our original station, find the right train, get to Victoria, and find the bus. As Lins mentioned, this story ends as all such stories do... performing bus schedule calculus while staring up at the big sign to figure out our platform.... squinting confusedly at signs pointing on ambiguous diagonals to try to find the bus station (it's in the ceiling?).... and finally sprinting and panting with all our bags flapping (and who-knows-what faling out) to arrive just on time. The bus may have been filled with obnoxious drunken kids who managed to lock themselves in the bathroom and pass out, but we were still most pleased to be on it. And now we're in....

Ed-in-butta!!

Edinburgh is more relaxing than London, and quirkily charming. Particularly noteworthy:

- love of 90s music: we've heard loads of Alanis, REM, vintage Greenday, that Semi-Tone kind of life song.... And not just in the background... at open mics, on people's ipods.

- big boots, pleated dresses

- thistle themes (have some pics to post next time!)

- veggie burgers= piles of beanslop on a bun

- old-fashioned "sky-scrapers".... the architecture here is a weird combination of oldschool materials and today's go big or go home attitude. There are lots of fun creepy nooks to explore.

I read in the blurb for the ghost tour that Lins and I took that there are active witch covens at work in Edinburgh, and I had visions of making wiccan friends that would show us underground historical sites, druid circles, and ocean bonfires unbeknownst to other tourists, but no luck finding them yet. A girl at the hostel checkout counter had a pentagram on, but they are kind of fashionable here, and the temple they had on the ghost tour looked LAME. If anyone wants to look into contacts/events for me in Wales or Ireland (since my net time is limited), please do, and I'll reward you with pictures and tales of occult yore. Oh, the yore!

Home sweet hostel
Apr. 6th: Julia's Great Journey

I've got lunch, my insoles, my writing book... and I'm off up that big hill I'd been admiring from afar-

- only to realize 45 minutes later that I'd actually scaled a smaller, less impressive hill. The hill I was SUPPOSED climb is pictured below, from the exact point where I realized my mistake. Those familiar with my navigational skills will not be surprised.

When you get lost as often as I do, you can't afford to be a quitter. On the way over to the REAL hill, I passed by the parliament (I think). I remember hearing that these odd little structures are "thinking pods" so that politicians can look out and reflect and gather wisdom.

The journey begins! (again)

The parliament buildings from higher up.

Edinburgh Castle.

So much steepness ahead... and I've already walked so far!
The epic forces of time and geology unite in a beautiful celebration of... the macarena.

So many steep steps... sheesh.

Triumph! (yes, that is a slightly higher peak in my background, but doesn't it look overcrowded and over-rated?)

Modest lunch, grand view
If you're about to reach for a sensible bottle of water before your massive hike, and a little voice in your head says, "Oh, but "Sarsaparilla" sounds so FUN!"... that voice is NOT your friend. What IS Sarsaparilla?

I came across a very poorly maintained cemetery that sort of disintegrated into a half-cemetery half-forest in the back, which I explored for signs of witchcraft.

It felt like the sort of place where a tourist might get eaten by a cur-sed tree.

Aw.

You know it!

April 2nd - 3rd

2009-04-03T13:46:00.000-07:00

The first "day" (a yesterday and a tomorrow all interpliced) was all a bit through-the-looking-glass feeling, as expected. But generally everything's actually been shockingly smooth. And, of course, stunning and fun and beautiful. We both got maybe 2 hours of sleep on the flight, had another 2 hour nap after settling at the hostel, strolled away the afternoon and evening, went to bed at 11:30 and woke up at 8:30. Eat that, jet lag. My hypothesis about how we reset ourselves so nicely to Big Ben is that if you let yourself get disoriented enough your circadian rhythms just give up and submit to your will.

In the sullen teenage files of my memory, London was rude and aloof, overcast and piled with sooty oppressive-looking old buildings and uptight imperial history. Buuut... from the first bus ride to Gatwick- where we were dazzled by gorgeous hobbiton-like villages, adorably incomprehensible signs and the world's happiest sedan-sized frolicking spotted pig- it's been turning my old impression and a lot of the usual stereotypes upside-down. (And really it had already won me over minutes after we left the plane with those turbo hand-dryers in the airport that make your skin ripple like you're in a wind tunnel. )
It's been:
a) Consistently mild and sunny without a drop of rain.
b) Oddly exotic feeling... I hadn't remembered but they have everything ranging from Magnolias and Sycamores to palms and Umbrella trees. And hilarious kooky birds.
c) Populated by quirky, fashionable characters with huge varieties of accents and hospitality styles... Even within our hostel, which has a Jekyll and Hyde set of managers... Day Guy is sullen and reluctant to explain even where the bathrooms and keys are, whereas Night Guy is manically friendly and chatty, calls for us on a non-earned first name basis when we're trying to sneak out and avoid talking, and pushes glasses of juice on us when we're trying to go to sleep. Jury's still out on who we like less. And also on which of the two chose the pornographic death-themed surrealist paintings all over the hostel walls. Actually my money's on Lurch the Bathroom-Stalking Janitor. But no bedbugs or headlice or beer-soaked masses, so disregard the last couple sentences and chalk me down as No Complaints.
d) Unreasonably well-designed and beautiful and interesting... I don't know what else to say. On that first walk literally every corner revealed a new building or landscape that was intriguing and awe-inspiring and gorgeous in completely in its own way. We basically did the whole core length-wise, and hit up Buckingham Palace, the Thames and the London Eye, Big Ben, the Wellington Monument, and several parks, right off the plane on almost zero rest. Best idea ever! Who'd have thought?
e) Mostly as insanely priced as you might think, but today we were pleasantly surprised by some affordability loopholes... and are now ONLY buying daypasses for busses (£3.50 for the day, vs. the embarassing £16= $34 we managed to spend going like TWO STOPS that we could have walked in 15 minutes yesterday. And let's not even talk about the $11 "meals" {good ol' BK for dinner and Benjy's... the lunch of bone-and-veiled-filled-to-the-point-of-being-a-dissectable-specimen fish & overboiled peas featured in Lins' pics}).. and are eating from grocery stores.

Anyhoodles, bulletpoints are that we're safe and snug, the G20 fears were greatly over-rated (the only protest we saw was Tibetan... talk about anti-climactic), and we're havin a blast. So enjoy the pics and please comment EVERYONE, because we miss you and love you and want to hear from you but don't want to spend our days bogged down in our inbox. The trip already feels too short!!
Ride out

Not provocateur in the bunch... and their chants weren't even all that catchy.

As predicted by my ever garden-oriented mom, the trees and flowers are well ahead of our spring schedule.

We asked this woman to snap our pic in front of Big Ben and got scammed into doing shots of her and her huge tour group with all of their various confusing cameras... only to find that it was blurry. The third biggest scam next to the Benjy's fish and chips and the Tube.

Random Beauty

I guess it wasn't ALL lovely gardens and stately buildings.

Revisiting the cemetery lins discovered earlier... mom, these blue flowers are for you!

On the last day we suddenly went "Wait.... DOUBLE decker!"

Park we hit up when the Sherlock Holmes Museum was closed... sorry Robs!

Wetlands Centre
Best ducks EVER. Not only because they're like neon green somehow, but also you have to hear of their call (i have a video).... they're exactly like a group of old men discovering a pleasant or unpleasant surprise.. "Wooo..... woo, WOOOOO!"

London

2009-04-03T13:33:00.000-07:00

Hello all! It's our second night in London and we decided to hit the internet cafes and do a bit of blogging. Our flight was longish and stiff-neck inducing - it's impossible to sleep on overnight flights! When we landed we got on a bus from Gatwick to Victoria Station. It took us through a more rural part, south of London, that was beautiful.

Jules at Victoria Station. We were a bit jet-lagged while trying to find the tube.

The subways in London are so small and toyish-looking, very colourful, and they always tell you on speakers what cool stuff is in the area of each stop - very helpful because the underground can be Big Time confusing - and expensive. £4 ($8) for a single one-way fare! We used the tube until we realized you can get an all-day bus pass for £3.50.

No real reason for posting this, I just love this picture!

Some streets/things in Kensington, near our hostel:

Baaaad fish'n'chips I ordered and couldn't quite eat. We went a little too 'greasy' spoon and it was a big mistake. Never go to Benjy's!

We took a walk along Cromwell street, and kept stumbling into amazing buildings and artwork. Here's a sculpture made from layered glass.

The Natural History Museum.

We ran into this Tibet protest - the only G20-related protest we happened to see.

Jules and I at the Queen Vic. monument.

This is part of a WWI moniment that I really liked - a sleeping soldier.

We can't walk anywhere without seeing ridiculously lush and fabulous gardens. Here are some around Green Park, near Buckingham Palace.

The London Eye at night - it rotates so slowly that you can barely see it go.

The Thames

Extra points for spotting the hidden soldiers

This morning I went exploring and found Westminster Cemetery - probably the best part of London that I've seen yet. It was packed with birds and squirrels and was SO green and lush. It had the perfect cobination of maintainence and overgrowth. It was other worldly:

This squirrel followed along side me for 5 minutes and then tried to climb up the back of my pant leg!

My kind of eye cream:

Hope you all are well - and we'll try to update often!

We're Off!

2009-04-01T08:25:00.001-07:00

Hello all,
This blog is for friends and family who want to follow us along on our European adventure! Please feel free to post comments!

Farewell Canada!