Back in London - Tower, More Improv, lunching in Richmond
America!
New York - Daily Show, Central Park, Karlena and Dave, Financial District, Museums oh my, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island
West Coast:
Vegas - gambling souless town
Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon
Sedona and rocks
Phoenix petrol station (and meeting Kiwi related folks)
San Diego - ZOO!
Los Angeles - the sign, Hollywood Boulevard, Tar Pits, Disneyland
This WILL be written...
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Ou est la baguette?
So as Jen said we went to CERN the particle accelerator which will open a worm hole into the future or a black hole or perhaps find the Higgs Boson, the particle GOD rides on. It was pretty awesome from a nerd point of view, we got to see the where the particle for the accelerator starts, the machine looked pretty futuristic and the rooms all had radiation warnings and such. Also because the accelerators have built up over 40 years of testing some of the areas are like walking into the past or like a Dharma Initiative Lab, all awesome curved Bakelite surfaces and chairs. So anyway the tour was pretty rad, and gave lots of science background. So now in the last instants as the Earth is pulled into the CERN created black hole we will be able to say we saw the machine that did this :)
So back on story, Jen and I travelled from Nice to Paris by train. Which was a pleasant enough trip didn't have the nice mountainous views of the alps though.
We arrived at Paris at about 4, so we had some time to comfortably get to our hotel before it got dark. We had to take a couple of subways, which wasn't too bad. At the train station we bought 2 ten trip subway passes. Which actually just pumps out 10 individual trip tickets. LOL so the machine pumped out 20 of these little tickets which Jen collected up and held in a big stack. Our hotel was south Paris but still within the big ring road. The weather was good so dragging our cases the couple of blocks from the subway to the hotel wasn't too bad.
The hotel concierge was pretty intense, he put on a comedy act for us, about 20 mins in we were ready to run. But eventually we got away and went up the tiny elevator to our room, which was quite awesome and came with little cookies and coffee in the room. Plus a TV that showed CNN and a toilet that was very small, so small you had to sit sideways on it.
So that night we went out to a nearby restaurant and had some nice food which I've forgotten about, plus milkshakes I think...
The next day we headed out into Paris, on the way to the sub station we picked up some pain au chocolat, various fruits and a baguette. We headed to the Eiffel tower, we got our first peeks of it on the train.
The Eiffel tower is pretty awesome. It looks like scaffolding and girders but it is so iconic and in such a beautiful place. On our approach we came through a nice garden, which of course has some dodgy guys trying to sell Eiffel tower miniatures. But also has a really nice little duck pond which at that time (spring) had a bunch of cute ducklings. So after watching the ducklings do cute duckling things for a while we went to the tower. The lines below it were quite large, the shortest line was the one for the stairs, which we intended to take anyway. So we walked our way up the tower, all 600 steps. It was a little crowed up top but the views were amazing.
After walking our selves back down we decided to go for a stroll up the seine (as if our legs needed the work out) It was pleasant enough, but on the way we saw this lady who found a “gold” ring on the ground right beside us, this was somewhat remarkable, but by now both Jen and I are pretty jaded to people trying to give us stuff. This lady decided we should have the ring because we watched her find it? We said no maybe you should take it to the police someone is looking for it, but she really wanted us to have it. Anyway we walked on, absolutely sure we had dodged some sort of scheme, but not sure for the scheme was supposed to work. So we stopped and watched her, and sure enough she found the ring beside the next couple to walk along, they for some reason reached into their wallets and gave the lady cash. Weird.
Speaking of which the current craze in Paris seems to be giving people a note to read that says how bad your life is and that you should give them money. There were heaps of girls like this. Also on the metro we had people giving spiels and asking for money, these spiels were in French so we didn’t understand, but they must have been pretty convincing because one guy who did it was enormously fat and another was a women with a nice looking handbag and decent make up, they didn’t look like they were doing too bad. But anyway back the beautiful stuff in Paris. We spent all the rest of that day just walking along the river. We saw Notre Dame, didn’t go in just looked from the outside. Nice. Just in front of it is the centre of Paris where they measure the distance to all other areas from. We saw a cute old couple kiss on it so decided to do the same. Later on we stopped for a toilet break at a McDonalds and half an hour of walking back along the river later, Jen realised she didn’t have her ring, which made me realise I didn’t have our bag. Opps. So we jogged back, luckily my bag was there, unluckily Jen’s ring was not. So a little dispirited we went and got some dinner. I can’t quite remember what we had, I’ll scan the photos and figure it out but I think Jen had foie gras with sweet wine, which was pretty awesome. (Jen says – we had foie gras and salad, and then steak and lamb chops, and it was SO GOOD)
The next day we headed out again stocked with pain au chocolat and fruits. This time we planned on doing the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Élysées down to the Louvre which was open late that night. But it was windy and raining pretty hard. We still did what we planned but it was perhaps a little less pleasant than a stroll in Paris could be. We paid the money and got to go up the arc museum and the chance to stand on top of it. Which was nice, good views but the rain was coming in sideways and our umbrellas were failing. So after that we went to the McDonalds on Champs, McDonalds is our refuge when we need to pee or want a familiar atmosphere. We sat with hot chocolates and watched tourists getting soaked. The Champs is not as pretty and elegant as I had heard, I think the big chain shops and fast foods have swept in and stolen its charm.
After our drinks we did a little shopping, I got some jeans that I desperately needed, the holes in my old ones were starting to attract attention. We strolled the rest of the way down the Champs to the Place de la Concorde, which is a nice open space with a big plinth and some nice fountain statues. So we were able to enjoy that and the park in front of the Louvre, can’t remember what it’s called, but it too was nice, if a bit damp from the wet (it had stopped raining). At the Louvre we decided to focus on a couple of wings, I can’t even remember which, the whole museum was a blur of statues and paintings. We did see the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa. I wasn’t greatly impressed, I feel we have seen more impressive statues in Rome pulled out of the ash near Pompeii and more impressive paintings. But I guess we have just seen too many museums of late, we’ve become desensitized to the beauty.
That night for diner we had all the French stuff we had meant to have so far, frog's legs and snails. They’re not bad, snails are like scallops and frogs legs and like tiny chicken wings, with hips and spines attached.
The next day was beautiful, which was good because we were going to a graveyard. We got to Père Lachaise Cemetery pretty early, but the sun was already in full force. This graveyard is the largest and most famous in Paris, mostly because of Jim Morrison’s grave. He died of an overdose in Paris, and the French law states that if you die there you can get buried there. Morrison’s grave is just a plain normal looking grave, but it has graffiti and crud that people have left to him all over it. Plus it is behind someone else’s much larger and more impressive tomb which is also covered in Morrison graffiti. We wandered the graveyard pretty idly, found a few cats, found a grave for someone called SexToy, which surprisingly was a pretty normal grave otherwise. Saw Chopin’s grave on the composers row, saw Oscar Wilde's tomb, which is of an angel in full flight sideways and looks a bit art deco. Also for some reason people have taken to kissing it and leaving big lipstick marks. We found some other graves that were quite cool, one had a bronze of the person climbing out of there tomb, a few had the person bronzed lying atop the grave sleeping. So it was quite a hot and macabre morning.
After that we took the metro to Montemarte, and the Sacre Couer. It was also very nice. At the base of the hill we got some fruit, a baguette and some pate, which was very authentic but looked a little too much like jelly meat. And we ate them on the hill in the sun. After getting a little burnt we went inside the church, a very impressive space, but it felt a little wrong compared to some of the roman churches we went too. This church had masses of tourists walking through flashing their cameras. There was a few people telling them to take off hats and be quite but they only had a moderate effect.
After admiring some choice views of Paris we moved on to the artist district which was filled with people doing portraits. We got some crepes and just hung out in the sun a little. Then made our way down the hill, we visited the graveyard at the bottom of the hill which was a pleasant respite from the tourists and had quite a number of cats, not nearly as impressive as Père Lachaise though.
Our last day of Paris we only had a half day before we had to make our way to the airport. So we decided to take a boat cruise around the Seine and stop at the Pompidou centre along the way. We got there and observed its inside-out buildingness which is nice, but we saw that the queue to get in was massive and we didn’t have the time to wait. Ah well. Outside the Pompidou is a big open space that the queue snakes through, but sitting in an area of her own was a small gypsy woman and some sort of culturally significant instrument that I’m sure she was playing beautifully, but the effect was a horrible whining, much like the sound in a horror movie when someone is killed, but played out continuously. But to alleviate this torture for the waiting line a violinist (her instrument seemed much like a bad violin) who was very skilled played. So her whining almost worked as background sound to it. We were pretty happy to leave and get some lunch before getting back on the boat to cruise up the river. Our boat was one of the Batobus water buses which do a circuit on the Seine from the Eiffel tower up past Notre Dame and back. It was pretty cheap for the amount of entertainment you get, and you can jump off and on all day.
In the afternoon we took the train to the airport, took about an hour I think. Along the way we got to see a woman faint, which was quite exciting. Once we got to the airport we found out that none of the escalators were working. But we are quite practiced in carrying our 23kg suitcases up and down stairs, so it wasn’t too much hassle. The rest of the airport was a little confusing to navigate but I think that was mostly because they were doing renovations in our area. We got on the plane, tired but happy. Our Continental European tour was over. Goodbye Paris.
So back on story, Jen and I travelled from Nice to Paris by train. Which was a pleasant enough trip didn't have the nice mountainous views of the alps though.
We arrived at Paris at about 4, so we had some time to comfortably get to our hotel before it got dark. We had to take a couple of subways, which wasn't too bad. At the train station we bought 2 ten trip subway passes. Which actually just pumps out 10 individual trip tickets. LOL so the machine pumped out 20 of these little tickets which Jen collected up and held in a big stack. Our hotel was south Paris but still within the big ring road. The weather was good so dragging our cases the couple of blocks from the subway to the hotel wasn't too bad.
The hotel concierge was pretty intense, he put on a comedy act for us, about 20 mins in we were ready to run. But eventually we got away and went up the tiny elevator to our room, which was quite awesome and came with little cookies and coffee in the room. Plus a TV that showed CNN and a toilet that was very small, so small you had to sit sideways on it.
So that night we went out to a nearby restaurant and had some nice food which I've forgotten about, plus milkshakes I think...
The next day we headed out into Paris, on the way to the sub station we picked up some pain au chocolat, various fruits and a baguette. We headed to the Eiffel tower, we got our first peeks of it on the train.
The Eiffel tower is pretty awesome. It looks like scaffolding and girders but it is so iconic and in such a beautiful place. On our approach we came through a nice garden, which of course has some dodgy guys trying to sell Eiffel tower miniatures. But also has a really nice little duck pond which at that time (spring) had a bunch of cute ducklings. So after watching the ducklings do cute duckling things for a while we went to the tower. The lines below it were quite large, the shortest line was the one for the stairs, which we intended to take anyway. So we walked our way up the tower, all 600 steps. It was a little crowed up top but the views were amazing.
After walking our selves back down we decided to go for a stroll up the seine (as if our legs needed the work out) It was pleasant enough, but on the way we saw this lady who found a “gold” ring on the ground right beside us, this was somewhat remarkable, but by now both Jen and I are pretty jaded to people trying to give us stuff. This lady decided we should have the ring because we watched her find it? We said no maybe you should take it to the police someone is looking for it, but she really wanted us to have it. Anyway we walked on, absolutely sure we had dodged some sort of scheme, but not sure for the scheme was supposed to work. So we stopped and watched her, and sure enough she found the ring beside the next couple to walk along, they for some reason reached into their wallets and gave the lady cash. Weird.
Speaking of which the current craze in Paris seems to be giving people a note to read that says how bad your life is and that you should give them money. There were heaps of girls like this. Also on the metro we had people giving spiels and asking for money, these spiels were in French so we didn’t understand, but they must have been pretty convincing because one guy who did it was enormously fat and another was a women with a nice looking handbag and decent make up, they didn’t look like they were doing too bad. But anyway back the beautiful stuff in Paris. We spent all the rest of that day just walking along the river. We saw Notre Dame, didn’t go in just looked from the outside. Nice. Just in front of it is the centre of Paris where they measure the distance to all other areas from. We saw a cute old couple kiss on it so decided to do the same. Later on we stopped for a toilet break at a McDonalds and half an hour of walking back along the river later, Jen realised she didn’t have her ring, which made me realise I didn’t have our bag. Opps. So we jogged back, luckily my bag was there, unluckily Jen’s ring was not. So a little dispirited we went and got some dinner. I can’t quite remember what we had, I’ll scan the photos and figure it out but I think Jen had foie gras with sweet wine, which was pretty awesome. (Jen says – we had foie gras and salad, and then steak and lamb chops, and it was SO GOOD)
The next day we headed out again stocked with pain au chocolat and fruits. This time we planned on doing the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Élysées down to the Louvre which was open late that night. But it was windy and raining pretty hard. We still did what we planned but it was perhaps a little less pleasant than a stroll in Paris could be. We paid the money and got to go up the arc museum and the chance to stand on top of it. Which was nice, good views but the rain was coming in sideways and our umbrellas were failing. So after that we went to the McDonalds on Champs, McDonalds is our refuge when we need to pee or want a familiar atmosphere. We sat with hot chocolates and watched tourists getting soaked. The Champs is not as pretty and elegant as I had heard, I think the big chain shops and fast foods have swept in and stolen its charm.
After our drinks we did a little shopping, I got some jeans that I desperately needed, the holes in my old ones were starting to attract attention. We strolled the rest of the way down the Champs to the Place de la Concorde, which is a nice open space with a big plinth and some nice fountain statues. So we were able to enjoy that and the park in front of the Louvre, can’t remember what it’s called, but it too was nice, if a bit damp from the wet (it had stopped raining). At the Louvre we decided to focus on a couple of wings, I can’t even remember which, the whole museum was a blur of statues and paintings. We did see the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa. I wasn’t greatly impressed, I feel we have seen more impressive statues in Rome pulled out of the ash near Pompeii and more impressive paintings. But I guess we have just seen too many museums of late, we’ve become desensitized to the beauty.
That night for diner we had all the French stuff we had meant to have so far, frog's legs and snails. They’re not bad, snails are like scallops and frogs legs and like tiny chicken wings, with hips and spines attached.
The next day was beautiful, which was good because we were going to a graveyard. We got to Père Lachaise Cemetery pretty early, but the sun was already in full force. This graveyard is the largest and most famous in Paris, mostly because of Jim Morrison’s grave. He died of an overdose in Paris, and the French law states that if you die there you can get buried there. Morrison’s grave is just a plain normal looking grave, but it has graffiti and crud that people have left to him all over it. Plus it is behind someone else’s much larger and more impressive tomb which is also covered in Morrison graffiti. We wandered the graveyard pretty idly, found a few cats, found a grave for someone called SexToy, which surprisingly was a pretty normal grave otherwise. Saw Chopin’s grave on the composers row, saw Oscar Wilde's tomb, which is of an angel in full flight sideways and looks a bit art deco. Also for some reason people have taken to kissing it and leaving big lipstick marks. We found some other graves that were quite cool, one had a bronze of the person climbing out of there tomb, a few had the person bronzed lying atop the grave sleeping. So it was quite a hot and macabre morning.
After that we took the metro to Montemarte, and the Sacre Couer. It was also very nice. At the base of the hill we got some fruit, a baguette and some pate, which was very authentic but looked a little too much like jelly meat. And we ate them on the hill in the sun. After getting a little burnt we went inside the church, a very impressive space, but it felt a little wrong compared to some of the roman churches we went too. This church had masses of tourists walking through flashing their cameras. There was a few people telling them to take off hats and be quite but they only had a moderate effect.
After admiring some choice views of Paris we moved on to the artist district which was filled with people doing portraits. We got some crepes and just hung out in the sun a little. Then made our way down the hill, we visited the graveyard at the bottom of the hill which was a pleasant respite from the tourists and had quite a number of cats, not nearly as impressive as Père Lachaise though.
Our last day of Paris we only had a half day before we had to make our way to the airport. So we decided to take a boat cruise around the Seine and stop at the Pompidou centre along the way. We got there and observed its inside-out buildingness which is nice, but we saw that the queue to get in was massive and we didn’t have the time to wait. Ah well. Outside the Pompidou is a big open space that the queue snakes through, but sitting in an area of her own was a small gypsy woman and some sort of culturally significant instrument that I’m sure she was playing beautifully, but the effect was a horrible whining, much like the sound in a horror movie when someone is killed, but played out continuously. But to alleviate this torture for the waiting line a violinist (her instrument seemed much like a bad violin) who was very skilled played. So her whining almost worked as background sound to it. We were pretty happy to leave and get some lunch before getting back on the boat to cruise up the river. Our boat was one of the Batobus water buses which do a circuit on the Seine from the Eiffel tower up past Notre Dame and back. It was pretty cheap for the amount of entertainment you get, and you can jump off and on all day.
In the afternoon we took the train to the airport, took about an hour I think. Along the way we got to see a woman faint, which was quite exciting. Once we got to the airport we found out that none of the escalators were working. But we are quite practiced in carrying our 23kg suitcases up and down stairs, so it wasn’t too much hassle. The rest of the airport was a little confusing to navigate but I think that was mostly because they were doing renovations in our area. We got on the plane, tired but happy. Our Continental European tour was over. Goodbye Paris.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Geneva Geneva... Nice is nice
(Disclaimer - yes yes it's terribly late, we suck :) )
Off to Geneva! Train ride was lovely and uneventful, which was pleasant. It was awesome riding along between big mountain ranges, popping through quaint little towns with house up on the hills and church steeples poking out. As we saw the snow we realised how foolishly we had dressed that morning - Rome had been delicious and warm, but Geneva being near alps and significanly more north would not be so tasty.
Got off the train and walked to our hotel, which was super close and took us about 5 minutes, checked in and got settled. Geneva is pretty darn expensive, even if you pick the cheapest place on the comparison sites (as we did), but at least you get a good room. Place was very comfortable and offered an awesome french breakfast of croissants and fresh bread, yoghurt, hot chocolates etc, which was a great start to the day :)
The first night we just went for a walk and found a neat chicken place for dinner, half a roast chicken with salad and provencale potatos (which were pretty much just awesome wedges) - super delicious! Everything was pretty closed so we just walked a long way back past the lake and back to the room.
The next day we jumped on the terribly efficient tram and bus system and headed off to the border to visit CERN - yay geeks! We were on the waiting list for the free guided tour, and figured if we didn't get in we'd just check out the museum. The powers that be however decided that we needed to geek out more, and 2 people didn't show for the tour. Which meant we were in! Joe can write more about the fun of that, it was good fun :) Took lots of pictures, listened to a german or swiss fellow say 'So what we are trying to find here, is what is the matter?' which was terribly cute, I had mental pictures of scientists counselling particles saying 'how do you feel about your mother' .. anyways!
Headed back to town, did some shopping (Joe needed new jeans as his old ones had grown a number of holes in the seat and it was inappropriate when walking up stairs!) and then had dinner at a Tex Mex place which was very good. I had a frozen margarita that I'm sure had way way more alchohol in it that one drink should - half way through I was speaking tooo loudly and giggling tooo much. Joe offered to finish it for me, but hell no! I love my salty margaritas :)
Day 2 we headed to the UN to check it out, took some photos but didn't go in. I think there was a tour but instead we went to the Red Cross/Crescent Museum which was really cool. It explained the origins of the organisation and described some of the horrible situations before people gave a crap about injured soldiers and the like. Some sad displays about land mines and their victims, and a room with hundreds of photos of children who were orphaned after the Rwanda genocide. Very sobering. I took some photos but I'm not sure I was supposed to...
We also walked around the lake a bit, which was lovely, and saw the huuuge fountain that is pretty much just a functional valve that people decided they liked :) For dinner I made Joe come with me to a place where I could proper fondue! I had a cheese and mushroom one with a biiig bowl of bread, it was pretty neat. Not as tasty as I'd hoped but it was pretty fun stabbing bread, dipping and eating. Joe's risotto was probably the best I've ever tasted, which was impressive.
Next morning we had to get up quite early, we failed to book our tickets to Nice sufficiently in advance to get tickets at a good time, but managed to get on the train and off towards France. Rode to Marseilles and then had MacDo for lunch (that's french slang for mc d's), another brief stop like Milan. Got to Nice at a still sunny time of day, checked in and found we were in a gorgeously sunny room with a fridge and microwave (yay, we were able to buy supermarket stuff and keep it in the room).
For dinner we headed towards the water and found a lovely restaurant that look sufficiently french, and featured a fantastic waiter who more than deserved the excessive tip we left - he was friendly, flamboyant and very helpful in translating the menu for us naff travellers.
Good night's sleep, and then we headed down to test out the Mediterranean! It was such beautiful weather and we walked down through town and onto the beach. Very rocky but all smooth round rocks so not painful or difficult to walk on. There were some people sunbathing but not many swimmers, save a gang of young American tourists who went for a dip, lead by a pair in rather small speedos. Many a shriek was heard, apparently it was a bit nippy...
After we hung out at the beach for a bit, we walked a little bit inland to a lovely market full of fruit and vege, olive oils, meats and cheese, and bread. We picked up some strawberries, a baguette, a wee cheese and some olives and set off up the hill to have a picnic at the park at the top. The hill used to feature a big old castle, but it's since gone and Nice has made the best use of old castle bits I've seen in our whole trip, turning it into a massive park with great stone paths, broken fence bits between garden bits, and an awesome waterfall that is made of the old castle facade. I think. That's what it looked like anyway, you can see the waterfall from the streets, it's massive.
Anyways, picnic'd up top with many families having picnics and playing football and swinging on the swings. Delicious :) Then we walked around the park, which was quite good, and then tried to walk down the opposite side to where we'd come up. It almost worked except that the street we wanted to go down to get to the part of town we were aiming for was all blocked up due to landslide danger. Which meant we had to back track a bunch to find a road that met up with the actual city again. Fun but looong walk.
We found a big square after a while which was full of artists painting and selling their art, which was very good but a wee bit out of our price range so we didn't look too hard. On the other side of the square was the Museum of Contemporary Art, which sounded neat so we headed on in. Lots of very interesting pictures and sculptures, all very modern and some of it oh-so-edgy. But interesting, and free, so definitely worth the trip.
Since we had a microwave readily available to us, we went to a supermarket and picked up some 2 minute meals. Zapped them, ate, and had a super early night which really was quite good.
Next day, we had planned to pop out and do a bit of shopping, since Joe's shoes were in a similar state to his jeans, and I had planned to replace my disintegrating handbag... However this intricate plan was quickly put to rest when we realised that in Nice, on Sunday, everything is CLOSED. Well almost everything, there were a couple of trinket stores with touristy stuff open, but not much else! We browsed for a while, and I picked up some neat postcards (Bridget, you lucky thing you will love the one I got you) and then we just walked around the old part of town, with the narrow and cobbled streets.
Had some lunch and browsed some more stores, hit the beach again, and then back to the hostel to dump our stuff and prepare our luggage for the next days train trip to Paris. For dinner we found this cool and cheap place in the old town where we weren't entirely sure what we were ordering but recognised about 2 words on the menu and went with that - ended up with a tasty calamari stew with rice, and a salad and deep fried veges thing. Yum!
Nice was overall pretty darn nice. It's hard to find a better word for it, let alone a more punny one.. Although is it a pun if it's the same word? Anyways, we then headed off to Paris, and this is where I will take a break and get Joe to work on the Paris episode :) He may also provide updates on Geneva/Nice but I want to get this up NOW and he is kinda asleep...
Off to Geneva! Train ride was lovely and uneventful, which was pleasant. It was awesome riding along between big mountain ranges, popping through quaint little towns with house up on the hills and church steeples poking out. As we saw the snow we realised how foolishly we had dressed that morning - Rome had been delicious and warm, but Geneva being near alps and significanly more north would not be so tasty.
Got off the train and walked to our hotel, which was super close and took us about 5 minutes, checked in and got settled. Geneva is pretty darn expensive, even if you pick the cheapest place on the comparison sites (as we did), but at least you get a good room. Place was very comfortable and offered an awesome french breakfast of croissants and fresh bread, yoghurt, hot chocolates etc, which was a great start to the day :)
The first night we just went for a walk and found a neat chicken place for dinner, half a roast chicken with salad and provencale potatos (which were pretty much just awesome wedges) - super delicious! Everything was pretty closed so we just walked a long way back past the lake and back to the room.
The next day we jumped on the terribly efficient tram and bus system and headed off to the border to visit CERN - yay geeks! We were on the waiting list for the free guided tour, and figured if we didn't get in we'd just check out the museum. The powers that be however decided that we needed to geek out more, and 2 people didn't show for the tour. Which meant we were in! Joe can write more about the fun of that, it was good fun :) Took lots of pictures, listened to a german or swiss fellow say 'So what we are trying to find here, is what is the matter?' which was terribly cute, I had mental pictures of scientists counselling particles saying 'how do you feel about your mother' .. anyways!
Headed back to town, did some shopping (Joe needed new jeans as his old ones had grown a number of holes in the seat and it was inappropriate when walking up stairs!) and then had dinner at a Tex Mex place which was very good. I had a frozen margarita that I'm sure had way way more alchohol in it that one drink should - half way through I was speaking tooo loudly and giggling tooo much. Joe offered to finish it for me, but hell no! I love my salty margaritas :)
Day 2 we headed to the UN to check it out, took some photos but didn't go in. I think there was a tour but instead we went to the Red Cross/Crescent Museum which was really cool. It explained the origins of the organisation and described some of the horrible situations before people gave a crap about injured soldiers and the like. Some sad displays about land mines and their victims, and a room with hundreds of photos of children who were orphaned after the Rwanda genocide. Very sobering. I took some photos but I'm not sure I was supposed to...
We also walked around the lake a bit, which was lovely, and saw the huuuge fountain that is pretty much just a functional valve that people decided they liked :) For dinner I made Joe come with me to a place where I could proper fondue! I had a cheese and mushroom one with a biiig bowl of bread, it was pretty neat. Not as tasty as I'd hoped but it was pretty fun stabbing bread, dipping and eating. Joe's risotto was probably the best I've ever tasted, which was impressive.
Next morning we had to get up quite early, we failed to book our tickets to Nice sufficiently in advance to get tickets at a good time, but managed to get on the train and off towards France. Rode to Marseilles and then had MacDo for lunch (that's french slang for mc d's), another brief stop like Milan. Got to Nice at a still sunny time of day, checked in and found we were in a gorgeously sunny room with a fridge and microwave (yay, we were able to buy supermarket stuff and keep it in the room).
For dinner we headed towards the water and found a lovely restaurant that look sufficiently french, and featured a fantastic waiter who more than deserved the excessive tip we left - he was friendly, flamboyant and very helpful in translating the menu for us naff travellers.
Good night's sleep, and then we headed down to test out the Mediterranean! It was such beautiful weather and we walked down through town and onto the beach. Very rocky but all smooth round rocks so not painful or difficult to walk on. There were some people sunbathing but not many swimmers, save a gang of young American tourists who went for a dip, lead by a pair in rather small speedos. Many a shriek was heard, apparently it was a bit nippy...
After we hung out at the beach for a bit, we walked a little bit inland to a lovely market full of fruit and vege, olive oils, meats and cheese, and bread. We picked up some strawberries, a baguette, a wee cheese and some olives and set off up the hill to have a picnic at the park at the top. The hill used to feature a big old castle, but it's since gone and Nice has made the best use of old castle bits I've seen in our whole trip, turning it into a massive park with great stone paths, broken fence bits between garden bits, and an awesome waterfall that is made of the old castle facade. I think. That's what it looked like anyway, you can see the waterfall from the streets, it's massive.
Anyways, picnic'd up top with many families having picnics and playing football and swinging on the swings. Delicious :) Then we walked around the park, which was quite good, and then tried to walk down the opposite side to where we'd come up. It almost worked except that the street we wanted to go down to get to the part of town we were aiming for was all blocked up due to landslide danger. Which meant we had to back track a bunch to find a road that met up with the actual city again. Fun but looong walk.
We found a big square after a while which was full of artists painting and selling their art, which was very good but a wee bit out of our price range so we didn't look too hard. On the other side of the square was the Museum of Contemporary Art, which sounded neat so we headed on in. Lots of very interesting pictures and sculptures, all very modern and some of it oh-so-edgy. But interesting, and free, so definitely worth the trip.
Since we had a microwave readily available to us, we went to a supermarket and picked up some 2 minute meals. Zapped them, ate, and had a super early night which really was quite good.
Next day, we had planned to pop out and do a bit of shopping, since Joe's shoes were in a similar state to his jeans, and I had planned to replace my disintegrating handbag... However this intricate plan was quickly put to rest when we realised that in Nice, on Sunday, everything is CLOSED. Well almost everything, there were a couple of trinket stores with touristy stuff open, but not much else! We browsed for a while, and I picked up some neat postcards (Bridget, you lucky thing you will love the one I got you) and then we just walked around the old part of town, with the narrow and cobbled streets.
Had some lunch and browsed some more stores, hit the beach again, and then back to the hostel to dump our stuff and prepare our luggage for the next days train trip to Paris. For dinner we found this cool and cheap place in the old town where we weren't entirely sure what we were ordering but recognised about 2 words on the menu and went with that - ended up with a tasty calamari stew with rice, and a salad and deep fried veges thing. Yum!
Nice was overall pretty darn nice. It's hard to find a better word for it, let alone a more punny one.. Although is it a pun if it's the same word? Anyways, we then headed off to Paris, and this is where I will take a break and get Joe to work on the Paris episode :) He may also provide updates on Geneva/Nice but I want to get this up NOW and he is kinda asleep...
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Back Alley Rome Adventure
Before I get to writing about Geneva I thought I would add a moment in Rome that Jen forgot but which stained my memory.
After our first day in Rome after seeing the Colosseum and Forum and all the other lovely old stuff we headed toward a "Secret View" that we found in the guide book (secrets book), which had some pretty vague instructions and sounded quite exciting.
It was kind of like a treasure hunt. At one point our instructions took us up a reasonable steep alley that wound up a hill. About half way up there is a gate with some steps and a pretty garden on the other side. We stopped to have water and rest, and found that the place was the home of some cats. As I was getting some photos of Jen patting cats, I noticed a curious sight out of the corner of my eye, which at first glance I thought was a dodgy back alley sex act. I quickly hid back round the corner where Jen was with the cats, and told her I thought something dodgy was happening round the corner where we wanted to walk next.
I peeked around the corner again and found the reality of what was happening more disturbing than my imagination. First the two participants were old, about 60 maybe. Second the act that looked lurid at first glance was the lady cleaning the old man, with napkins, who had just had a shockingly liquid and judging by the effects projectile bowel movement. I stared a little too long and i think the lady looked up and saw me. I ducked back. Then Jen and I spent more time with the cats in the hopes that the next time we looked the alley would be empty. It was, and we saw and smelt the results on our way past, my memory forever stained. I hope my recounting hasn't affected you as much as the telling has affected me.
Anyway out of the alley, and back on the sunny streets of Rome we found ourselves atop a hill next to a pretty garden that had couples lounging in it and a bride and groom getting photos taken. The garden had a fantastic view over the river to St Peters and a lot of Rome. We stood here awhile doing what couples do here (but not old couples). And then followed our directions further up the street.
We were looking for a Church, which to the left of it was a Priory, where if you looked through the keyhole you got a nice view. We weren't sure what we would see but the guide book rated it high and the directions seemed vague enough that most tourists wouldn't attempt it.
We found the church, which looked like it had some very nice art works that you could do a tour of, but the day was late so we soldiered on. Next to it we found the priory and a large piazza out front which had a APC (armoured personnel carrier) and a cluster of very serious looked soldiers with large semi automatic machine guns. They stared at us as we looked around the piazza for a keyhole. Which we found because another excited couple was there looking through and taking photos.
We peered through the keyhole. The view through was quite nice, the journey made it better I think. On the other side of the door is a corridor made of trees, beyond this there is an open balcony. The trees frame a view of St Peters of the Vatican city. Sorry if I ruined any secrets there.
I still don't know why the army was there. Oh just while I'm thinking about the army, at the ponte mammalo train station which is in the suburbs where our hostel was, there are often guys selling belts and handbags and such. As we arrived by bus one day and army truck went by, as the sellers saw it they all panicked and started grabbing there stuff, but the army truck just drove straight past and the sellers after looking around fearfully for awhile set there items back out. I guess they didn't have sales permits.
Next I have to write about our Geneva adventure but I'll save that for the next post.
After our first day in Rome after seeing the Colosseum and Forum and all the other lovely old stuff we headed toward a "Secret View" that we found in the guide book (secrets book), which had some pretty vague instructions and sounded quite exciting.
It was kind of like a treasure hunt. At one point our instructions took us up a reasonable steep alley that wound up a hill. About half way up there is a gate with some steps and a pretty garden on the other side. We stopped to have water and rest, and found that the place was the home of some cats. As I was getting some photos of Jen patting cats, I noticed a curious sight out of the corner of my eye, which at first glance I thought was a dodgy back alley sex act. I quickly hid back round the corner where Jen was with the cats, and told her I thought something dodgy was happening round the corner where we wanted to walk next.
I peeked around the corner again and found the reality of what was happening more disturbing than my imagination. First the two participants were old, about 60 maybe. Second the act that looked lurid at first glance was the lady cleaning the old man, with napkins, who had just had a shockingly liquid and judging by the effects projectile bowel movement. I stared a little too long and i think the lady looked up and saw me. I ducked back. Then Jen and I spent more time with the cats in the hopes that the next time we looked the alley would be empty. It was, and we saw and smelt the results on our way past, my memory forever stained. I hope my recounting hasn't affected you as much as the telling has affected me.
Anyway out of the alley, and back on the sunny streets of Rome we found ourselves atop a hill next to a pretty garden that had couples lounging in it and a bride and groom getting photos taken. The garden had a fantastic view over the river to St Peters and a lot of Rome. We stood here awhile doing what couples do here (but not old couples). And then followed our directions further up the street.
We were looking for a Church, which to the left of it was a Priory, where if you looked through the keyhole you got a nice view. We weren't sure what we would see but the guide book rated it high and the directions seemed vague enough that most tourists wouldn't attempt it.
We found the church, which looked like it had some very nice art works that you could do a tour of, but the day was late so we soldiered on. Next to it we found the priory and a large piazza out front which had a APC (armoured personnel carrier) and a cluster of very serious looked soldiers with large semi automatic machine guns. They stared at us as we looked around the piazza for a keyhole. Which we found because another excited couple was there looking through and taking photos.
We peered through the keyhole. The view through was quite nice, the journey made it better I think. On the other side of the door is a corridor made of trees, beyond this there is an open balcony. The trees frame a view of St Peters of the Vatican city. Sorry if I ruined any secrets there.
I still don't know why the army was there. Oh just while I'm thinking about the army, at the ponte mammalo train station which is in the suburbs where our hostel was, there are often guys selling belts and handbags and such. As we arrived by bus one day and army truck went by, as the sellers saw it they all panicked and started grabbing there stuff, but the army truck just drove straight past and the sellers after looking around fearfully for awhile set there items back out. I guess they didn't have sales permits.
Next I have to write about our Geneva adventure but I'll save that for the next post.
Napoli to Roma
Ahh *swoon*. Yeap, that is my future husband, he is tops :)
The flower had wilted pretty hard towards the end of the day so we pressed it in a tissue between the pages of our guidebook, and went to one of the many souvenir shops around the bus stop area. Picked out a mood ring with pretty purple swirls on it that were similar to the flower, paid the 3 euros it cost and then I had a brand new engagement ring. It is still on my finger but appears to be giving me that awesome greyish green stain that comes with cheap rings; having said that it's still the second best ring ever (the first being the flower)...
Anyways! If you would like to hear me go on and on about being engaged feel free to email me but this is about travelling :)
Day after that we were heading to Rome, but had til about lunch time before we had to catch a train. We checked out of the hostel and left our luggage in their locker, and then went to the Archaeology Museum, which was totally rad. It's full of artifacts from Pompeii and Herculaneum and they're all really well preserved – volcanic ash apparently protects stuff really well. It also has some Egyptian stuff (we skipped it as it was full of school kids) and has this neat room of incredibly inappropriate art. Like, paintings of popular sexual positions, a statue of a lady with oodles of boobs, sculptures of penii with wings and decorations, and a most decidedly bizarre sculpture of a half goat man (satyr? Pan? Faun?) coaxing a goat into intercourse. VERY graphic and odd. But very amusing, I took photos and will put them up eventually :)
Had lunch at that Trianon Pizzaria (it was on the way and reasonably cheap for a margherita) and then headed for a train to Rome. It's only a 2 hour ride and had pretty nice scenery. Got to Termini, Rome's Central station, and began to follow the directions to the hostel we got in the booking email. We were somewhat dreading this after the debacle that Naples had provided.
How glad we were when the directions were entirely accurate and easy to follow! We took Metro Line B, and then the no. 444 bus, and then walked up a street and there was the Peter Pan Hostel. I have no idea why it is called that but it had a hilariously bad painting of Peter Pan on the wall outside the bathroom, sadly I think I forgot to photograph it but really that's a good thing, it was an eyesore. And it kept surprising me when I can out of the shower! Bit of excitement when getting settled in the room, Joe decided to try to fix the wall socket in order to allow us to charge the phone and camera and laptop, but in doing so managed to make it spark and killed all the lights in the whole hostel... Mum I think I've found someone who can give Dad a run for his money...
We were hungry for dinner after checking in and getting the power situation sorted (Joe spoke to the guy at reception who fixed things up), so wandered down the street and found a wee trattoria. The staff spoke very little English but we had read enough menus to know what we were ordering. Had some mozzarella and pasta (not the best but not the most expensive either) and then headed back.
Day one in Rome! We hit the old centre of town. Like, way old... Caught the metro back to town and then walked down to the Roman Forum and the Colosseum. It was insane! In the middle of roundabouts and traffic, here is this super old, super rad collection of buildings and columns and paved paths and staircases and old temples, and you can see where people would have walked and talked and lived and worked.
Colosseum is reasonably cool, but pretty quick. We got a single audio guide and shared it, listening to one speech each and summarising it for the other (there were only 6 and they spoke waaaay slow) and took some pics. After browsing there, we went through the Forum properly (before we'd just walked around it and had some lunch, which we got from a bakery) and admired the insane coolness of it all.
As we came out of the Forum, we stumbled upon the remnants of the G20 protests which was pretty awesome - lots of people yelling and chanting and marching in a reasonably orderly fashion. We had to look it up when we got home though because we couldn't understand the signs, nor were we aware of the G20 summit taking place so had no idea why marches were taking place! The more interesting part was seeing police in full riot gear standing around casually, outside important buildings along the way, just standing by. Took some photos and they didn't seem to mind :)
Went to a place called est est est for dinner, which was pretty good. Good house wine, but odd pizza, not as good as Napoli's!
On the next day we didn't really have any big plans, and we ended up walking the long way from Termini to the Pantheon. On the way we stopped by lovely parks, interesting statues and also happened upon something official happening in a big important looking building that we think had something to do with the Ministry of Defence, lots of men and one or two women in traditional military garb getting out of buses and then marching inside. Neato!
The Pantheon was pretty cool, if crowded and surrounded by odd blue hatted gladiators trying to get our money for photos. All Roman outside, all Catholic inside. And a great big hole in the roof which if we'd been there a few hours later we would have seen with rain pouring through :)
Next we headed up to the Fontana de Trevi, a great big fountain with sculptures and such all over it and tourists all around it. It certainly was beautiful but it was dampened slightly by a) the extreme downpour that was taking place and b) the damned street vendors trying to sell us toys and lights. We actually did end up buying an umbrella which was mucho useful, but we haggled them down :D
After this we wandered around town further, ending up having an early dinner (I can't even remember where now) and then an early night back at the hostel.
Day 3, we hit Vatican City, primarily visiting the Sistine Chapel and the Raphael Rooms, both of which were wonderful even with the hordes of people. In the Sistine Chapel you aren't allowed to speak or take photos; apparently ninety percent of the visitors were not aware of this however, but this led to amusing moments of dudes in suits hissing loudly and saying NO PHOTOS! Due to the number of school kids visiting this was not as successful as it could have been. But it meant we managed to snap a few pics before carrying on without feeling too guilty.
I can never really understand how they can justify the amount of money that goes into creating a lavish palace like the Museum area we saw - there was just so much gold everywhere, and I can only hope that they spend at least 10 times that much worth on actual real life work. It was pretty heartbreaking to go past beggars on the street outside the Vatican, espcially seeing how much money was sitting just over the city wall.
Anyway! After checking out the museums we went round to St Peters and just sat in the courtyard for a while, checking out the pigeons and some nuns (I caught a bunch eating ice cream on camera) and enjoying the warm weather. I gave Jennie a call which was exciting (So what you doing? Oh just chilling at the Vatican. It's cool) and Joe and I relaxed for a while longer.
Walking around all day is pretty tiring so yet again we had an early night. For dinner we asked the hostel staff if they could recommend a place - they sent us about 15 minutes down the road to a place called something D'India, which was not an indian restaurant but was in fact a lovely brightly lit place ontop of a wee hill by the road. The food was good, and the staff were great, encouraging us when we tried out our limited Italian and smiling broadly when we got it right :)
Slept tight, then got on the train to Geneva, with a brief stop in Milan (so brief all we had time for was to get off, go get a sandwich, then get on the next train). Bit sad that we have no stamps in our passports for Switzerland on account of arriving by train, but maybe we can ask for something later :)
Edit - Joe has added more that I forgot, and also reminded me of something else...
On our last day in Rome we went to a church called Santa Maria della Concezione which is famous for housing oodles and oodles of bones from Capuchin monks and poor romans. It's sooo creepy but awesome. We paid a small donation to the church and then wandered through a series of rooms that are both chapels and graves.
Oh by the way, the bones are not just interred there, they are full on works of art! So there are things like angels made out of leg bones and shoulder blades, lovely patterns around the edges made of vertebrae and jaw bones, skulls piled up as a back wall arrangement.. And in some places full skeletons of monks either resting on beds of femurs or standing in a praying stance with robes on. We bought a postcard with information about the rooms so that was useful. In the last room there was this plaque which read 'What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you will become'. Cheers, dead guys.
The flower had wilted pretty hard towards the end of the day so we pressed it in a tissue between the pages of our guidebook, and went to one of the many souvenir shops around the bus stop area. Picked out a mood ring with pretty purple swirls on it that were similar to the flower, paid the 3 euros it cost and then I had a brand new engagement ring. It is still on my finger but appears to be giving me that awesome greyish green stain that comes with cheap rings; having said that it's still the second best ring ever (the first being the flower)...
Anyways! If you would like to hear me go on and on about being engaged feel free to email me but this is about travelling :)
Day after that we were heading to Rome, but had til about lunch time before we had to catch a train. We checked out of the hostel and left our luggage in their locker, and then went to the Archaeology Museum, which was totally rad. It's full of artifacts from Pompeii and Herculaneum and they're all really well preserved – volcanic ash apparently protects stuff really well. It also has some Egyptian stuff (we skipped it as it was full of school kids) and has this neat room of incredibly inappropriate art. Like, paintings of popular sexual positions, a statue of a lady with oodles of boobs, sculptures of penii with wings and decorations, and a most decidedly bizarre sculpture of a half goat man (satyr? Pan? Faun?) coaxing a goat into intercourse. VERY graphic and odd. But very amusing, I took photos and will put them up eventually :)
Had lunch at that Trianon Pizzaria (it was on the way and reasonably cheap for a margherita) and then headed for a train to Rome. It's only a 2 hour ride and had pretty nice scenery. Got to Termini, Rome's Central station, and began to follow the directions to the hostel we got in the booking email. We were somewhat dreading this after the debacle that Naples had provided.
How glad we were when the directions were entirely accurate and easy to follow! We took Metro Line B, and then the no. 444 bus, and then walked up a street and there was the Peter Pan Hostel. I have no idea why it is called that but it had a hilariously bad painting of Peter Pan on the wall outside the bathroom, sadly I think I forgot to photograph it but really that's a good thing, it was an eyesore. And it kept surprising me when I can out of the shower! Bit of excitement when getting settled in the room, Joe decided to try to fix the wall socket in order to allow us to charge the phone and camera and laptop, but in doing so managed to make it spark and killed all the lights in the whole hostel... Mum I think I've found someone who can give Dad a run for his money...
We were hungry for dinner after checking in and getting the power situation sorted (Joe spoke to the guy at reception who fixed things up), so wandered down the street and found a wee trattoria. The staff spoke very little English but we had read enough menus to know what we were ordering. Had some mozzarella and pasta (not the best but not the most expensive either) and then headed back.
Day one in Rome! We hit the old centre of town. Like, way old... Caught the metro back to town and then walked down to the Roman Forum and the Colosseum. It was insane! In the middle of roundabouts and traffic, here is this super old, super rad collection of buildings and columns and paved paths and staircases and old temples, and you can see where people would have walked and talked and lived and worked.
Colosseum is reasonably cool, but pretty quick. We got a single audio guide and shared it, listening to one speech each and summarising it for the other (there were only 6 and they spoke waaaay slow) and took some pics. After browsing there, we went through the Forum properly (before we'd just walked around it and had some lunch, which we got from a bakery) and admired the insane coolness of it all.
As we came out of the Forum, we stumbled upon the remnants of the G20 protests which was pretty awesome - lots of people yelling and chanting and marching in a reasonably orderly fashion. We had to look it up when we got home though because we couldn't understand the signs, nor were we aware of the G20 summit taking place so had no idea why marches were taking place! The more interesting part was seeing police in full riot gear standing around casually, outside important buildings along the way, just standing by. Took some photos and they didn't seem to mind :)
Went to a place called est est est for dinner, which was pretty good. Good house wine, but odd pizza, not as good as Napoli's!
On the next day we didn't really have any big plans, and we ended up walking the long way from Termini to the Pantheon. On the way we stopped by lovely parks, interesting statues and also happened upon something official happening in a big important looking building that we think had something to do with the Ministry of Defence, lots of men and one or two women in traditional military garb getting out of buses and then marching inside. Neato!
The Pantheon was pretty cool, if crowded and surrounded by odd blue hatted gladiators trying to get our money for photos. All Roman outside, all Catholic inside. And a great big hole in the roof which if we'd been there a few hours later we would have seen with rain pouring through :)
Next we headed up to the Fontana de Trevi, a great big fountain with sculptures and such all over it and tourists all around it. It certainly was beautiful but it was dampened slightly by a) the extreme downpour that was taking place and b) the damned street vendors trying to sell us toys and lights. We actually did end up buying an umbrella which was mucho useful, but we haggled them down :D
After this we wandered around town further, ending up having an early dinner (I can't even remember where now) and then an early night back at the hostel.
Day 3, we hit Vatican City, primarily visiting the Sistine Chapel and the Raphael Rooms, both of which were wonderful even with the hordes of people. In the Sistine Chapel you aren't allowed to speak or take photos; apparently ninety percent of the visitors were not aware of this however, but this led to amusing moments of dudes in suits hissing loudly and saying NO PHOTOS! Due to the number of school kids visiting this was not as successful as it could have been. But it meant we managed to snap a few pics before carrying on without feeling too guilty.
I can never really understand how they can justify the amount of money that goes into creating a lavish palace like the Museum area we saw - there was just so much gold everywhere, and I can only hope that they spend at least 10 times that much worth on actual real life work. It was pretty heartbreaking to go past beggars on the street outside the Vatican, espcially seeing how much money was sitting just over the city wall.
Anyway! After checking out the museums we went round to St Peters and just sat in the courtyard for a while, checking out the pigeons and some nuns (I caught a bunch eating ice cream on camera) and enjoying the warm weather. I gave Jennie a call which was exciting (So what you doing? Oh just chilling at the Vatican. It's cool) and Joe and I relaxed for a while longer.
Walking around all day is pretty tiring so yet again we had an early night. For dinner we asked the hostel staff if they could recommend a place - they sent us about 15 minutes down the road to a place called something D'India, which was not an indian restaurant but was in fact a lovely brightly lit place ontop of a wee hill by the road. The food was good, and the staff were great, encouraging us when we tried out our limited Italian and smiling broadly when we got it right :)
Slept tight, then got on the train to Geneva, with a brief stop in Milan (so brief all we had time for was to get off, go get a sandwich, then get on the next train). Bit sad that we have no stamps in our passports for Switzerland on account of arriving by train, but maybe we can ask for something later :)
Edit - Joe has added more that I forgot, and also reminded me of something else...
On our last day in Rome we went to a church called Santa Maria della Concezione which is famous for housing oodles and oodles of bones from Capuchin monks and poor romans. It's sooo creepy but awesome. We paid a small donation to the church and then wandered through a series of rooms that are both chapels and graves.
Oh by the way, the bones are not just interred there, they are full on works of art! So there are things like angels made out of leg bones and shoulder blades, lovely patterns around the edges made of vertebrae and jaw bones, skulls piled up as a back wall arrangement.. And in some places full skeletons of monks either resting on beds of femurs or standing in a praying stance with robes on. We bought a postcard with information about the rooms so that was useful. In the last room there was this plaque which read 'What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you will become'. Cheers, dead guys.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
A Beautiful Day in Capri
We started the day reasonably early in the hopes of seeing Capri and maybe some of the Amalfi Coast on the way home at night (pretty irrational hope) . Early for us turned out to be about 9:30 so not really that early.
Anyway we made our way down to the docks on foot. We didn't really know where it was, the region on our map was covered by a huge picture of a boat. So we were walking around the industrial region of the docks, generally getting in the way.
The day was turning out to be pretty hot, which at the time was uncomfortable but I knew we would appreciate it later in the day, Eventually we arrived at the right docks, and I chose this time to tell Jen that we didn't actually have any money left and we would need a cash machine. There was one around the ticket booths, but apparently “The link is Down” which is what they seem to say when you use an international card that it doesn't like. But it turned out that the tickets could be purchased with Visa so we were fine, we just hoped we would find a money spot in Capri somewhere.
The hydrofoil over was quite exciting, we would find out later that the seas were considered rough. The boat had a group of school children on board who would make whooaa'ing noises as we dipped. And a big boat hand stood watching us all holding sick bags, in case it got too much, which it did for some.
As we came closer to Capri we were in awe of how pretty it is. As you approach the island you see tall cliff faces topped with trees and and the occasional building, and nestled between them is Grande Marina, the big docks. Which is part of the town of Capri and spills out from the top of a hill down to the water.
We got out in the sun and breathed in the clean air and peacefulness of the place, even as 50 other tourists did the same getting off the boat.
We didn't really have an agenda for the day, just thought we would wander around, maybe see the famous Azzura Grotto, which is cave you can take little boats in. This was unfortunately off limits today because of the rough seas. So we decided to head toward the centre of the island and Anacapri, which is the islands only other town and is near some items that we saw in our travel guide.
Luckily after a little bit of hunting we found an Bancomat and were able to get the cash we would need to appreciate the islands beauty, or so the signs say. We used said cash to buy tickets for the bus to Anacapri.
The buses in Capri and in fact all the vehicles are smaller than usual, so that they can navigate the tiny little roads that wind up the mountains. The bus ride made the trip across the Mediterranean sea to Capri well worth it. Jen and I stared in awe and tried to take photos of the vistas that the road to Anacapri awarded. At one point where the cliff edge we drove along seemed especially precarious and the views especially awe inspiring the bus driver and a local had an animated conversation about something apparently more important than plummeting to our deaths.
Anacapri is on a higher plateaux than Capri the town and so affords some fantastic views of the rest of the island.
When we arrived in Anacapri we decided to have a light lunch, of prosciutto sandwiches and a Coke. It was lovely sitting in the shade on a nice sunny day in a beautiful little town on beautiful little island. But we would find that the price of this luxury is quite high. Our two sandwiches and a coke cost 22e.
We had decided while sitting that we would take the chairlift up to the very topmost part of the island and lounge in the sun doing not much. We walked to where the nearby chairlift terminal is and gaped at the extent of the chairlift, which on the map looks quite small. The lift was a single seater with a little bar, it stretched for more than a kilometre across the island and up the side of the mountain Although there was a reasonable group at the bottom of the lift, there was no one on the entire length of it. Not a great sign, but we decided to press forward. The ride was actually quite sedate, we rode over peoples gardens and back lawns and some waved as we went over. I had the camera and tried to get some good photos, but I don't think they truly showed how the experience was. Nearer the top it got a little cold from the wind, but once we were up there the sun was out the day was calm.
Our first view from up there, was down the other side of the island, which descends its entire hight to the rocks below, truly an astonishing view.
We milled around taking in all the views from different directions, there was only one or two people up there. The facilities were what looked like an abandoned restaurant or perhaps a Roman villa. It was probably both.
After looking around for a bit we decide to find somewhere comfortable to sit and enjoy the day. We walked a little way from the buildings picking our way through the rocks and eventually settled on somewhere that had rocks enough to sit on.
Here comes the part that I'm sure you already know about and are anticipating. This moment had been building up for me for some time, I hadn't planned anything but knew that I wanted to do it.
Where we sat the sun shone down on us and we could see some views across the top of the island. The spot was peaceful and there was no wind. In front of us was a small bush that had a gecko climbing up it. And all around us were pretty purple flowers, whose name I don't know but I will find out as soon as I can, so far I haven't found them anywhere but Capri.
As I rolled one I had picked in my fingers a thought crossed my mind that wouldn't go away. I bent the flower and rolled it into a little loop, but it snapped and broke. Jen asked what I was up to, she was sitting a little bit behind me. I gave her the top part of the broken flower, resolved in my mind that I had missed a moment and could relax. But after not long at all the thought crept back and got more insistent, so I picked another flower this one stronger than the last but just as pretty.
I rolled it into a little loop, and then sat, enjoying the day and mentally building my courage. After minutes of sitting silently while Jen was taking a photo of the gecko, she realised she had lost the first flower I gave her. She said “aww I lost my flower”, I said “here have this one.” And I turned around caught her left hand and pushed the flower ring onto her finger. Her eyes went wide and a big grin spread across here face. She started reacting say “Hey that's the romantic finger” or something near it. I interrupted her and blurted the words that had been my mantra for the last few minutes. “Will you Marry Me?” Then I stood up and faced her better and pulled the sunglasses off her face. My voice was a bit shaky but I said “Jennifer Alison Mason will you Marry Me?” Jen's middle name is actually Alice, but I think in my rush I mixed Alice and Mason or perhaps it was a Freudian slip, but anyway... She jumped up eagerly and said “Yes!” Then kissed my quickly and hugged me tightly.
I had known for quite a while that I would ask her, and I felt pretty confident that she would say yes, but the timing and the place were what kept me thinking at nights. I hadn't planned to do it in Capri but I knew that as I delayed too long at some stage I would run out of fantastic romantic spots. The ring also was something that was a bit of an issue for me, I don't really know anything about jewellery or the traditions around engagement rings, and also how would I pay for it and how would I distract Jen long enough to buy it. But at some stage part of me realised these were all just procrastination excuses and Jen wouldn't mind what the ring was or where I did it.
So anyway, we were sitting on the hill in Capri and I thought, there is never going to be a better spot and this flower ring is better than anything else I'm going to find. If I didn't do it then, then I would kick myself for ages and finally settle on some place not half as good.
So it turns out I lucked out. I don't think it could have gone any better, even if I had hired a coven of marriage planners with all the money in the world.
We spent the rest of the day in a daze, calling each other fiancée and giggling. The weather stayed good all day. We had some gelato and took the bus back to Capri, which took a while because suddenly the buses were all full. But we didn't mind too much. ^_^
Anyway we made our way down to the docks on foot. We didn't really know where it was, the region on our map was covered by a huge picture of a boat. So we were walking around the industrial region of the docks, generally getting in the way.
The day was turning out to be pretty hot, which at the time was uncomfortable but I knew we would appreciate it later in the day, Eventually we arrived at the right docks, and I chose this time to tell Jen that we didn't actually have any money left and we would need a cash machine. There was one around the ticket booths, but apparently “The link is Down” which is what they seem to say when you use an international card that it doesn't like. But it turned out that the tickets could be purchased with Visa so we were fine, we just hoped we would find a money spot in Capri somewhere.
The hydrofoil over was quite exciting, we would find out later that the seas were considered rough. The boat had a group of school children on board who would make whooaa'ing noises as we dipped. And a big boat hand stood watching us all holding sick bags, in case it got too much, which it did for some.
As we came closer to Capri we were in awe of how pretty it is. As you approach the island you see tall cliff faces topped with trees and and the occasional building, and nestled between them is Grande Marina, the big docks. Which is part of the town of Capri and spills out from the top of a hill down to the water.
We got out in the sun and breathed in the clean air and peacefulness of the place, even as 50 other tourists did the same getting off the boat.
We didn't really have an agenda for the day, just thought we would wander around, maybe see the famous Azzura Grotto, which is cave you can take little boats in. This was unfortunately off limits today because of the rough seas. So we decided to head toward the centre of the island and Anacapri, which is the islands only other town and is near some items that we saw in our travel guide.
Luckily after a little bit of hunting we found an Bancomat and were able to get the cash we would need to appreciate the islands beauty, or so the signs say. We used said cash to buy tickets for the bus to Anacapri.
The buses in Capri and in fact all the vehicles are smaller than usual, so that they can navigate the tiny little roads that wind up the mountains. The bus ride made the trip across the Mediterranean sea to Capri well worth it. Jen and I stared in awe and tried to take photos of the vistas that the road to Anacapri awarded. At one point where the cliff edge we drove along seemed especially precarious and the views especially awe inspiring the bus driver and a local had an animated conversation about something apparently more important than plummeting to our deaths.
Anacapri is on a higher plateaux than Capri the town and so affords some fantastic views of the rest of the island.
When we arrived in Anacapri we decided to have a light lunch, of prosciutto sandwiches and a Coke. It was lovely sitting in the shade on a nice sunny day in a beautiful little town on beautiful little island. But we would find that the price of this luxury is quite high. Our two sandwiches and a coke cost 22e.
We had decided while sitting that we would take the chairlift up to the very topmost part of the island and lounge in the sun doing not much. We walked to where the nearby chairlift terminal is and gaped at the extent of the chairlift, which on the map looks quite small. The lift was a single seater with a little bar, it stretched for more than a kilometre across the island and up the side of the mountain Although there was a reasonable group at the bottom of the lift, there was no one on the entire length of it. Not a great sign, but we decided to press forward. The ride was actually quite sedate, we rode over peoples gardens and back lawns and some waved as we went over. I had the camera and tried to get some good photos, but I don't think they truly showed how the experience was. Nearer the top it got a little cold from the wind, but once we were up there the sun was out the day was calm.
Our first view from up there, was down the other side of the island, which descends its entire hight to the rocks below, truly an astonishing view.
We milled around taking in all the views from different directions, there was only one or two people up there. The facilities were what looked like an abandoned restaurant or perhaps a Roman villa. It was probably both.
After looking around for a bit we decide to find somewhere comfortable to sit and enjoy the day. We walked a little way from the buildings picking our way through the rocks and eventually settled on somewhere that had rocks enough to sit on.
Here comes the part that I'm sure you already know about and are anticipating. This moment had been building up for me for some time, I hadn't planned anything but knew that I wanted to do it.
Where we sat the sun shone down on us and we could see some views across the top of the island. The spot was peaceful and there was no wind. In front of us was a small bush that had a gecko climbing up it. And all around us were pretty purple flowers, whose name I don't know but I will find out as soon as I can, so far I haven't found them anywhere but Capri.
As I rolled one I had picked in my fingers a thought crossed my mind that wouldn't go away. I bent the flower and rolled it into a little loop, but it snapped and broke. Jen asked what I was up to, she was sitting a little bit behind me. I gave her the top part of the broken flower, resolved in my mind that I had missed a moment and could relax. But after not long at all the thought crept back and got more insistent, so I picked another flower this one stronger than the last but just as pretty.
I rolled it into a little loop, and then sat, enjoying the day and mentally building my courage. After minutes of sitting silently while Jen was taking a photo of the gecko, she realised she had lost the first flower I gave her. She said “aww I lost my flower”, I said “here have this one.” And I turned around caught her left hand and pushed the flower ring onto her finger. Her eyes went wide and a big grin spread across here face. She started reacting say “Hey that's the romantic finger” or something near it. I interrupted her and blurted the words that had been my mantra for the last few minutes. “Will you Marry Me?” Then I stood up and faced her better and pulled the sunglasses off her face. My voice was a bit shaky but I said “Jennifer Alison Mason will you Marry Me?” Jen's middle name is actually Alice, but I think in my rush I mixed Alice and Mason or perhaps it was a Freudian slip, but anyway... She jumped up eagerly and said “Yes!” Then kissed my quickly and hugged me tightly.
I had known for quite a while that I would ask her, and I felt pretty confident that she would say yes, but the timing and the place were what kept me thinking at nights. I hadn't planned to do it in Capri but I knew that as I delayed too long at some stage I would run out of fantastic romantic spots. The ring also was something that was a bit of an issue for me, I don't really know anything about jewellery or the traditions around engagement rings, and also how would I pay for it and how would I distract Jen long enough to buy it. But at some stage part of me realised these were all just procrastination excuses and Jen wouldn't mind what the ring was or where I did it.
So anyway, we were sitting on the hill in Capri and I thought, there is never going to be a better spot and this flower ring is better than anything else I'm going to find. If I didn't do it then, then I would kick myself for ages and finally settle on some place not half as good.
So it turns out I lucked out. I don't think it could have gone any better, even if I had hired a coven of marriage planners with all the money in the world.
We spent the rest of the day in a daze, calling each other fiancée and giggling. The weather stayed good all day. We had some gelato and took the bus back to Capri, which took a while because suddenly the buses were all full. But we didn't mind too much. ^_^
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Napoli part deux
So yeah, terrifying first night, but our hostel was reassuringly safe. Two floors up, big thick doors etc. The first night I managed to finally come down with the cold that had been threatening to arrive for a week, and had a really bad night's sleep, tossing and turning and getting up to blow my nose super loud in the shared bathroom (sorry people next door!)...
In the morning we were woken fairly early by loud yells, bangs, screeches and general kafuffle down on the street, where it appeared the cars had been booted off the road and it turned into a big market by day. And we're not talking awesome Borough market style sadly, it was all crappy phones and clothes and knock off handbags. It all cleared out by about dinner time but boy howdy do they get up early to hock their wares!
Anyways, we got up, got our stuff sorted and ventured out. Spent the day wandering around town really, found a big castle and went in, wandered through 'old town' – Spaccanapoli – and then meandered back via winding streets and oddly a large number of shops selling Bambino goods. Baby gear. Who would raise children there, I ask you!
On the meander back we caught a cable car up the hill and went to a monastery that looks out over all of Napoli. Wandered through the museum and looked out across town. It was a lovely view but a bit cloudy, so we couldn't see out to Mt Vesuvius or to Capri. Caught a different cable car down the hill and headed back to the hostel.
In the short time we were back at the hostel before dinner, one of the staff managed to communicate to me that my shoulder bag was not so good, as it could be stolen reasonably easily. I demonstrated that I wore it over both shoulders and that I held onto it at all time, but he responded with 'ciao ciao italiano ciao yank yank, ciao ciao fall, ciao head injury' along with complete actions to show just how someone could really really try to steal it... I did not use the bag again!
Dinner was a lovely affair, we went to a pasta place in Piazza Garibaldi (opposite side of the square to where the scary phone seller was) and had prosciutto and mozzarella for starters, pasta for main (i love linguine bella donna!) and then this stuff called Babba for dessert with some panna cotta. Babba is AWESOME. It's like, a sponge cake thing, but drenched in syrup or something, it was so good. Recommended to us by our lovely waiter who spoke pretty good English and encouraged us to get a small bottle of wine each, which we both were surprised at but glad to find only cost about 2 euros each. Yum yum house wine! Headed home reasonably early – for one we were tired after walking around all day and for another, Napoli after dark is not cool.
Thursday led us out to Pompeii, which was so so cool! I hadn't realised it, but it's actually pretty much the whole city that has been excavated, not just a few buildings or a museum. We got there about 12ish and after a quickly inhaled margherita, we traipsed all over the place. It is awesome. So many houses and streets and buildings, random graffiti carved into walls, and awesome porno paintings on the walls of some houses (dirty little pompeiins :) ). Saw the plaster casts of people caught in the eruption, very dramatic. We took oodles of photos which will eventually make it online.
Headed back to the same pasta place again for dinner, this time a little too early for the lovely waiter to have turned on his charm, but the food was just as good. Had babba again because hey, it was delicious.
We then had one more day and decided to go to Capri...
In the morning we were woken fairly early by loud yells, bangs, screeches and general kafuffle down on the street, where it appeared the cars had been booted off the road and it turned into a big market by day. And we're not talking awesome Borough market style sadly, it was all crappy phones and clothes and knock off handbags. It all cleared out by about dinner time but boy howdy do they get up early to hock their wares!
Anyways, we got up, got our stuff sorted and ventured out. Spent the day wandering around town really, found a big castle and went in, wandered through 'old town' – Spaccanapoli – and then meandered back via winding streets and oddly a large number of shops selling Bambino goods. Baby gear. Who would raise children there, I ask you!
On the meander back we caught a cable car up the hill and went to a monastery that looks out over all of Napoli. Wandered through the museum and looked out across town. It was a lovely view but a bit cloudy, so we couldn't see out to Mt Vesuvius or to Capri. Caught a different cable car down the hill and headed back to the hostel.
In the short time we were back at the hostel before dinner, one of the staff managed to communicate to me that my shoulder bag was not so good, as it could be stolen reasonably easily. I demonstrated that I wore it over both shoulders and that I held onto it at all time, but he responded with 'ciao ciao italiano ciao yank yank, ciao ciao fall, ciao head injury' along with complete actions to show just how someone could really really try to steal it... I did not use the bag again!
Dinner was a lovely affair, we went to a pasta place in Piazza Garibaldi (opposite side of the square to where the scary phone seller was) and had prosciutto and mozzarella for starters, pasta for main (i love linguine bella donna!) and then this stuff called Babba for dessert with some panna cotta. Babba is AWESOME. It's like, a sponge cake thing, but drenched in syrup or something, it was so good. Recommended to us by our lovely waiter who spoke pretty good English and encouraged us to get a small bottle of wine each, which we both were surprised at but glad to find only cost about 2 euros each. Yum yum house wine! Headed home reasonably early – for one we were tired after walking around all day and for another, Napoli after dark is not cool.
Thursday led us out to Pompeii, which was so so cool! I hadn't realised it, but it's actually pretty much the whole city that has been excavated, not just a few buildings or a museum. We got there about 12ish and after a quickly inhaled margherita, we traipsed all over the place. It is awesome. So many houses and streets and buildings, random graffiti carved into walls, and awesome porno paintings on the walls of some houses (dirty little pompeiins :) ). Saw the plaster casts of people caught in the eruption, very dramatic. We took oodles of photos which will eventually make it online.
Headed back to the same pasta place again for dinner, this time a little too early for the lovely waiter to have turned on his charm, but the food was just as good. Had babba again because hey, it was delicious.
We then had one more day and decided to go to Capri...
Monday, March 30, 2009
Napoli/Naples
Monday 23rd March - We arrived after dark, amid a rush of Italians vying for closer spots in the passport check in line. I was amongst them with my Irish passport. This time I wished I was a New Zealander because Jen's line had just her in it. The line that I was jostling in turned out to be very similar to how traffic works in Napoli, you just push through and hopefully no one gets in the way.
Once outside the airport we boarded a bus to Piazza Garibaldi which is a big trap where they drop tourists so that the pickpockets can have first go at them. Got out of the bus and my first impression was... smells heavily of urine. Second impression... lots of trash on the streets.
So we made our way toward the hostel dragging our suitcases along the cobblestones. Jen's directions from the hostel's website said “From Garibaldi, go to Umberto and take the third right and then third right again.”
Out on the streets there was some sort of market going on, and the streets were still crowded. We pushed in with the traffic and I was immediately accosted by an older fellow with many scars and not much else trying to sell me an iPhone.
He knew some numbers in English and he knew how to say iPhone, but he didn't seem to understand no, which is strange because no in Italian is pretty similar. Anyway he started at 100 euros, at which i kept walking and said no (this is apparently just part of barter) he continued with me and repeated till the price was down to 14. At this point Jen had proceeded on up the street a little, and the guy was becoming very insistent and blocking my way. To which I just kept walking through him and saying no thank you. As this is happening we are surrounded by people, most just casually watching, some watching a little keener. I assumed this guy had some friends with him looking to steal my stuff or at least see where I kept my money. Just as i thought he might be feeling a bit stabby he realised I hadn't been bartering and I'd been saying no, and he just backed off.
I found Jen a little way up looking a bit panicked, she thought I'd probably been dragged into an alley.
So after that bit of fun we made it to somewhere near where the directions told us to go, but couldn't find the right street name. Eventually Jen asked a guy in a shop where our street was, in Italian (we used our phrase book here) and hand gesturing. He gave us some better directions, which turned out to be, go exactly back to where the bus dropped you off and look to the right, that is the street. So we dragged our suitcases back up the cobbled streets, but avoided the market because we both had enough phones, and found the street our hostel was on.
This street was dirtier than most and the door to the hostel well hidden. We were obviously lost tourists in a dark back alley. Luckily someone from the hostel was on a balcony above us and showed us how to get in.
Inside, the hostel was nice and warm and safe. A man behind the counter showed us our room and warned us of how unsafe it is outside, and told us various ways we could be hurt or lose our money.
So feeling very reassured we went back out to a pizza house nearby that had been recommended to us. It was called Trianon, I had a margherita pizza and Jen had some fish pizza with anchovies and olives. The pizzas were delicious, made doubly so because we were starving. Napoli is known as the birth place of pizza and especially the margherita Whether or not that is true, they make fine pizza. The base is thin and almost like pancake in the center, the edges are nice and crunchy, and it has fresh mozzarella and delicious tomato, which kinda makes the pizza quite liquid and a bit messy. So you definitely have to eat it in the Neapolitan way with knife and fork.
We had our pizzas with cokes straight from glass bottles. And then went through the tricky process of paying and adding tip. After dinner we made our way back the hostel feeling very full and scared for our lives. Naples hadn't made a great first impression, but we soon learned that it's not Naples that makes Naples great, it's all the great stuff around it. Oh and also the food.
Once outside the airport we boarded a bus to Piazza Garibaldi which is a big trap where they drop tourists so that the pickpockets can have first go at them. Got out of the bus and my first impression was... smells heavily of urine. Second impression... lots of trash on the streets.
So we made our way toward the hostel dragging our suitcases along the cobblestones. Jen's directions from the hostel's website said “From Garibaldi, go to Umberto and take the third right and then third right again.”
Out on the streets there was some sort of market going on, and the streets were still crowded. We pushed in with the traffic and I was immediately accosted by an older fellow with many scars and not much else trying to sell me an iPhone.
He knew some numbers in English and he knew how to say iPhone, but he didn't seem to understand no, which is strange because no in Italian is pretty similar. Anyway he started at 100 euros, at which i kept walking and said no (this is apparently just part of barter) he continued with me and repeated till the price was down to 14. At this point Jen had proceeded on up the street a little, and the guy was becoming very insistent and blocking my way. To which I just kept walking through him and saying no thank you. As this is happening we are surrounded by people, most just casually watching, some watching a little keener. I assumed this guy had some friends with him looking to steal my stuff or at least see where I kept my money. Just as i thought he might be feeling a bit stabby he realised I hadn't been bartering and I'd been saying no, and he just backed off.
I found Jen a little way up looking a bit panicked, she thought I'd probably been dragged into an alley.
So after that bit of fun we made it to somewhere near where the directions told us to go, but couldn't find the right street name. Eventually Jen asked a guy in a shop where our street was, in Italian (we used our phrase book here) and hand gesturing. He gave us some better directions, which turned out to be, go exactly back to where the bus dropped you off and look to the right, that is the street. So we dragged our suitcases back up the cobbled streets, but avoided the market because we both had enough phones, and found the street our hostel was on.
This street was dirtier than most and the door to the hostel well hidden. We were obviously lost tourists in a dark back alley. Luckily someone from the hostel was on a balcony above us and showed us how to get in.
Inside, the hostel was nice and warm and safe. A man behind the counter showed us our room and warned us of how unsafe it is outside, and told us various ways we could be hurt or lose our money.
So feeling very reassured we went back out to a pizza house nearby that had been recommended to us. It was called Trianon, I had a margherita pizza and Jen had some fish pizza with anchovies and olives. The pizzas were delicious, made doubly so because we were starving. Napoli is known as the birth place of pizza and especially the margherita Whether or not that is true, they make fine pizza. The base is thin and almost like pancake in the center, the edges are nice and crunchy, and it has fresh mozzarella and delicious tomato, which kinda makes the pizza quite liquid and a bit messy. So you definitely have to eat it in the Neapolitan way with knife and fork.
We had our pizzas with cokes straight from glass bottles. And then went through the tricky process of paying and adding tip. After dinner we made our way back the hostel feeling very full and scared for our lives. Naples hadn't made a great first impression, but we soon learned that it's not Naples that makes Naples great, it's all the great stuff around it. Oh and also the food.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Ten down, two to go
Months that is. Til we get back :)
So we no longer have a flat! Or jobs. We've been staying in London at Chris and Milly's which is very very appreciated. During this time we have done a few basic siteseeing trips, such as visiting the Tate Modern again (it changes regularly! ) and also a further afield trip - we went to Bath and Cardiff from Tuesday to Friday.
Bath was very lovely, we went to dinner at a Jamie Oliver restaurant (I love that guy) and to the Roman Baths. Also went on a super awesome free walking tour of Bath given by this sweet old dude who I'm sure has lived in Bath all his life and now gives these tours every day. He was so cute, there are some pics of him with his little cap in our album...
The drive to Cardiff was in no way direct - we did a bit of a drive through the Vale of Glamorgan and then hung out on Cardiff Bay. Our hostel was lovely, better than the Bath one anyway, and on our second day we went to Cardiff Castle and had a tour of an awesome old Victorian house, built by (at the time) the richest man in Britain. It was seriously ridiculous - gold plated decorated ceilings, awesome nursery decked out with amazing art and fixtures, way too many smoking rooms, and all for a dude who only spent 6 weeks of the year there. On accout of he had like 6 other castles to hang out in! Lucky for some. Drove back a scenic route, mostly because we took a wrong turn at some point but was pretty much the right direction so all good.
This weekend has been pretty casual, but today was my birthday (yay! 25!) and I had a cake baked for me by my lovely boyfriend - he also got me some awesome trinkets from the Globe store (tea towel with 'Out damn spot!' and a badge with 'exit - pursued by a bear' tee hee). He is a sweety :) We went out for a Harry Potter themed London Walk and then for dinner at a place called Navajo Joe's in Covent Garden, which was pretty tasty, a Texmex kind of deal. Yum!
Anyways, tomorrow we are off on the third to last phase of our year long odessy; Italy and France. There has been a slight change to the plans, instead of Bordeaux we are hitting up Nice. This is because the train lines between Geneva and Bordeaux suck ass and Nice is easier, so Nice it is! A beach trip will be quite a difference after (hopefully) our day of skiing in Geneva. We tried to book a tour of the CERN facility, but we're on a waiting list so not sure if we'll get into that. But there's a exhibit or something that we can look at regardless so it should be interesting :)
Not sure how the internet coverage will be on this trip, but will try to update often (mostly so I don't have to sit down after 2 weeks and try to remember what we've been doing). What fun! Now to hurridly learn some Italian :S
So we no longer have a flat! Or jobs. We've been staying in London at Chris and Milly's which is very very appreciated. During this time we have done a few basic siteseeing trips, such as visiting the Tate Modern again (it changes regularly! ) and also a further afield trip - we went to Bath and Cardiff from Tuesday to Friday.
Bath was very lovely, we went to dinner at a Jamie Oliver restaurant (I love that guy) and to the Roman Baths. Also went on a super awesome free walking tour of Bath given by this sweet old dude who I'm sure has lived in Bath all his life and now gives these tours every day. He was so cute, there are some pics of him with his little cap in our album...
The drive to Cardiff was in no way direct - we did a bit of a drive through the Vale of Glamorgan and then hung out on Cardiff Bay. Our hostel was lovely, better than the Bath one anyway, and on our second day we went to Cardiff Castle and had a tour of an awesome old Victorian house, built by (at the time) the richest man in Britain. It was seriously ridiculous - gold plated decorated ceilings, awesome nursery decked out with amazing art and fixtures, way too many smoking rooms, and all for a dude who only spent 6 weeks of the year there. On accout of he had like 6 other castles to hang out in! Lucky for some. Drove back a scenic route, mostly because we took a wrong turn at some point but was pretty much the right direction so all good.
This weekend has been pretty casual, but today was my birthday (yay! 25!) and I had a cake baked for me by my lovely boyfriend - he also got me some awesome trinkets from the Globe store (tea towel with 'Out damn spot!' and a badge with 'exit - pursued by a bear' tee hee). He is a sweety :) We went out for a Harry Potter themed London Walk and then for dinner at a place called Navajo Joe's in Covent Garden, which was pretty tasty, a Texmex kind of deal. Yum!
Anyways, tomorrow we are off on the third to last phase of our year long odessy; Italy and France. There has been a slight change to the plans, instead of Bordeaux we are hitting up Nice. This is because the train lines between Geneva and Bordeaux suck ass and Nice is easier, so Nice it is! A beach trip will be quite a difference after (hopefully) our day of skiing in Geneva. We tried to book a tour of the CERN facility, but we're on a waiting list so not sure if we'll get into that. But there's a exhibit or something that we can look at regardless so it should be interesting :)
Not sure how the internet coverage will be on this trip, but will try to update often (mostly so I don't have to sit down after 2 weeks and try to remember what we've been doing). What fun! Now to hurridly learn some Italian :S
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Toot toot all aboard
Well now! What have we been up to? To start with I just finished the first day of my last week of work, and I must say I'm thrilled. Went out for pub lunch with the team since today was the last day we were all available, tasty. Spent some of my afternoon going through my notes and papers and shredding things that I didn't need (those machines are noisy and fun) and passing on projects.
Joe is also in his last week but it's more of a break than an end for him, since he'll be contracting from NZ for them. Yay for earning in pounds! Hopefully the exchange rate will stay favourable.
Weekend before last we rented a car again and spent the Saturday driving up to Hull on a grave-hunting quest for the ma. We had a couple of maps and lists of graves of Sutton-on-Hull parish cemetery and went about taking photos of great great whatsits graves. Most of which were either reasonably crumbly or else completely overgrown by whole trees. Apparently it's the done thing to allow cemeteries to become very overgrown and wild in the name of nature preserves, which does make them quite pleasant really. Hard to find the rellies though! Also went to Wawne cemetery, where we had no map but just hunted for Robinsons and other family last names, found a few. The pics are all up online under the trip to Hull album.
On the Sunday we ventured to Cambridge – very close to bedford but we hadn't gotten round to it prior to last weekend. Did some brief shopping (I was given some vouchers for John Lewis/Waitrose for christmas and neither are in Bedford) and then went for a walk around the town, which is pretty awesome. All full of colleges and museums and universities. We sat for a while at Kings College admiring the view while punters on the river went past, full of tourists. Very nice :)
Last weekend was our last full one before all systems are go. On Saturday we did grooming things (Joe finally got a hair cut and I did girly things at the salon next door) and then went along to Bedford Museum, which is just super cute! Free entry, and it has a section on Victorian life in Bedford, Bedford Castle and its demise in the 1300s, then a lot of archaeological information about the area. Also a great section called the Olde Curiosity Shop, which was apparently a bunch of fellows in the 1800s idea of a good collection – lots of dead stuffed animals, an elephant skull, bugs pinned to boards, all sorts of ancient pottery and some Egyptian stuff too. We sat down in the kids area and raced each other on a butterfly wordfind :)
After that we went to see Slumdog Millionaire, which was grand, and Sunday we lounged extensively. It was nice to have a relaxed weekend – this week we'll be starting the packing process and trying to get the Salvation Army to take our unwanted flat stuff, surely someone will want that stuff. Also planning to pop down to London for a show or two, but mostly packing. Woo hoo...
So basically four days from now, we'll be unemployed, and a week after that, homeless! I'm so very looking forward to being a tramp.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Snow plus Britain equals good times
You may have heard something in the news about how Britain is have a spot of bad weather. Flash snow storms are A OK with me since they mean days off work :) Last week was great, worked Mon, Tues, Wed, and the rest of the week snow and ice meant our buses weren't running – no work for Jen and Joe! 4 day weekends are awesome :) We wandered through the snow and took lots of pictures, very nice. Built a snow man too, had fun smashing it, and started the packing process. We have four more weeks until we have to move out of our flat and we need to pack up what we want to keep into four suitcases. Not too bad but we still have 6 weeks left of travel and there may be further souvenirs! I'll try not to cling to too much rubbish :)
The weekend before the snow, Joe and I rented a car and drove around the surrounding Shires, which was quite fun. Went to Warwick Castle, Stratford upon Avon (the Globe in London is a better shrine to Shakespeare I think) and Oxford, and then a drive around the bus route I take to work so I could stop to look at the many villages along the way that are so very quaint. Might do it again so we can get to Cambridge and maybe visit some places that Mummy dearest wants me to check out for her genealogical quest...
Also recently – went to the Comedy Store to see the Comedy Store Players doing improv comedy, which was pretty darn awesome! Some of the players used to be on Whose Line is it anyway, so real veterans. Bit gaggy but overall very crowd pleasing comedy. Joe and I went along with Chris, Neil and my improv buddies Amanda and Lucas, who I will hopefully hang out with again before we leave!
We've booked up most of the rest of our holidays, and the travel plans thus far are as follows:
From 23rd March – Naples (4 nights) Rome (4) Geneva (3) Bordeaux (3) Paris (4)
Back to London for Easter plus another week
20th April - New York (6) LA (1) Las Vegas (1) Phoenix (1) San Diego (3) LA (4)
6th May – Get on plane to NZ, arriving in Wellington on the 8th of May at 8:30am (sorry 7th of May, we will miss you entirely)
So yes, very exciting! Also planned is a trip to Brighton on the 15th of April to catch a PJ Harvey concert, and a trip to Wales and Stonehenge and Bath before we head to Naples. Still need to book those but hopefully they'll work out...
I've just written all these blogs while riding the bus to work this morning, which has been reasonably eventful for once. Bus was 20 minutes late, and was a double decker for a change, so of course I went up top. We got 5 minutes down the road and it broke down, so sat and waited for a while. Then jumped on another bus, a normal one this time, and have been driving through fields still covered in thick snow, and roads that seem to be bearing the brunt of the melt that's just started (lots of puddles). So I'm a tad late for work but I'm sure it will be fine. Everyone's been disrupted by the weather.
Anyways. Adventures now up to date! I think. If I am missing something, then.. oh well. I've tried!
Maybe Joe will write something (he is a bit slack these days :D)
Love Jen
The weekend before the snow, Joe and I rented a car and drove around the surrounding Shires, which was quite fun. Went to Warwick Castle, Stratford upon Avon (the Globe in London is a better shrine to Shakespeare I think) and Oxford, and then a drive around the bus route I take to work so I could stop to look at the many villages along the way that are so very quaint. Might do it again so we can get to Cambridge and maybe visit some places that Mummy dearest wants me to check out for her genealogical quest...
Also recently – went to the Comedy Store to see the Comedy Store Players doing improv comedy, which was pretty darn awesome! Some of the players used to be on Whose Line is it anyway, so real veterans. Bit gaggy but overall very crowd pleasing comedy. Joe and I went along with Chris, Neil and my improv buddies Amanda and Lucas, who I will hopefully hang out with again before we leave!
We've booked up most of the rest of our holidays, and the travel plans thus far are as follows:
From 23rd March – Naples (4 nights) Rome (4) Geneva (3) Bordeaux (3) Paris (4)
Back to London for Easter plus another week
20th April - New York (6) LA (1) Las Vegas (1) Phoenix (1) San Diego (3) LA (4)
6th May – Get on plane to NZ, arriving in Wellington on the 8th of May at 8:30am (sorry 7th of May, we will miss you entirely)
So yes, very exciting! Also planned is a trip to Brighton on the 15th of April to catch a PJ Harvey concert, and a trip to Wales and Stonehenge and Bath before we head to Naples. Still need to book those but hopefully they'll work out...
I've just written all these blogs while riding the bus to work this morning, which has been reasonably eventful for once. Bus was 20 minutes late, and was a double decker for a change, so of course I went up top. We got 5 minutes down the road and it broke down, so sat and waited for a while. Then jumped on another bus, a normal one this time, and have been driving through fields still covered in thick snow, and roads that seem to be bearing the brunt of the melt that's just started (lots of puddles). So I'm a tad late for work but I'm sure it will be fine. Everyone's been disrupted by the weather.
Anyways. Adventures now up to date! I think. If I am missing something, then.. oh well. I've tried!
Maybe Joe will write something (he is a bit slack these days :D)
Love Jen
Amsterda-ym, gurl
We took a long weekend in October in order to visit Amsterdam, and it was pretty much awesome :) Arrived Friday night and got a tram to our hostel, and then popped up the road to a local place for dinner. The waiter was lovely and translated the menu for us – denizens of Amsterdam pretty much all speak English so we were fine without much Dutch – and the food was tasty indeed. Went back our room, which was a private top floor room with a TV and windows that overlooked a lovely park. Interesting tidbit – our tram stop was right outside a theatre that during WW2 was the place where the Jews had to gather when they were carted off to the death camps :( It is amazing to be confronted with that sort of thing while you're doing something as mundane as catching a tram.
Saturday we headed to town and wandered. Had delicious pancakes for brunch from a pancake house that was very touristy. While there we overhead someone asking for directions to Anne Frank's house – neither of us realised that it was in Amsterdam so this was very lucky! Turned out to be just down the road, so after mopping up our syrup we wandered down the road and found a huge queue of people snaking down the road and round the corner. Not wanting to spend the day in a queue, we decided to come back on Sunday.
We spent the rest of Sat wandering around the canals, doing some Christmas shopping and admiring the red light district, very... average. Well not average, but I think I was expecting something a little more shocking from the stories I have heard. Lots of ladies beckoning men from their shop windows, hardly any women on the street, it was mostly gangs of men most likely on stag parties from Britain, and some interesting adverts for sex shows.
Next day was a bit quiet, went to a funfair and rode on some rides and had some chips with satay sauce from a street vendor which were delicious! And apparently very Dutch, or at least Amsterdam-ian :) Got some tulips and a Miffy book – I LOVE Miffy so that was a bit of nostalgia for me and exciting to find out she's Dutch :)
Also on Sunday and Monday morning, we went to some museums which was cool, Anne Frank's House (really fascinating), Van Gogh museum, the big Dutch art museum which has a fancy name but it escapes me at present. Then off to the train station to get back to the airport.
A very brief account of events but sadly as it has been so long I can't remember it play by play :) There are of course photos up that you may have already seen, given that I am so much better at updating photos that I am the blog!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
More more more!!
Tuesday – Better again! No rain this time. Still pretty cold. Headed back out to town and went to Zoologica Barcelona – that's right, the Zoo!! Pretty awesome holiday so far, with circuses and zoos.. Anyways! The zoo is on this massive piece of land that used to be a massive Citadel, but was demolished as it was a sign of oppression. The Parc de la Ciutadella is now a big green expanse and the zoo is 13 hectares of awesomeness. We saw monkeys and zebras and lions and panthers and birds (even a pukeko we think) and gorillas, an elephant, hippos, all manner of creatures. Best of all was this awesome crazy lady in a fur coat and hat who wandered around waving her arms at the simians ranting at them. "Hola Gorilla! Como estas blah blah blah *hand waving and gesturing*" (that's her behind Joe)
Spent several hours there, and then headed back to town. We were pretty tired after that and had planned to visit the City Museum (closing too soon) so ended up just wandering the streets for a while and then heading for some dinner. Went to a place called Taller de Tapas and had quite a good meal, about 6 tapas shared and some delicious mojitos and capirinas. After that we called it a night, it was pretty late.
Wednesday we went to Montjuic. Went for a big walk – up the hill to where the big national art museum was, then round for a walk around to the Olympic Stadium which was pretty cool. Went inside and had a look around, found no less than 10 cats either sunbathing in the stands or hanging out by the cafe tables in order to get scraps, cuuute!! Barcelona seems to have lots of cats and dogs, cats mostly hanging out in the suburbs and the dogs always being walked through town, all kinds of dogs...
Spent several hours there, and then headed back to town. We were pretty tired after that and had planned to visit the City Museum (closing too soon) so ended up just wandering the streets for a while and then heading for some dinner. Went to a place called Taller de Tapas and had quite a good meal, about 6 tapas shared and some delicious mojitos and capirinas. After that we called it a night, it was pretty late.
Wednesday we went to Montjuic. Went for a big walk – up the hill to where the big national art museum was, then round for a walk around to the Olympic Stadium which was pretty cool. Went inside and had a look around, found no less than 10 cats either sunbathing in the stands or hanging out by the cafe tables in order to get scraps, cuuute!! Barcelona seems to have lots of cats and dogs, cats mostly hanging out in the suburbs and the dogs always being walked through town, all kinds of dogs...
We rode a cable car up to the top of the hill next, lots of good views across the city and the top featured a military museum. We didn't go in, just wandered around, grabbed a quick lunch and admired the view. Then wandered part of the way down the hill along a bushy path and to another cable car, one that goes right across the harbour over to Barcelonetta, a harbour area of town. Wandered around the streets (such loiterers!) and then found a nice place to have tapas and sangria; they also offered flamenco shows but sadly not until the 10th of January by which time we were back in little old Bedford.
After dinner we headed back to Las Ramblas, which were getting more and more packed in preparation for New Years. We found a fruit market down a side street and bought a bunch of grapes so we could take part in the traditional eat-12-grapes-before-clock-finishes-gonging at midnight. Since it was still early we headed back home and had a week nap (it is damn tiring walking around all day!) and then back on the Metro to town.
We got off the tube at the top of Las Rablas and if it was packed before, it was INSANE now. Hordes of people all over the streets, cars not going anywhere cos of the people, random fireworks exploding – we assumed they were fireworks but we didn't actually see any sparklies, just heard loud bangs! A terrorist attack would barely have been noticed for all the attention the people around us paid the explosions. Bit scary.
We found a place to hover in Placa de la Catalunya where we had a good view of the big clock tower, and counted out our grapes. Lots of people around us were doing the same, some had grapes in a can which apparently marketed only for New Years – I wish I'd had some of those cos when we got to the countdown it turned out I suck at eating fresh grapes quickly, mostly because they had pips and were a bit sticky. Joe gulped his down but I took at least two minutes :) He got impatient waiting for his midnight kiss! Lots of people around us called Feliz Anos and hugged, a cute family nearby popped champagne bottles that were actually just confetti cannons, and then it was over. Knowing it'd be extremely foolish to attempt the Metro again, we walked back home which was lovely – dry night, lots of happy people out, and christmas and holiday lights still up on most of the streets. A small boy called out Feliz Anos to us on our way and we called back, which made his day and caused the rest of his family to appear at their window all yelling and dancing :)
Next day being New Years day, nothing much was open, so we headed up to Park Guell, a big Gaudi designed park on the hill to the north of town. Escalators up the hill made things a tad easier but still a big walk! It was a lovely thing to walk around, lot of trees and nature of course and neat stone work and mosaics around the place. Stayed there for the morning then headed down the park out another entrance and walked through the Gracia area back to town. Found a place for lunch that served lovely open sandwiches – waiter was a bit keen, when we went to order drinks we weren't sure what to have (booze? Water); he offered sangria and we said oo yes, next we heard 'Una sangria GRANDE' called back to the kitchen, which raised our eyebrows. Back comes a massive jug – oh well, who needs a sober afternoon anyways? Delicious none the less :)
We staggered out of there around 4ish and then headed to La Sagrada Familia, another bit of Gaudi arcitecture all about Jesus and the apostles. Twas closed sadly but we stood at the bottom (wavering a bit on our feet) and took some pictures. Would have been nice to go up but oh well!
After such a huge lunch we waited a long time for dinner, and ended up just going to a wee place down the road from our hostel which appeared to be run entirely by slightly crazy old men. Very sweet, and I had rabbit which was pretty much just like chicken but still very nice.
Friday we flew out, but before hand we headed back to town for a last minute wander around the sites. Back around Barra Gotic and Las Ramblas, and then back to the hostel for our bags and off to the airport. Almost got on the wrong train back but happily I asked someone and we managed to get off the train and onto the right one just in time! That would have been exciting huh :)
All in all a good trip, would have liked better weather but it apparently didn't stop my photography, as I took over 1000 pictures! Most of which are on the travel album so check it out if you haven't already. Coming next, a shortened summary of Amsterdam and an update on our current situation plus itinerary for the travels home...
Barcelona - let the music play
So. Barcelona. At last we meet. We've been looking forward to this trip since our last one ended (Amsterdam – totally forgot to write that one up, will do!) and here it is.
First off, flight was late. Apparently airline trouble turns me into a horrible person, along with all other passengers except Joe. I was angry at everyone for queueing wrong, for being too foreign, too loud, inconsiderate etc. Joe made sure I didn't voice my concerns too loudly. He's pretty good. Anyways, got the flight going eventually, flew to Barcelona, arrived at our hostel (Hotel Transit) at about 10:30ish after picking up our dinner (McDonald's – it was easy and quick) and into our room.
It's a twin, with an ash tray. We booked double, non smoking! Neato. Decided we were too tired to worry and went to bed. Sadly our neighbours did not. German or Russian girls, singing and yelling and screaaaaaming their heads off til well past 12am. There was banging and shouting and echoing until finally the concierge came up and yelled at them. I cannot fathom how people can get this far in life and still not consider that maybe when one is in a hotel with other visitors, that screaming to all hours of the night, let alone Sunday night, is not a kickin rad thing to do. Eventually we got to sleep around 1am, thus ending our first night in Barcelona.
Happily Monday in Espana went better. It was raining ever so slightly, which wasn't so bad but caused very wet feet (manageable) and we wandered up from our hostel towards town. Saw a lovely park with a big sculpture by Joan Miro and palm trees. Then along a very long and busy street with lovely big trees and lots of market stalls selling all sorts. Hit the Placa de Catalunya and wandered down Las Ramblas. These were pretty much just super busy. They're a big long series of pedestrian roads, but they have car lanes down each side so you can't just wander into the shops, you still have to cross traffic. Stopped in a place called Cafe de l'Opera and had super chocolatey drinks with churros, deep fried donut-like things that you dip into the delicious chocolate.
My two years of learning Spanish have vaguely paid off, in that I can ask for a table and get general understandings of what waiters say to us. But I'm wishing I could remember more of it so I could actually hold conversations with people! Oh well.
After delicious chocolate, we wandered through Barri Gotic which is pretty much the oldest part of town, and it's awesome. The streets are big enough for a single vehicle, and cars hardly ever come through so it's mostly just people and cute shops and houses above with balconies, the streets sometimes leading to big squares with churches and restaurants around the edges. Headed down to Place Reial and had the menu del dia (set priced lunch with 2-3 courses) at Taxidermista (I know, what the heck does this mean in Spanish?) . It was really good, was about 10 euros each and we got bread, a drink, and three courses – I had salad, tuna stew, and strawberry ice cream, yum yum! While Joe had mushroom pasta, veal steak and .. a banana. Yes it seems that 'Fruit' on the menu meant a single piece. We laughed and just mixed it into the ice cream and shared.
Wandered around Barri Gotic some more, then headed down to the waterfront and wandered again for a while. Discovered a circus near the port and I managed to book us tickets, which was my first real test with Spanish, as I was able to confirm the different ticket prices and what they entailed, and what time the show started with the ticket operator speaking no English :D Yay me! We had some time before it started so we found a gelato place and pretended to read magazines – mostly we were just guessing and trying to work out what the pictures corresponded to. I think I was reading an article about homosexual military uniforms in Che's Argentina (w t f indeed).
Headed back to the circus and it mostly appeared to be attended by families with oodles of children, which was great. They were very cute, all running around with their strange languaging. We had B tickets, which were the second cheapest and got quite decent seats. The performers were pretty great, Spanish speaking of course but there was a lot of physical humour with the clowns and most of the gags and the like were quite easy to understand. We saw ballerinas doing rope dances (those ones when you hang in the air and spin etc), girls walking up ramps on big red balls, awesome unicycling, jugglers, clowns, one of those bikers on a big floating stage thing (there's a pic somewhere if that's not clear) and some crazy acrobats that appeared to be a middle aged husband and wife, very cute! What made it most appealing though was that the stunts almost all had someone spotting or looking out for the performers, like they had only just got the stunts working and were still unsure. One of the unicyclist's tricks failed and she fell, but we all cheered her and then cheered her even more when she got it right the second time. I don't know, it was nice knowing they had limitations but were trying to do it anyway :)
After the circus, which was great, we wandered back up Las Ramblas, and stopped in a place called Mickeys for a late night dinner/snack. Bad idea – total tourist trap with high priced and low quality tapas. We only got 3 and a drink each and it totalled over 30 euros! Ick. Oh well it was an experience, plus I spotted a neat Spanish singer on the music TV that I want to hear more of, Maria Mena, so there's a silver lining. Headed up to the metro and caught a train back to Tarragona, the station closest to our hostel. Got into our better hostel room and had a good nights sleep...
First off, flight was late. Apparently airline trouble turns me into a horrible person, along with all other passengers except Joe. I was angry at everyone for queueing wrong, for being too foreign, too loud, inconsiderate etc. Joe made sure I didn't voice my concerns too loudly. He's pretty good. Anyways, got the flight going eventually, flew to Barcelona, arrived at our hostel (Hotel Transit) at about 10:30ish after picking up our dinner (McDonald's – it was easy and quick) and into our room.
It's a twin, with an ash tray. We booked double, non smoking! Neato. Decided we were too tired to worry and went to bed. Sadly our neighbours did not. German or Russian girls, singing and yelling and screaaaaaming their heads off til well past 12am. There was banging and shouting and echoing until finally the concierge came up and yelled at them. I cannot fathom how people can get this far in life and still not consider that maybe when one is in a hotel with other visitors, that screaming to all hours of the night, let alone Sunday night, is not a kickin rad thing to do. Eventually we got to sleep around 1am, thus ending our first night in Barcelona.
Happily Monday in Espana went better. It was raining ever so slightly, which wasn't so bad but caused very wet feet (manageable) and we wandered up from our hostel towards town. Saw a lovely park with a big sculpture by Joan Miro and palm trees. Then along a very long and busy street with lovely big trees and lots of market stalls selling all sorts. Hit the Placa de Catalunya and wandered down Las Ramblas. These were pretty much just super busy. They're a big long series of pedestrian roads, but they have car lanes down each side so you can't just wander into the shops, you still have to cross traffic. Stopped in a place called Cafe de l'Opera and had super chocolatey drinks with churros, deep fried donut-like things that you dip into the delicious chocolate.
My two years of learning Spanish have vaguely paid off, in that I can ask for a table and get general understandings of what waiters say to us. But I'm wishing I could remember more of it so I could actually hold conversations with people! Oh well.
After delicious chocolate, we wandered through Barri Gotic which is pretty much the oldest part of town, and it's awesome. The streets are big enough for a single vehicle, and cars hardly ever come through so it's mostly just people and cute shops and houses above with balconies, the streets sometimes leading to big squares with churches and restaurants around the edges. Headed down to Place Reial and had the menu del dia (set priced lunch with 2-3 courses) at Taxidermista (I know, what the heck does this mean in Spanish?) . It was really good, was about 10 euros each and we got bread, a drink, and three courses – I had salad, tuna stew, and strawberry ice cream, yum yum! While Joe had mushroom pasta, veal steak and .. a banana. Yes it seems that 'Fruit' on the menu meant a single piece. We laughed and just mixed it into the ice cream and shared.
Wandered around Barri Gotic some more, then headed down to the waterfront and wandered again for a while. Discovered a circus near the port and I managed to book us tickets, which was my first real test with Spanish, as I was able to confirm the different ticket prices and what they entailed, and what time the show started with the ticket operator speaking no English :D Yay me! We had some time before it started so we found a gelato place and pretended to read magazines – mostly we were just guessing and trying to work out what the pictures corresponded to. I think I was reading an article about homosexual military uniforms in Che's Argentina (w t f indeed).
Headed back to the circus and it mostly appeared to be attended by families with oodles of children, which was great. They were very cute, all running around with their strange languaging. We had B tickets, which were the second cheapest and got quite decent seats. The performers were pretty great, Spanish speaking of course but there was a lot of physical humour with the clowns and most of the gags and the like were quite easy to understand. We saw ballerinas doing rope dances (those ones when you hang in the air and spin etc), girls walking up ramps on big red balls, awesome unicycling, jugglers, clowns, one of those bikers on a big floating stage thing (there's a pic somewhere if that's not clear) and some crazy acrobats that appeared to be a middle aged husband and wife, very cute! What made it most appealing though was that the stunts almost all had someone spotting or looking out for the performers, like they had only just got the stunts working and were still unsure. One of the unicyclist's tricks failed and she fell, but we all cheered her and then cheered her even more when she got it right the second time. I don't know, it was nice knowing they had limitations but were trying to do it anyway :)
After the circus, which was great, we wandered back up Las Ramblas, and stopped in a place called Mickeys for a late night dinner/snack. Bad idea – total tourist trap with high priced and low quality tapas. We only got 3 and a drink each and it totalled over 30 euros! Ick. Oh well it was an experience, plus I spotted a neat Spanish singer on the music TV that I want to hear more of, Maria Mena, so there's a silver lining. Headed up to the metro and caught a train back to Tarragona, the station closest to our hostel. Got into our better hostel room and had a good nights sleep...
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