Home stretch!

I´m now on my last of 5 days in Spain, and it´s been a blast. Because I had some problems with train booking, I ended up spending most of my time in Barcelona, and thank goodness for that - I had a blast in Barcelona, and Madrid has proved so far to be pretty dull. I loved everything about Barcelona (save for the heat). There were so many things to see during the days (the city is full of crazy modernistic architecture) and the nightlife is really busy - everyone stays out all night! The city is also beautiful in the dark, as it really lights up. My favourite part had to be the Sagrada Familia, an amazing cathedral designed by Gaudi that is still under construction today. Stay tuned for photos. Also, my hostel in Barcelona was amazing - a university residence-turned-hostel, all the rooms were private rooms with their own desk and shower! They sure know how to treat their students well...

View of part of the Sagrada Familia from inside one of the towers




One of Gaudi's crazy building designs, the Pedrera




In the Barcelona public market...




The "Magic Fountain"




The weirdest thing happened to me in Barcelona. While at the train station, an old Spanish man came up to me and asked to shake my hand. He looked amazed. I learned from his English-speaking daughter that he was from a small village and had never seen an Asian person before, and was totally wowed. How bizarre! Anyways, I told her to tell him that he would see plenty more over the course of his holiday in the city.

The coolest thing about Spain, that I didn´t know before, is that there are different provinces within the country that speak different languages. For instance, all the Spanish I learned last year at UBC was useless in Barcelona, since everyone there speaks Catalunyan (sp?), which to me seemed like a mesh of French and the Spanish that I know. However, in Madrid I´ve been coping alot better, since the language is more familiar.

Other miscellaneous thoughts...

I´ve decided that I could write a book on budget travelling. Yes, I know Rick Steves has a great one. But he doesn´t ever try to cheat the system or any of that fun stuff. Over the course of our trip, Aleesha and I have mastered which cities we can ride the bus for free (because no one checks tickets), how to work the Eurail system so as to avoid expensive reservation fees, and how to go about taking as much free stuff from hostels as we can (my most successful was in Barcelona, where I ran away with an armload of complimentary soaps, shampoos, kleenex, teabags, hot chocolate and crackers). I should be embarrassed, but sadly I am not!

I´ve also realized that my body has an amazing internal alarm clock. Only once over the past 5 weeks have I slept past 9am, and my eyes always pop open between 7:30 and 8. Even after the really late nights. It´s awesome!

Aleesha´s headed back to Canada now, and I´ll be meeting Melinda tonight in Dublin, and then will be on my own for a couple days in London. I actually don´t mind being alone - it´s nice to have some ¨me¨ time!

Anyways, off to hop on a plane to Ireland, and will try to blog once more before home!

Crispy

So we're now in Nice (southern France) and basking in the beachy heat. After two full days lying on the sand in both Cannes and Juan Les Pins, surrounded by palm trees and amazingly blue waters, I think I've actually had enough of beaches. That's right... no more suntanning for the next 11 days!

The rest of my time in Geneva was awesome - Connie was an excellent hostess and definitely picked the best of sights for me to see. We ended up spending a day exploring a couple small towns surrounding Lake Geneva - Nyon (a Swiss village) and Yvoire (a French medieval town). They were both lovely. I also ate reeeally well in Geneva (thanks Connie!). Anyways, I decided that I really love Switzerland (maybe favourite country yet?) and if I had to pick a place to live in, that might be it.


The "Jet D'Eau" fountain in Geneva




Palm trees outside of the Grande Casino in Monaco




Rules and regulations of Monaco




Nice is really busy, really touristy, but it's been fun. I'm looking forward to checking out Marseille and Avignon tomorrow, and then venturing forth to Spain. But for now, it's nice being able to speak the language again (though I had gotten pretty good at miming).

A couple other notes:

I finished Harry Potter and would highly recommend it to anyone and everyone. Read it... do it.

Yes, I was offered a teaching job in Quebec for next year, and no, I did not take it. Alot of reasons why, mostly the location, and also the fact that I'm just not ready to pack up and leave.

I FINALLY found people on the beach today that play ultimate! I tossed a disc and it felt amazing.

It's scary when you can count the exact number of days you have left on a trip... I come home in 11 days!

Oh Internet, how I've missed you...

So, it's been awhile... my time here is flying by so fast, I just can't keep up. So hard to believe that I'll be home in 15 short days!

So, we spent 6 hot and exhausting days in Italy, where Internet was ridiculously expensive, hence the lack of blog posts. Here's a very brief recap:

Venice: Crowded and way too touristy, but the canals were really cool to wander through! First experience with a hostel camp, which went surprisingly well.

Rome: Full of crazy Italian drivers and motorcyclists. Not pedestrian-friendly at all! The Vatican was pretty cool (the lineup wasn't even that painful)... if you ever plan on going, be sure to cover your shoulders and knees, or they won't let you in. The ancient stuff was super cool... we didn't go into the Colosseum (too expensive) but as usual, we did some solid "random wandering" and saw alot of interesting places. Also, gelato in Rome (and Cinque-Terre) = thumbs up!

The Vatican post office

The Colosseum (way bigger than I imagined)

Cinque-Terre: Might be the highlight of the trip (so far). Cinque-Terre is on the Italian coast and is made of 5 small villages all along the water. Our hostel (best hostel yet - gorgeous suite with private kitchen and free washing machine - and cheaper than some of our other hostels!) was in Riomaggiore, the southmost of the five villages. Aleesha and I hiked all five over a span of 7 hours (including an hour-long break on a very-difficult-to-access beach between the 2nd and 3rd towns), but wow, was it ever tiring! It wasn't actually a tough hike, but with the sun beating down on us (not a cloud in the sky) and our constantly being short on water (read: mild heatstroke), finishing was quite an accomplishment. Second chance encounter of the trip was bumping into a fellow backpacker from the States that we had previously met in Berlin - crazy! We spent one of the evenings stargazing on the rocks by the water... so pretty!

Sunset from the rocks in Riomaggiore

The houses of Cinque-Terre

Anyways, in summary, Italy was way too hot for our liking. The food was lovely though - we did it all... pizza, pasta, gelato, basically filled up so that we could starve ourselves in the much-more-expensive Switzerland.

So, Switzerland - a welcome change in climate! We started off in Interlaken, a town right in the center of the Alps. I opted to take the mountain tram up to Schynige Platte (an elevation of about 6500ft, around half the elevation of the highest point, the Jungfrau). There were tons of hiking trails once I got up there, so I ended up hiking within the Alps for about 3 hours and saw a ton of gorgeous alpine wildflowers! The hike I chose also offered alot of spectacular viewpoints that my camera tried in vain to capture.

Apparently the weather in Switzerland likes to do crazy things - so far we've just missed a freak hailstorm in Interlaken (about 2 hours before we arrived, apparently ticket machines were breaking and sliding all around in the train station!) and had a freak thunderstorm in Gryon (further west in the Alps, up the mountain from the town of Bex). Gryon was pretty cool - lots of hiking trails and nice views, despite the thick fog.

The peak on the right is Jungfrau - the top of Europe!

Aleesha and I are splitting for a couple days, and I'm now in Geneva, staying at my friend Connie's place. She is awesome. We walked around the lakeside this afternoon and also managed to find a bookstore so I could blow some money on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I haven't cracked it yet, but am now looking forward to my upcoming long train rides!

We also cooked a lovely meal tonight, my first *good* home cooked meal in a long time. My stomach is full and happy right now.

I think that's all I've got for now - still having a great time and not wanting this trip to end... but at the same time can't wait to be home!

Things I miss about home (in no particular order)

Drinkable tap water
Sushi
Public restrooms that don't cost money
Non-smoking public places
My bed
Ultimate
You (yes you)

Besides thinking about sushi and ultimate, I've been busy... After Prague we headed to Vienna and met up with my friend Jon from UBC. He's been backpacking for awhile now and is sorta doing the opposite "loop" that we are. We spent our first night in Rathausplatz (in the city centre), where there was a huge free arts festival going on. Unfortunately our first full day in Vienna was a Tuesday, which is apparently the day that everything is closed... go figure. We ended up checking out the Hapsburg Palace and the Freud Museum (pretty underwhelming), and in the evening we watched the famous Lipizzaner horses. Didn't think I'd find the horses all that interesting, but I actually really did - they're so graceful!

Best sign I've seen so far: plastered all over the walls of our Austrian hostel

On Wednesday we were able to get into Vienna's Museum of Natural History, which was really interesting for us nerds. Evolution, rocks and minerals, meteors, dinosaurs, animal models... awesome!


This is for Heather: Cuttlefish



Last night the three of us rolled into Budapest, Hungary and Aleesha and I headed our to explore the city. Then we proceeded to accomplish what we had set out to do way before the trip even started - we caught the first showing of Harry Potter. We found a cinema showing HP at midnight (for the record, it's "Harry Potter es a Fonix Rendje", say it with a harsh Eastern European accent), and when we got there we were pleasantly surprised to see that the movie was actually in English, with Hungarian subtitles (rather than the other way around). The movie was pretty good but more than anything we were just excited to have seen it in Hungary!

Today, we investigated the much-talked-about Hungarian baths. These bath houses are crazy - I think we did about 20 different pools today (indoor, outdoor, hot spring, ice bath) with fun fountains and jet streams, as well as a half dozen saunas. It was quite the experience - really relaxing. We probably could've spent the entire day there!

So, that's about it for our Eastern European tour... finishing off Budapest tomorrow (mainly Buda Castle), and then we're off the various parts of Italy for a week. Here's hoping that the weather is nice and hot!

No speak English?

So, for the first time this trip, we our now in a city where people speak very little English. Prague is a wonderful city and we're having a blast, but yeah... for a place as touristy as this, there's a definite lack of English speakers!

To backpedal a bit, we ended our Germany time with a visit to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, on the outskirts of Berlin. Sachsenhausen was the model prison camps that all others were designed based on. For obvious reasons it was a really heavy day... but we were glad we went.

We've spent the last couple days visiting alot of the major sights in Prague - the castle district, with its cathedrals and palaces, was really pretty, but prettier still is the city in its entirety, with a wide river running through, gorgeous architecture, tons of concerts, and a city centre that's really alive. Today we trained it out to Karlstein, a nearby town where King Charles IV had his second palace in the 16th century. The palace is nestled in the middle of the foresty mountain, making for a great view, and after a tiresome hike of a couple miles (it's hot here!) we got to tour the palace. It's been a relaxing day.

Castle @ Karlstein

Tomorrow we're planning on exploring the Jewish quarter (the synagogue, a cemetery, etc) and in the evening we go to Vienna, where we're meeting up with a friend of mine from UBC - should be fun!

Photos!

At long last... photos!

Deutschland

We're in Berlin now, after a looong ride in from Amsterdam. After having slept a ridiculous 12-plus hours yesterday (between the night and the daytrain), we ended up having a ton of energy and staying out until nearly sunrise, which is apparently normal in Germany. It was fun - we met a bunch of Americans and even a Quebecois!

Today we did our walking tour of the city - fabulous as always. Here are some highlights from the tour:

Holocaust memorial in the centre of the city

Underneath: Bunker where Hitler committed suicide

Remains of the Berlin Wall.

To lighten our mood, we spent the afternoon at the Berlin Zoo!

The famous polar bear, Knut

We waited, and waited, and waited until the hippos started fighting!

A crazy fountain in the zoo!

Vegetable'd!

I'm dedicating the title of this post to the fact that for the first time in quite a few days, I had a full plate of vegetables for dinner! I normally eat alot of veggies at home, but fresh salad doesn't quite fit into the whole backpacker's lifestyle, so it's been rough ;)

Bruges was amazing, probably my favourite stop so far. We only spent one full day there, but it was a perfect, calm, relaxing day - we rented bikes from the hostel and rode everywhere, all day. To give you an idea of size, we made it around the entire city (which is lined with canals) in less than an hour. Afterwards, we checked out the city centre. I went on a Chocolate Factory tour which was amazing... in the end, I successfully tried Belgian chocolate, waffles, fries, and beer - the 4 must-do's, apparently. The locals were super friendly too - way different than in Paris!





In Bruges, we had windmills right outside our hostel!

This is for Kat - a Belgian kitchenware store

Dog sculpture in the Chocolate Factory!


We're in Amsterdam now and are leaving for Berlin tomorrow. Amsterdam's been... interesting. It's definitely different here. A ton of history (yesterday we toured the Van Gogh museum, today I toured the Anne Frank House)... and the Red Light District is interesting, in both a crazy and sad way. We walked around for a bit in the evening with another traveller we met from the States, and it really hit me hard how depressing it is to have prostitution so accepted in a city. The drug use here is insane too - you can literally walk into a "coffee shop" and ask the barista for a few grams of weed, and there coffee shops are even more abundant (and more crowded) than our very own Starbucks in Van. It was weird, I actually had to get out of that part of town fast, not because it was scary (it's not - it's full of tourists) - but because I was so sad.

I am UBC? No, I AMsterdam!

Terrible, I know, but I had to include this - found in the pavement right outside the front doors to the city's Old Church.

Tonight I think we're going to take it easy and prep for an early morning tomorrow. On one final note, I'll say that the Dutch eat ALOT of chocolate. For breakfast this morning, the hostel served us bread with chocolate spread (think Nutella, but with white AND milk chocolate) and a box of real chocolate sprinkles to cover the bread with. It was alot of sugar... and after talking to a Dutch lady, apparently this is normal!