Home, home, aaaall the way home!

Well, as you may or may not know (you probably do know..) I'm home now! 

I guess I'll talk a little about London, because it was our last stop on our 3 month long journey.  It was fabulous. It is such a jam-packed city! So much to see and do. Good thing we were there for a week.

We started off by checking into a St. Christopher's Hostel, because the one in Bruges was so good.  So we check in and low and behold we run into the same guy we met in Rome.  Michael from New Zealand. It was really random.  Anyway, we stayed in that hostel for 3 nights then moved on to our friend's house that we met in Santorini.  She was studying English in London and her home-stay had room for us.  So we chilled with our friend in comfort at our last place in Europe.  It was grand.

We saw a lot of things.  We went on a free tour so that covered a lot of touristic bases. We also did our fair amount of walking...oy. It's so hard to write about  amazing places. It was all just so cool.  I miss it.  

Well, I had the most wonderful time of my life.  Experiences and people I will never forget shape how I feel about my trip.  I am happy to be home to see familiar faces, but I will be travelling again soon.  Too much is out there for me to just sit and home and wonder about. I want to thank everybody who read my blog, and commented on it too, it made me feel special.  I really enjoyed reading what you guys had to say. 

I can't wait to travel more and write more. 

Until the future...

Justine.

Oh my!

So I only have 7 minutes left on my internet time to sum up the most glorious Edinburgh, the stylish Glasgow! So it's not going to be very good...

In Edinburgh we stayed with a friend from school named Heidi. SHe was so awesome! She just decided she'd rather live in Scotland, so she packed up and moved there, and now has a job at starbucks. We had a grand time hanging out with her and talking and enjoying life. Excellent.

FWe were in Edinburgh from Saturday to Friday, so almost a week then we moved on to Glasgow! It was lovely..especially for shopping..great..we hostelled and couch surfed and now we are currently in London for our last week until we return to good ol' Victoria BC! I can't wait to see everyone again!

See you soon!

Dingle etc.

After our most wonderful stay at that small cottage in the Killarney country side, we made our way to a tiny village named Anascaul on the Dingle Peninsula..it was quite small..really just a strip of houses and pubs with one very green bar/hostel called "The Randy Leprechaun". It was alright, we just had a spider issue in our room, which Liz bravely and heroicly fixed with her left shoe. For the two days we were in Anascaul we took the bus to the town of Dingle, a small harbour village famous for it's Dolphin named 'Fungie' (how dumb) Anyway, that's why tourist's go there..we didn't go looking for the fish. We did our usual amount of toodling until the last bus came at 4:00pm to take us back to our little hostel.

We made friends with so many dogs..yes, literal dogs..they just kept coming up to us and following us down the street and trying to play fetch with us. Hopefully that doesn't make us sound like super losers..there we're really any people around in that town ok?!

On our last night there we went down to the bar for our last Irish pint of Guiness. And what do you know they started setting up for a little bit of Karaoke. So, I gathered my courage and sung a little U2 'elevation' (I sang part of the song very wrong because I forgot how it went.awkward) It was good fun though because I've always wanted to do Karaoke and finally got my chance in jolly old Ireland.

The next morning we made our way to a short one night stop in a place called 'Sixmilebridge' (It was close to the Shannon Airport) And in the morning took a flight to Edinburgh.

So here we are now in a very grand city indeed, rich in history, and handsome to behold. We're staying with another school friend of ours named Heidi and are really enjoying ourselves thus far!

Well, hopefully write in a couple of days on Edinburgh happenings! OH! But before I go, I must say that I tried Haggis today and it was deeeeelicious! Stupid rumours that it tastes awful...it was just like a really good meatloaf! ..anyway..bye!

So much to recap..

Sorry about the lack of posts..it has been a while hasn't it? I don't wanna go home in 3 weeks!!!

So after Lisbon we took a rediculously long train ride to Paris..from Lisbon..check out a map..it's far. We arrived in Paris for the sole purpose of going to Disneyland..and that we did. It truly was magical pretending to be a child again. It was fun. We got a stupidly annoying fine on the metro though, wasn't even our fault..it was only 25 euros, but it was inconveniant still.

From Paris, we travelled to Cherbourg to catch our ferry over to Ireland. Worst ferry ride ever. EVER. 22 hours of storm on the Atlantic. I never want to do that again. It wasn't so bad when we were sleeping because we just layed on the ground and slept to the rocking of the boat, but as soon as I got up in the morning...ugh...I felt so sick. I, in the past, have been quite proud of my sea-legs, but obviously they failed me because I was sick. I didn't throw up, but I have to sit outside in the freezing rain and wind to try and escape the feeling of death welling up inside. Needless to say I was overjoyed at our landing in Ireland, not just because I hated the ship, but also because I've been looking forward to coming here for so long. It really is something else.

Anyway..yes, we arrived in Rosslare at the ferry terminal and got wisked into passport control to get our passports stamped, then we went on orur way to Dubin.

In Dublin we had a grand time. We stayed with a very popular person in the couchsurfing world (we only found that out after staying with her) and she was so funny, actually Dot if you're reading this she reminded me a lot of you, hilare..anyway. We went shopping and went to the Guiness brewery at St. Jame's gate and I painted a bit, it was really great.

We then were on our way to Cork. It was so so so cool. I really liked it. As soon as we arrived we were looking at a map and a nice old chap came up to us and asked if we needed some help. We did and he sure helped us, gave us specific details and everything, he even went to his office (he worked at the station) and got a map for us. So nice. We chatted with him for a bit and then said goodbye only to get more hlep on the street when we pulled out our map..everyone was so friendly! We couchsurfed there too with a very nice guy named Sebastian, he showed us all around the city that night and he was a great host! We also took a small trip to Blarney to kiss the blarney stone..cool, but I already felt lucky to be here before I kissed the thing.

We're now in Killarney in the most amazing little farm house in the country. We're couchsurfing yet again with a girl named Silke and her little 14 month old daughter Emily. Oh and not to mention the 6 puppies, dog, and 2 cats. I am so jealous..it is so beautiful here. So lush and green. Tomorrow we're off for a nice long hike through one of the many parks in county Kerry with Sebastian and a couple other couch surfers. I'm so happy!

Well, Liz is waiting for the computer so I'd better go..sorry for the lack of detail, but it was a lot to remember.

Until the next time...

Lisboa, Portugal

Mmm loving Lisbon.

We´re just rounding off our last couple hours in Lisbon and I´m sad to go.  It´s such a wonderful city, but it is so big and so chaulk full of monuments, delicious pastries, and kind people. I can´t belive we´re not spending more time here.

We stayed at the ´Black and White´ hostel which was amazing, partly because of the staff, partly because it was decorated really awesomely, and partly..just because we liked it a lot.  We spent a lot of time chillin´here, Liz is sick and needs her rest along with a forced cup of tea (she hates tea but I swore it would make her feel better).  We made friends with one of the staff members.  Unfortunately we didn´t catch his name, but we had fun talking about random stuff because he wasn´t busy, being low season and all.  

We walked for about 2 hours to the famous discovery monument, stopping along the way to look at other fantastic pieces of history.  I didn´t know Lisbon had so many statues and monuments.  On the way to the discovery monument we saw the massice bridge that looks like the golden gate bridge with a massive statue of Jesus at the other end of the bridge..it´s quite hard to describe.  It was really cool. After going to the discovery monument in Belem (the district of Lisbon it´s in) we got some pastries, because Belem is famous for those.  They were delicious.  

Other than hanging around our hostel and walking for hours we didn´t do much.  It was great to just relax after our hectic travel schedule through Italy and Spain.  Now we move onto Paris yet again only this time all we´re doing is going to Disneyland! Yay! I´ve never been and Liz swears it´s magical, so exciting. Then it´s across the water to Ireland where we start our U.K. leg of our journey. Excellent.

Until next time,

Justine.

Spain and the rain..but mostly Spain.

Hey everyone!

So I left you talking about the rain in Barcelona..now off to more tales of adventure, partially in rain, in the small city of Malaga in the south of Spain.

Our first day in Malaga was beautiful. Blue skies, the ocean yet again. Shopping in tiny stores off a crowded street, absolutely wonderful. We walked to the small town called Torremolinos which, I´m guessing, is kind of like a district of Malaga. We were really just taking our time, enjoying the sun and warmth. We eventually made our way back to where we were staying, a YWAM base called Villa Isabel. They were so good to us. We felt right at home. We even helped some of the kids of a family who was visiting, make a happy birthday banner for one of the staff members. It was good fun. That night I slept very very well in my cozy little bed.

The next morning we got up and having originally planned to go to Gebraltar, decided not to because we were to tired to wake up early. So we slept a little bit, until breakfast, which was really big because it was a birthday breakfast for the afformentioned staff member. We ate a whole lot of delicious breakfast. We then decided, since we found out it was raining, that we would just go to the indoor shopping mall at the train station in Malaga. We had to walk from the villa to the metro, then take the metro to the covered train station. In the 30 or so minutes it took us to walk down the big hill where the villa was we became completely soaked. And I mean thoroughly drenched. Our jeans were stuck to us, our shoes made squishing noises, we watched as the road looked more like a river (seriously), it poured buckets. It was awesome.. So we got to the mall, very wet, and I tried to dry myself a little in one of those hand dryer things, but ended up looking like a little bit of a fool, plus my jeans were still very wet, so we continued on for a nice day of shopping. We got back to our villa (again drenched) and made ourselves some nice pesto pasta with chicken and steamed broccoli. T´was a good day.

The next morning we got up early to catch our train to Madrid, from which we would catch our night train to Lisbon, Portugal. We ended up over shooting our times a bit, making our stay in the train station about 10 hours and November 1st is a holiday so no shops nearby were open..so we hung around for a long time. We had a bit of drama when we kept catching this random creepy guy taking photos of us..sooooooo creepy. The worst part is, he sucked at being subtle, so he has a lot of pictures of me staring right at him making ´what do you think you´re doing, I see you´ faces. He kept following us ´subtly´all around the station. Acting like he was just walking around a lot. So he had drawn the last straw when he came lurking again around us, taking pictures over some ledge. I stood up and I just stared at him with the most menacing glare I could muster. I just would´t stop staring intently at him. Obviously flustered, he made it look like he was just turning off his camera and putting it away, when I kept staring he started walking, I kept staring all the while he was walking and quickly glancing up at me, only to look back at his shoes again. Yeah, that´s right. We didn´t see him again. The ol´glare got him running. Haha. Yes. It was a long wait. Our train left at 11:00pm and got into Lisbon at 8:00am. Roughest train ride ever..seeing as we´re cheap, we bought seats in 2nd class instead of paying for beds..ugggh..it was smoking hot, especially where Liz was right by the window. The good thing was that we had empty seats facing us, which meant we could put our feet up. It was loud and rocky, but we made it..we´re here in Lisbon and it is really quite a jem. Seriously nice. There are a lot of huge monuments everywhere and the architecture is very interesting. I like, I like. Well, tomarrow we rent bikes and check out the bigger part of Lisbon. Awesome. I´m so excited!

Bye for now!
Justine.

Italy and beyond.

Though brief, our stay in Italy was extremely satisfying. We literally breezed through it, but we went slow enough to experience the smallest bit of it. I think I remember saying something about heading to Pisa then Cinque Terre last time I wrote, and that is what we did, only there we no places for us to stay so we went from Rome to Pisa, stayed there for a few hours, went back to Rome and the next morning went to Cinque Terre.

I found Pisa to be, sadly, a bit over-rated. It took us four hours by train to get there and four hours back and really literally all there was to see there was the leaning tower. We went, took our few pictures, had some pizza and left. It was good to say I´ve seen it though. It´s so much smaller than I thought it would be, but still really amazing.

So we woke up in Rome and headed in the direction of Cinque Terre, I can´t realy remember how long it took to get there, maybe sixish hours? But we got there and found our quiet hostel in the middle of a small village named Barrisa. A stark contrast to our last hostel in Rome which was filled with loud funny Aussies and a New Zealander. (Our room was super super tiny in Rome) Anyway, this place was big and we saw maybe two other people while staying there. But again our stay was shortlived. The same day we got there we caught a bus into Cinque terre and started walking. I don´t know if you´re aware, but Cinque Terre is 5 small villages perched on cliffs right on the water with about 3-5km between them. It was beautiful even with the torential rain. It poured. We bought some of those really tacky plastic ponchos that only tourists wear. They were awesome, and bright yellow to boot. Well, we started walking from the first town and found out we had to pay 5 euros to walk. Crazy. Well we paid and walked 3 of the 5 villages because it was getting dark and we were very cold and very hungry. That evening we had more pizza in the first village and eventually caught the bus back to Barrisa. The next day we were headed for Nice.

We took the train first to Genova where we had a half an hour lay-over because of a late train. We met a couple of canadian guys, one named Evan and one named Cedric. We all recognized eachother by our Mec bags. They were both from Vancouver. Cedric was headed to the same hostel as us and we ended up hanging out with him a lot in Nice. Nice was easily one of my very favorite cities, if not my most favorite. It was so amazing. It was tropical, but not..I can´t explain the beauty. It had an incredible beach which was ripe for the swimming and we had a great time finding random salad ingredients at the massive local market. It was an amazing place.

From Nice we went to Barcelona which is where I am now. I´m listening to the pouring rain outside and I am reminded of home. So nice. We were so tired today, we really didn´t see much of Barcelona. Too much travelling. This is what happened on our way to Barcelona. We got a train at about 11:00am yesterday and thought we would be in Barcelona at 10:00pm like the trains were supposed to be. This was not the case. We went from Nice to Marseille, got there fine but found out that our train was an hour late. That was really bad because it meant we would miss our connection in Montpellier, which we did. So by the time we got to Montpellier, our train to Barcelona had left. Gerrrr. So we found a whole bunch of other travellers trying to ge there and the clock was ticking. Luckily the rail company was pretty good and gave us all first class tickets to Perpignan in the south of France. So we all get there and they tell us there would be a bus to Barcelona that would take about 2 hours. We were a little worried at this time because it was nearing 10:00pm and we weren´t sure at all how to get to our hostel or where the bus would stop, but we decided we had no other choice. We got on the bus with our free box of food the rail company gave us and left for Barcelona. Approximately 3 hours later we we dropped off at a random square in the middle of Barcelona. Sweeeet. We were going to take a taxi, but the driver was really nice and told us we could walk there because it was only a few blocks away. What are the chances! We got into our hostel at 1:30am and they were nice enough to have stayed up for us even though they technically closed reception at 10:00pm. So we got here. We made it..craaaazy. So after that teensy bit of a stressful day, Liz and I have done absolutely nothing. Right now Liz is watching a movie and we both had hot chocolate and pastries. Mmm. Its a goooood feeling.

Well, tomarrow we leave for Malaga in the south of Spain and will make our way to Gibraltar, which is supposed to be really pretty. I don´t doubt it, everywhere is pretty. Wheew. Well hope it isn´t pouring buckets there like it is here. But then again I do fancy a bit of rain here and there.

Talk to you soonish, bye!

Paradise.

.......Shhh...sh...sh......do you hear that? The gentle ebb and flow of the Aegean Sea? White noise and sea bird's calls under a warm sun. Rolling mountains of soft, cool, aquamarine saltiness finding eventual homes on the black and red sand beaches. The waves look simular to pianists fingers, plunking along the crest of the waves. Beautiful.

How does one go about describing paradise? I'm finding it about as hard as containing water in a paper bag. Impossible. Greece was a paradise in itself. Specifically, Santorini, which is where we spent the majority of our time.

Now it's been a while since I last wrote, I do believe I left you with the tale of our journey to Athens? Yes? Well, I'll now describe the, journey too and adventure in, Santorini. A small speck of an island in a vast sea.

We left our hostel in Athens at 5:30 in the morning to catch a metro to the port where we would take a 8 hour ferry ride to Santorini (Thira). We got on the boat at 7:30am and found a sìt in the busy vessel. We were sitting for a while when a girl we had seen on the metro in the morning asked if she could sit with us. Being the friendly beings that we are, we let her take a seat. We got talking and found out her name was Judith and she was from Quebec. She was on a vacation from her english schooling in London, the weather was getting to her there, so she was headed to Santorini for some sun. We hung out with her the entire time, we even watched a movie on one of the portable DVD players they have for rent on the ferries. (Judith used her charm and somehow got it for free, bonus.) So we watched Hook. (I LOVE that movie by the by.) Anyhoo, needless to say we all became fast friends. She didn't have a place to stay in Santorini yet, so she decided to come with us to ours and find a room there.

We got to the Port in Santorini, totally unaccustomed to the heat. It was around 28 degrees, so jeans and a tee-shirt, with large bags to lug around were not the most comfortable things. We were told there was a green bus that would take us from the port to Fira, the capital city and location of our hostel. So we started looking, but couldn't find the bus. In our frustraion after almost walking up the massive switchback road to the top of the cliff, we decided to ask someone where the bus was. When we asked a man where to catch it, he said there we no more, it had already left. Dang. So we decided our only option was share a cab between the 3 of us. As we were looking for a phone, we walked past one of the men holding signs for various hostels. And lookey there I found one with 'Stavos Villas' which was conveniantly our booked hostel. Yesss..so we got a ride on the free shuttle right to the hostel. Nice. So that night we took a nice walk down to the beach, then finished it off with a nice bit of souvlaki at a traditional restaurant.

The next day we went out in search of a place to rent scooters. We got to the place the guy who drove our shuttle suggested only to find that you had to have a motorcycle license. That was terribly dissapointing to us so, now with our plans for the day, seemingly shot we went into Fira, to look around. While there we decided to ask a place about renting ATVs and discovered that you just needed a regular license. So we got two. One with two people on, one with a single rider. Best idea of our lives. We rode all over the island on those, seriously, tip to tip and everywhere in between. We went up a mountain to see an ancient civilization, we had lunch on a Kamari beach, we scoped out the red beach and Parissa beach, we went to see the world famous sunset in Oia (ee-ah) and back. That was a great day. We finished it off with some more souvlaki...me likes me souvlaki.

The next day we went to Parissa beach for the entire day. Not much to say there, apart from I got a teensy bit burned. I didn't care. Small price to pay, for the glorious feelings the rays had upon my pasty white skin. We got ice cream and relaxed the entire day and then ate out yet again. I got greek salad, and Judith and Liz got Calamari.

The third and final day, me and Liz spent without Judith because she went scuba diving, but we would see her again on the ferry. We spent another wonderful day at the beach, but this time we went to the famous red beach. Absolutley amazing. It was so warm on the sand and the water was so refreshing and soooooo clear. I would just float on my stomach and look at the ocean floor which was probably 15 feet away. So amazing. I remember literally thinking, 'I'm really in paradise' So good. Well, we left in the late afternoon to go into Fira and buy some things and we then had to grab our bags and head to the port for our ferry that left at 8:30pm and got into Athens at 5:30 am. We met Judith at the ferry terminal and spent the ferry ride with her and agreed we would see her again when we go to London. We said our goodbyes in the morning where we went our separate ways. Her, back to London, us, back to Patras to catch our 15 hour ferry to Bari, Italy.

We eventually made it to the ferry terminal and got into Bari at 9:00am and we headed to Naples. The trains are always late so we got there a bit later than intended, but made it none the less. We really didn't stay long. Our experience of Naples consisted of being lost and getting a slice of pizza. Then we went bed to awake in the morning to catch the first train to Rome. And now we're here.

It's evening in Rome and we went to the Colluseum and the Vatican city. So amazing. I'm pretty sure my eyes grew because I had to take in a lot. The Sistine chapel amazed me. I can't say much more. All of it is so great. Well, tomarrow, we're not sure what we're doing, but we have to keep moving because our eurail passes are running out. We're more than likely stopping in Pisa on our way to Cinque Terre. Wheeeew we are really travelling. Well, I must leave you at that. Hope you enjoyed my incecent ramblings about an amazing place on this earth. Thanks for stopping in!!

Swiss please.

Switzerland. The land of the Swiss..peoples. What can I say, it's a gloriously majestic place.

So amazing that it's about the same area as Vancouver Island but has a population of about 5 million people. Crazy. Throw in all them mighty mountains, amazing wiews, spectacularily clear, blue water and you've got yourself quite a place. We stayed with an extremely nice girl named Martina who was hosted by one of my school friends a couple of years ago. She literally gave us run of the place. She gave us a key and was away for the weekend, which kinda sucked because it would have been nice to hang out with her, but never the less, we had a great time. On Saturday me and Liz celebrated Thanksgiving. We bought the tiniest chicken ever and cooked it up with some potatoes corn and carrots. We also had some apple pie for dessert, it was fantastic.

We used Martina's house kind of as home base for Switzerland. She lived just north of Basel and seeing as Switzerland is so small, we saw a fair bit of it in the 4 or 5 days we were there.

The first day there we went to a little touristy town called Interlaken. It was really beautiful. The water in the river was aquamarine blue and ice cold to the touch. So pretty. We didn't go up the little trolly up the mountain because it was almost 20 euros..too much for us. So we just walked around and looked at a whoooole lot of touristy, over priced trinkets.

The next day we went to Bern. I was feeling a bit under the weather so we took it easy and just walked around town, and saw a tragic sight. You see, each city has an animal, a mascot if you will, and Bern's animal is a bear. They had a literal pit with a sad looking bear in it..all he had were some concrete blocks with little trees growing out of them and a rectangular pool in the middle..poor little bear..but he was cute.

Next day was our thanksgiving feast of sorts, half that day was spent in Basel roaming the streets, then of course home to cook.

The next, and final, day of our journey was our most toursty type day in Switzerland, we went to see the Matterhorn. Wow. It was really cool. We actually technically didn't get that close because we, again, are cheap scates. We went to Zermatt and saw the Matterhorn from a distance and walked towards it for a while..it was really expensive to go up on a cable car..something like 100 euros..ridiculous. So no. We used the zoom function on our cameras to make it look like we were close..oh well. I still loved it.

The next day we bagan our crazy 2 day travel to Greece. Woke up at 4:45am. Caught a train to Milan, it was 45 minutes late, which screwed up our plans to catch the correct train to get to the ferry on time for Greece. Got on a train to Ancona where the ferry port is. Got kicked off that train in Bologne for not having a reservation. Got a train fron Bologne to Ancona. Found a random Hostel. Stayed the night. Hopped on our 22 hour long ferry ride to Greece. Stayed in extreme comfort throught the ferry ride. Arrived the next morning in Patras Greece. Took some random trains, and now finally after 2 days of travel are here in Greece only to leave for Santorini tomarrow. I can't wait!! It's teriffically warm here and I'm so excited to swim in the Ocean of a Greek island. Sounds like paradise to me.

Well, best be off! Wishing everyone good times in good ol' Vico and surrounding areas.

The Sound of Salzburg.

You know how the PC monitor has default wallpapers that you can browse through and use at your leisure? You know the one with that field with a hill and clouds? The one many people choose to place on their desktop because it makes them dream of what`s on the other side of that grassy knoll?

Yeah, that`s Salzburg well, more specifically, that`s the train ride into Salzburg. Once there you`re surrounded by towering mountains and autumn trees with colourful leaves floating to the ground at every angle. An artist`s dream. Sigh. So nice.

Our stay was bettered further by our first couch surfing experience. We stayed with a wonderful girl named Sandra who had the most amaying flat and personality to boot. She was so friendly and such a good host, we literally felt right at home. So very nice. A lot of our time was spent hanging out with our host and the two other couch surfers, Youssef from France, and Flora from Mexico. They were also super cool.

On our second night there Sandra, Liz and I made schnitzel and let me tell you, it was SO good. Now I know how to make delicious home made schnitzel. Yessss. Skillz. We had great fun discovering Salzburg and though it was the sight of the movie `The Sound of Music` we didn`t do any of the tourist rip-off tours that they offer, but we realized afterwards that we went near some of the spots they filmed at. It was just a really pretty place to get totally lost in. We took some really pretty walks around some of the forested hills near the town. On our first night Sandra and some friends took us up to the top of a mountain where we watched paragliders float infront of a picturesque sunset, with mountains galore. My eyes will never forget it. I probably won`t be forgetting Salzburg very soon. The people I`ve met, the places I`ve seen. Everything makes me so very happy to be alive!

Well, now onto Switzerland!

When in Wien.

Oh Vienna, how wonderful art thou? Really wonderful.

So here I am writing from Salzburg, trying to remember Vienna. It's hard because when you hop from city to city as much as we do some of the millions upon millions of wonderous things get muddled together. But I will try my best to recolect strong points found in Vienna.

Well for starters it wasn't at all what I was expecting. When I thought of Vienna before I thought of a small quaint town with little happening apart from home cooking and small folk bustling about doing errands of some sort. I sure am crazy because Vienna is so busy and full of people and life! It was crazy full of shops and Mozart everything everywhere and the opera along with so much else! I quickly found this beautiful city to boast some of the most gorgous streets yet. It's hard to think about it all. Wow. We went to an opera and saw 'Cappricio' a play about..well..I don't actually know. You see from our 3€ standing seats at the top right corner of the stage we could only see half the stage and it really didn't help that they were singing in german..naturally. So I eventually sat againsta wall and closed my eyes and imagined that I understood. That was good enough for me. It was really quite nice. Whilst in Vienna I also had my first taste of schnitzel. So delicious, yet so arterie clogging. I'll have a nice bit of deep-fried pork any day. I also tried my first bratwurst. A giant whitish sort of sausage. It also tasted very good, but I could feel my heart working harder to pump my blood properly. Nummeh. Lemme see..whet else. Oh! Well, coincidence that we met two girls from good ol' courtney B.C. and what do you know but they knew the Murray's and one of them was friends with Boot and they knew who Dot was and were also friends with Chip. Craaazy. We talked with them a lot, it was really good. Well my brain is playing tricks on me and not allowing me to think of any more intruiging stories, so I leave you with a small taste of glorious Vienna, Austria in your mouth. MMM.

Praha. Oh yeeeeah.

Prauge was indescribable. That's just it, I can't even begin to describe the beauty of that city!

We've just arrived in Vienna, Austria and looking back, there were a lot of good things about Prague. Not only was it a gorgeous city, but we also met some new friends along the way. We first met a guy named Luc, he was from Montreal and hung out with him a lot. I'm really glad we did he was a sweet guy with a great sense of humour. We also met a girl from Brazil named Theresea. She was really friendly and was good to make conversation with. Oh! And whilst in Prague I also descovered I have a new talent! I can barter like it's nobody's buisness! We found this random HUGE market by our hostel and turns out I'm the cheapest person ever, but those people really can't lose a sale so they will REALLY drop their prices if you act juuust right. I got a girl to drop an "Adidas" (quotations because it isn't actually adidas..it just says it is.) from 1800 czk to 400czk! (Czk stands for czech crowns there's about 100czk in a euro.) Haha, sucker!...I mean...she was nice. Anyway, more on Prague. It was really beautiful and everyday it seemed a little different with the changing of the autumn leaves..I miss it already. But onto other amazing sights in Austria and beyond!

Bye for now!

Berlin n' such.

So now I write a short section on Berlin. I reeeeeally enjoyed Berlin. We took our first tour in europe, we actually took two. The first tour was a free tour of Berlin, I was sooooo good! We got all this information that we would know nothing about otherwise. It was 3 and a half hours of wonderfully funny information delivered by a hilarious Irish man named Brian. Well I mean the information wasn't rediculously funny. Just the guide. ANYWAY. It was really good. The second tour we went on was a lot more..depressing..still good, but depressing. We went to Sachsenhausen consentration camp. It was one of the saddest things I've had to experience, but I'm so glad I did. I still can't believe all the things that people could do to other people. It's just unfathomable..well. I'm really glad that I went. But anyway, Berlin was absolutely beautiful. We stayed a bit outside the city, but with the metro you can't even notice the difference. Well, now we're in Prague. Begininning our three day journey through this wonderful city. I better go now, it's 12 30am and I'm only on now because it's free..anyway.

Until the next entry!
Justine.

Munich goings on.

Hey guys!

So I'm in Berlin now, but I'm going to take this oppourtunity to tell you about my dealings in Munich.

Well, let me start by saying we met good ol' Kristy Parker in Munich. We stayed with her for 2 days until we had to part our separate ways. We had a blast! We walked around the city a bit in the mornings and then went to Oktoberfest for the afternoons and evenings. Oktoberfest is so much more than big beer festival full of tourists and locals in Leiderhosen! There's rides and food galore and there are local brews for the tastin' too! It was a lot of fun and the whole park was PACKED. I think something like 6 million people visit during the 2 weeks that the festival runs, so as you can imagine it is busy. But really good! It was fun to meet lots of people. We went on some swell rides that I've never seen in Canada before and they were super! What a thing to witness soooooo many people in traditional clothing. And Jared, I'm so sorry, I tried to fond some leiderhosen to buy for you, but being leather pants they are RIDICULOUSLY expensive like 200€ for the suit! Whaaaa! So no. Nine leiderhosen for you. Nine meaning no. Not #9. Anyway. Yes it was very fun and Munich is really beautiful, but pretty expensive. Being the cheapskate that I am that wasn't the best thing ever. Well, I can't really think of anything else to say! Hope the weather's nice back home!

Justine.

Hamm it up.

Hallo,

So here ends my stay in the small town of Hamm, Germany, where the people don't speak english and the hosts are very hospitable. I've had a great time hanging out with Meghan seeing all the small things Germany has to offer.

On Friday we went to Tier Park, a small crazy zoo just up the road from her. It's a kind of sad place because the animals are in kind of dirty, kind of small cages and their life consists of being fed by the people who visit the zoo. But none the less it was cool to be literally two inches away from a lemur, or one foot away from a huge camel. It was really cool actually.

While in Hamm we also took some day trips to surrounding Germany. On Saturday we went to a town called Lübeck, famous for Marzipan. On Sunday we went to a big city called Köln, famous for the biggest church in Germany, complete with 15 tonne bell (biggest in the world) and all that was completely untouched by the war. Amazing to see in person. So now we head for Munich and Oktoberfest, where we meet up with our friend Kristy.

Favorite things from Hamm: The Camel at Tier Park, The young 'feather-whiter' wine that can only be had at this time of the year, and the enormity of Köln Cathedral.

TTYL.

So much to recall.

Hello all,

Even though it's only been approximately 4 days since I've posted anything, so much has happened. As you may remember my last post was in the little town of Bruges in the north of Belgium, I really liked it there. After that first post, we met a girl from Australia, named Claudia. She was sad because of unfortunate circumstances leading to a break-up and a no-show boyfriend. She was very upset, and was the only other person in our 8 bed hostel room. That afternoon we went up the Belfort, which is an ancient medieval tower with 366 steps to the top, if you've ever seen the movie 'In Bruge' you'd know what I was talking about (by the by that is a funny movie) So we ended off the evening with much touristy walking looking at all the neat buildings and beautiful canals finishing off with a beer sampling and dinner at our hostel's restaurant.

The next morning we woke up and had a great free breakfast supplied by the hostel and decided to rent bikes and toodle around on those. We rented our bikes and found out that Bruges has the best set up for biking, you pretty much follow routes set out by numbers and you'll eventually get to your destination. Our bike ride was 40km and lead to the Belgian coast on the Baltic sea. It was a balmy 15 degrees, but seeing as we had been biking for a while that didn't seem to matter. We had a wonderful lunch on the beach complete with grapes, salami sandwiches (made with little butter packages we took from that morning's free breakfast) apple juice and granola bars. The food was delicious, except for when the wind blew and everything was covered in nice crunchy sand. mmm. We then cycled back to our hostel where we found Claudia again, still a little upset at her recent change of plans. We invited her out to the pub and she gladly came. That evening we talked about a whole lot of nothing, but it was great. It was nice meeting some one new.

The next morning we left early to set out for Amsterdam, everything went really smoothly and we made it to Amsterdam at about 3:30pm. We had no trouble finding our Christian hostel located literally right next to the red light district. We had no idea where to start in Amsterdam so we only wandered aound and got some food, we didn't stay out too late for obvious reasons..liiiittle sketchy in those parts. There we're so many 'coffee shops' everywhere, and I put those in quotations because by 'coffee shops' I mean 'shops you go into to buy weed and get high'...we didn't visit any of those shops. The next day we went to Anne Frank's house and that was really cool and really eye openning. To imagine what people had to go through to just stay alive. It' totally mind boggling, especially in our comfy society in Canada. After that we went and had lunch in a really random park, and did a whole lot of nothing, mostly consisting of looking for patches and postcards in the streets of Amsterdam. That was our one day in Amsterdam..I wasn't a huge fan of it. I guess we were just in the wrong part. I'm not into prostitutes in windows or 'coffee shops' thanks very much. But I guess it was cool to say I've been there.

So then the next day we hopped on a train headed for the very small town of Hamm, Germany, to visit and stay with Meghan Gartshore. Five hours later we arrived at our destination and cabbed to her very big, very accomidating, and vey nice house. She's an AuPair for this little german boy named JB, and is hosted by this 'zuper' nice couple by the names of Ava and Rainer. They are very good at making sure their guest are comfortable..and comfortable we are. Our laundry is going to be done by the cleaning lady today and the heated toilet seats are a blessing. Well that's where I'm at at the present moment. I should have more time in the next two days for more posts seeing as the internet's free..and the phone...and the food..and the accomidation. So nice...In any case, I'm having a great time so far and I'm safe and happy to be alive.

Until next time.

In Bruges, Belgium

I LOVE BRUGES. That's it. I just do.

I haven' even been here a full day and i'm already in love. The word to describe it would be quaint. I love the buildings and the friendliness of the people. We just finished having a lovely lunch and writing/drawing atop a hill by a windmill. Lovely. We are going to go and find the tower with 336 steps to the top and then look around the city, purposfully losing ourselves. The first hostel we went to last night was the only on available, and it got super bad reviews, but we stayed there and, apart from the smell and lack of locks on the doors and WC, had not a bad nights sleep at all. Tonight we're staying in a much better hostel called st. Christopher's Bauhaus, and it is much cheaper and amazinger..? Yes. Well, I'll check in with you later with many more tales to tell. Already I have so many..too many to count.

Justine

Alive

Heeeeeeey friends and family alike!

We made it! As of right now we are sitting in a french internet cafe after a looooong day of walking around seeing sights. I'm relatively happy. I say relatively in regards to the HORRIBLE evening yesterday, yeah we got a tad bit lost on the roads and I was running off of 20 min sleep.. NOT ok. But today was AMAZING! Paris has so much elegance! Everything is so new and my sences are full to the brim. I've never been so inspired! I so badly want to draw and sooooooo badly want to learn french! Tonight the pope is coming to Paris!! We're not going because it is freaking MAYHEM where he's going to be which is inconvieniently for us notre dam which means we can't go inside.. oh well we'll live. We saw the louve and the outside of Notre Dam today along with much walking and much breath intaking at the wonderful everyday sights that non tourists don't notice. Tomarrow we'll see the eiffel tower and the arc de triomphe..then we're headed for Bruges in Belgium! I just hqve to take a moment to express my surprise at how smoothly most things have gone thus far..with the exeption of last nights wanderings with heavy backpacks..im very proud that we got here! Well I guess I'll go do some more trip planning and I'm hoping that everyone waaaaaay over in Canada are doing fine and dandy!

Miss you guys!
Justine

Ergonomics.

Frick, why the crap must packing be so difficult? I have hardly any clothes and everything I deemed necessary, and I'm not even high maintenance, and yet, I just can't seem to make my bag unfull. I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be this hard...oh well. I'm sure I'll figure something out. I am getting uber excited though! 2 days my friends, 2 days!!

Time's ticking.

Hey,

So this is it..this is my blog. The place where (hopefully) I can keep all y'alls up to dateskies with the goings onskies. We shall see how good I am at this..what with facebook and all that, the world of blogging seems pretty foreign, but I'll try, I'll try.

So I'm leaving pretty soon for my grand adventure of Europe. Liz and I will be traveling, for the most part, by rail all over the cities of Europe, stopping along the way to experience the sights and sounds of the world around us. So, join us in spirit won't you? I'd love for you to be here in your mind. Whoo! This should be good! Glad you could make it!

- The ever excited Justine.